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: