The Story Leading up to wavetrainSUP
Childhood years spent growing up in the woods outside of Duluth, MN., led to a couple of college summers working at camps and guiding in northern Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Paddling the BWCA was the gateway that led to guiding whitewater river trips out in Oregon on the Rogue, Deschutes, and Upper Klamath. The only place better than Oregon proved to be the next few years spent on the Main and Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho. Time marched on and eventually I graduated from the University of Montana. This new reality led to a job in Redmond, WA at an engineering consulting firm. Ever advancing adulthood, as so many others can attest, led to a new reality - marriage, home ownership, wonderful kids, and an awesome little dog. Relocating back to midwestern flyover country also happened in there too.
Time continues sliding by here in flyover country. If you're ever close to Madison and you have an itch to walk on some wood shavings, feel free to call and stop in for a look see!
The only shot I have of me in action as an Oregon river guide. This is from summer of 1988, midway through Caldera, a Class V drop (if memory serves) on the Upper Klamath. The Upper K was a fairly popular day trip, so photographers would kayak the drop first thing in the morning, with BIG lenses, a tripod and the camera all stuffed in their kayak, and spend the day taking pictures on FILM of all the rafts that ran by their camera. Somehow they would then have these developed in short order and on display at the take out. Guides got one free. 28 years later I still have it pinned to my wall.
One of the very few shots I have of the time on the Salmon. Before digital and small cameras, having a camera with you took some planning and a bit of worry about keeping it dry, especially on a river trip. This is a first night camp, Fawn Creek, as I recall.
Hancock on the Main Salmon. I thought this was the biggest and most fun wavetrain on the whole trip. The rollers were big enough you could almost get seasick from the up and down. Looking at this picture is what gave me the name for wavetrainSUP. My Dad was out for a trip. I risked my camera (and him too I guess) on him sitting up on the dry bags stacked behind me and ‘getting the shot’.