Category: kayaking

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snorkeling off La Paz, Baja

After kayaking marvelous Isla Espiritu Santo off La Paz, Baja in 2006 … I created a website promoting the kayak/hiking adventure.

For fun.

This kid had an even better time than I did. 🙂

Check out Diego as he snorkels with amazing sea life at Espiritu Santo, an island in the Sea of Cortez. While diving or snorkeling there you can see whale sharks, mobula rays, groupers, snappers, turtles, sea lions and numerous species of fishes and crustaceans.

Many people are now calling for increased protections at Espiritu Santo from harmful fishing practices such as gill nets. In this short film, Diego shares his love for the sea life at Espiritu Santo and his desire to help protect it for future generations.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click through to islaespiritusanto.org if you’d be willing to support a campaign to ban gill nets around those rich reefs:

CONANP Letter in English

Dear. Mr Bermudez.

On behalf of present and future generations of Pacenos and visitors to Baja Sur, I am requesting the government ban use of gill nets on inshore reefs around Isla Espiritu Santo in the new management plan.

The plan documents a decline of fisheries, due in large part to the ongoing use of gill nets, yet allows those same gill nets to remain on inshore reefs around the island. In fact, this plan offers no substantive decrease in fishing effort, gear types used, nor areas fished and is not consistent with the plan’s vision to protect and restore the marine ecosystem.

As a result, this plan guarantees further fisheries degradation and will do further damage to the recreation and tourism economy of La Paz.

Thank you for protecting the ecological integrity of the marine environment around Isla Espiritu Santo with the sustainable use of the fisheries resource.

islaespiritusanto.org

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kayak hike Baja

Diana Vann on Seattle Backpackers Magazine:

If winter’s chill finds you longing for summer’s sunny days, consider a trip south of the border to Baja. Greatly reduced temperatures make winter a far more pleasant time to hike at most Baja locations than summer. Autumn and spring are good times to hike there, too. It’s also a great place for enjoying a combination of outdoor activities.

I’ve discovered that my own favorite Baja combination adventure is kayaking and camping along the Sea of Cortez, stopping to hike and to snorkel at various locations along the way. …

Camping on Isla Danzante ©Diana Vann

Adventuring through Baja – Hiking and Paddling

That’s part 1 of a 3 part series.

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Alpacka pack-raft 2.1lbs

At the Expedition Idaho Adventure Race, Director Dave Adlard was surprised (and impressed) to hear that Team GearJunkie/YogaSlackers carried a pack-raft:

… For Idaho, we got more serious about our “flotation devices,” and we brought pack-rafts from Alpacka. The company makes a line of small, packable rafts that weigh as little as 3.5 pounds. But for Idaho, Alpacka built our team prototype rafts that were even smaller and lighter. The one-off “Ghost” model pack-rafts weighed an incredible 2.1 pounds each, and they rolled up small. …

Ultimate Gear Test: 7-Day Adventure Race

Here’s how Pack-rafts inflate, are carried … and what happens when you get dumped into the river.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

NOW … If I only had the money to buy a 2lb Pack-raft. That one — when released — is likely to cost about $1000.

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Expedition Idaho Race wrap-up

by site editor Rick McCharles

Race Director Dave Adlard impressed one and all with his passion and tireless effort to make the inaugural ExpID a success.

Check out his wrap-up post for results and highlights – Expedition Idaho: The FINAL Update!.

The top teams transported themselves over 500mi of rugged north Idaho and Montana. Here’s a vastly simplified map of the route.

Mostly on foot, mountain bike and paddle, Dave added dozens of other challenges. Personally I liked “build a raft” and “light a fire” (without matches).

It’s hard on the body. My friends took significant damage moving constantly for 6 days.

Andy Tucker
Jeni McNeal

… but talk about a life altering experience. Expedition Adventure Racing makes Ironman look trivial.

Winners Thule from Europe just might be the team to beat at Worlds in Tasmania.

I was responsible for the race blog and social media:

» Team Photos | Photos | Videos | Twitter

Though I’m personally not a fan of Twitter, it was our best mode of communication during this race. Multiple people logged in to our account to update from the mountains by mobile phone.

