Category Archives: KayakingTeam Scum Homegrown Video Contest EntryA friend of mine, Joe Barkley, has a friend that runs the shop known as Team Scum (seen at http://teamscum.com/). Team Scum puts on a video contest in the fall called Homegrown. I re-cut some of the footage of Joe and Tommy Yon at the NOC store wave on the Nantahala as an entry for the contest. Check it out below.  Much needed update and a new fancy pants gallery!Ok, so it’s been a while since I updated this thing here. I’m back down in Florida – resetting and looking for some ways to make some money. The first longterm run in the XVan is complete, and all-in-all, I would say it was a huge success. I met so many awesome people, and got to do so many awesome things. I cranked out several videos, pulled a 5000 lb, 32 foot trailer from upstate New York, and even got called the devil once (in a good way). The XVan held up to it all, and I grew very fond of living out of it and being in a new place virtually every night. A few stats about the first run:
I’m going to stick around Florida for a month or two, and then head out again. North and then west will be the directions taken on the next run, gradually working my way to Vail, Colorado, where I will winter. Yes, I will be wintering in Vail. I like saying that. In the meantime, please enjoy my new and improved fancy pants gallery, showing off my works:
Over the next few weeks I will also be producing a handfull of new videos, so keep them eyes peeled. They will include my own submission to the Octane Academy (to be hilarious, I’m sure), an entry for a kayak video contest and maybe even some soothing sunset shots backed by a little Enya. TTFN. 2700 Miles and an EpisodeA few days after the last update, I embarked on a little bit of a road trip – which, upon completion, landed me here in the nation’s capitol, Washington, D.C. A buddy of mine, Alex Tate, and a fellow live life by your own terms kind of guy, made the first serious step towards establishing a brand new rock climbing business with the purchase of a 28 foot mobile climbing wall. Alex, residing south of Atlanta, and myself, still in western North Carolina at the time, met up and made the hike up to upstate New York in the XVan. In a little town called Scotia, just above Schenectady, we took transfer of the wall and later that night began the 1100 mile journey back down to Atlanta. 4 days round trip at a cost of about 350 gallons of gas, if you were wondering. Muther trucker! – is my favorite way of summing up that experience.  Now, on to the big news! I am finally releasing my first episode-style, feature length (25 minutes) production. A little piece I like to call Tommy and Joe Try to Cross the River – Episode 2. This narrated video shows off the skills of two super talented white water kayakers, Joe Barkley and Tommy Yon, playing around in the Nantahala store wave at the NOC. I ended up deciding to host on youtube still, and thus had to split the fella into 2 parts, due to youtube’s 15 minute limit per video. The two parts are both embedded below, so find yourself a sufficient amount of time to truly enjoy these boys kicking some ass in this wave. Getting to know Western North CarolinaIts been about a month or so for me up in western North Carolina now. The focus, as far as filming, ended up being kayaking, in its different forms. I eventually whittled down the hours of filming at the Nantahala store wave into a little piece I called, “Tommy and Joe Try to Cross the River, Episode 2″. It’s a solid 25 minutes of sick play boating footage, “comically” narrated by yours truly. As soon as I figure out where to post that big boy, I’ll release here on the blog. In the meantime, here is a nice look at the Green River Narrows. Joe Barkley was also kind enough to strap on a headcam on a recent run down the Raven’s Fork to capture some of the intense rapids there. I tried to hike in to get some shots of my own, but I thought I was lost, had no water, and found some fresh bear tracks – so I did not make it. I hope to put some of that footage together at some point. Other than filming and editing I’ve also had the chance to meet some real good people and learn new things. For example, I pulled and replaced my first well pump 200 feet under the pumphouse at Joe’s cabin way up in the mountains. Only took us 12 hours. Finishing at 2 AM, the joy brought upon by the return of running water was palpable. The well-pulling team below:  That same night, I also had another first. Got to watch Cicada emerge from its slumber and crawl out of it’s old shell.  