The SPOT devices were almost more trouble than they were worth, working semi-reasonably perhaps 30% of the time. Multiple points of failure: human error, SPOT failure, battery failure, weather interference. The satellite network is unreliable too, it seems.

The one time we really needed SPOT to work, it didn’t. The team needed to climb to elevation to use a mobile phone to call 911 for air evacuation after a bike fall.

My $9.50 Trakfone was far more reliable in the wild than SPOT.

Here’s my favourite photo from the week, nighttime navigation – Team Bones.

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Out There AS-1 Backpack

The Gear Junkie:

Mike Kloser, a Vail, Colo., athlete and a former world-champion mountain biker, is something of a god in the sport of adventure racing. As the captain of Team Nike, Kloser dominated AR for years, including multiple world-champ titles and victories at banner events like the Eco Challenge and Primal Quest under his belt.

Last year, Kloser launched a gear company, Out There USA, and he designed a backpack. After years of racing — as well as living a consummate outdoors existence working and training in Colorado — Kloser put his knowledge toward making his company’s AS-1 Pack something of an ultimate multi-sport tool. …

Out There USA’s AS-1 Pack

details – Ultimate AR Backpack

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Adventure Sports Week LOOMS

I’m looking forward to the second annual ASW. Will you be there?

2010 Dates June 4-13

Each June in Northern Idaho, Adventure Sports Week offers 10 days of racing, training, clinics, gear demos and more. ASW features triathlons, mountain biking, trail running, adventure racing, open water kayaking and swimming.

Our venue is located on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille at Farragut State Park.

home page

• Schedule of Races

• Registration

• Venue

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Adventure Sports Week June 4-13, 2010

by site editor Rick McCharles

Each June in Northern Idaho, Adventure Sports Week offers 10 days of racing, training, clinics, gear demos and more. ASW features triathlons, mountain biking, trail running, adventure racing, open water kayaking and swimming.

2009 was our inaugural year and we’re gearing up for 2010. One of the best new adventure sport races in the U.S.A.

details and registration is available at www.adventuresportsweek.com

What do rollercoasters, a great rappel, fantastic scenery, a first class event and “10-24-1” have in common?

Adventure Sports Week 2009

Hosted at beautiful Farragut State Park in Bayview, Idaho (just north of Coeur d Alene), ASW 2010 is promising to be one of the top festivals in the USA this year.

• official event home page

• Team Adventure Sports Week blog

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Grizzly Man Adventure Race

Shout out to my Adventure Racing team, prepping for the Griz next weekend.

Good Luck Team Adventure Sports Week.

The GrizzlyMan Adventure Race is a USARA sanctioned sprint level adventure race that takes place every April in Western Montana.

In order to do well (or even finish), racers will need to be proficient in a variety of outdoor disciplines (i.e. mountain biking, trail running, paddling, map reading and navigation).

Racers will be given a map/passport for the course and will be required to travel to certain checkpoints plotted on the map. By using what will be supplied at each checkpoint, racers will mark a designated spot on their map/passport to prove that they visited each location. This map/passport will then be turned in to race officials upon completion of the course. Finish time as well as proper checkpoint completion will determine ranking and success. …

official website – Grizzly Man Race

What’s my excuse for not being there, this time?

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Alaska-Yukon Expedition – Andrew Skurka

Andrew Skurka is the greatest hiker of all time. His 6,875-mile Great Western Loop was only one of many fantastic hiking accomplishments.

What could he do to top the Great Western Loop?

4,700 miles in 7 months via skis, foot, and a packraft

official Alaska-Yukon Expedition home page

… On Saturday, March 13, a small plane will land early morning in Kotzebue, Alaska. Andy Skurka will get off the airplane, put on his headlamp in the pre-dawn darkness, pull on some clothes in the zero degree temperature, and start skiing. He would ski for 12 hours straight, and do at least that every day for the next month and a half. Then he’ll hike and packraft 16 hours every day for the next 5 months.

He’s circumnavigating the entire state, crossing the entire Alaska Range, Brooks Range, and parts of the Yukon. An estimated 4,720 miles, in hopefully 6 1/2 months. Almost all off-trail. Plenty of bears, brush, snow, raging rivers, glaciers (and mosquitos). …

read more from Buzz on the Adventure Running Blog)