Western North Carolina Kayaking is a wrapRidiculous amounts of footage of ridiculous kayakers. There are days of editing ahead of me, and thankfully the good people known as Alex’s family have been kind enough to let me hunker down in their cabin for a while so that I can cull through this footage. Last week I put up a gallery of some of the stills from the Nantahala store wave – take a look (click on it).  If you’ve never seen the Smokey Mountains, this be what they look like.  Before heading to the cabin I spent a weekend biking over at Tsali with a couple friends, to get warmed up for the hours ahead of me, I cranked out this little video this morning. It’s laughable. Finally living in a van down by the river.Prior to my excursion to western North Carolina, I had lived near a van down by the ocean, and even a couple times in a van in my friends’ driveways (once in suburbia, once on top of a mountain). Now I am finally living in a van down by the river. This is my third night in the cackalacks and my second river. Technically it’s a stream I hear tonight, as I am parked just off the side of the road at a trailhead to the Pulliam Creek Trail that will lead me down to the Green River Narrows early tomorrow AM. Tomorrow night then will take me to a third river, the Nolichucky, in eastern Tennessee. It’s whirlwind tour of the Great Smokey Mountains, with many more stops to come, and many more adventures to film.  Catching up a bit – I have come up to this area to grab some footage of some serious kayakers, pointed out to me by good friend Alex Tate, and then hopefully some serious mountain bikers, whom I will have to find on my own. The NOC has become and will most likely remain my home base for this region, as that their facilities are awesome, people are great and they unknowingly and graciously let me freeload in their parking lots. The first day there we were able to run the Nantahala on some single duckies, with a little 2-man and 3-man surfing in a single duckie mid way through. After that we rode the Flint Trail up above the NOC, which it turns out starts out with a brutal 32,000 mile climb followed by some seriously worth it downhills. My location tonight (as of the time I’m writing this, not posting it) is just south of Asheville in Hendersonville just off the side of Big Hungry Rd. I’ll get up at dawn and hike down to a section of the Green River called the Narrows – a world renowned extreme whitewater spot. I’ll be filming at rapids with names like Go Left or Die and the Gorilla, and my ultimate goal is to catch the guys I know coming down sometime between 7:00 am and 12:00 pm – the times that the river is turned on. If I miss them somehow, there are surely to be other kayakers to capture. Also, if this post never sees the light of day, its either because of a fail on the treacherous hike in, I fell in the river, or bears, of course. During my time here I’ve already received a rapid education on river kayaking, much like my rapid education on surfing down in Florida. The similarities between the cultures have continually caught my attention. While each have their own lingo, they both exist with the same types of cliques, the same types of attitudes, the same types of characters, and really just a very similar day-to-day. They both also provide a great damn time, which makes sense when you hang out with folks who are doing what they love all day, every day. As for filming, I’m stockpiling footage in droves, but have had little time to watch, let alone, edit any of the footage or images yet. As soon I great a break from having a blast, I’ll find somewhere to hunker down for a while and work through this backlog of film, so keep them eyes peeled. Update: Since writing the above portion of this post, I have hiked in/out of the Green River, and caught plenty of sick footage of some kayaking there. The hike wasn’t as treacherous as I had read – a fall here would not remove you from the this earth, but would remove some skin from your appendages. After the Green, I hung out at Team Scumbag’s shop for a bit then made my way up to the Nolichucky and did an afternoon rafting trip with some friends. A nice river with a good outfitter, USA Raft, who were also courteous enough to let me spend a couple nights in their parking lot. Last night ended with a special treat, my special friend Marcus and I commandeered an inflatable queen bed and floated it down the Nolichucky around 2:00 AM. A solid adventure and a spectacular way to view the stars. Deciding to run back barefoot, was probably not the best idea, however. The queen is now mine and I hope to run it down the Nantahala later this week. At this current moment I’m sitting in a McDonald’s enjoying their AC and typing this to you. Now all I need to do is figure out where I am going tonight. I have also added three new galleries to the portfolio from these three rivers, check ‘em out:
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