A couple weeks ago, I packed up and left the Yukon for Squamish, BC. I'd never boated in BC (except up near the Yukon) before, but what I'd heard, more or less, was, "Your threshold for being scared will going to go way up." Also, "Everything is bigger in BC." Well, after a couple weeks there, there's definitely some truth to it. The rivers aren't necessarily harder, and the local ratings aren't as sandbagged as everyone claims (or my opinions are also sandbagged), but almost every run comes…

In mid May, I packed up my stuff, three pairs of skis, two pairs of ski boots, my kayaking gear, two kayaks, two mountain bikes, and my dog and drove west. Well, west and then north. 6500 miles in the following three weeks. But it was not all for naught -- along the way, I did a high water trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon for a friend's bachelor party and paddled in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and BC.…

People don't really think of New England as having a "snowpack" or a snowmelt season for kayaking, but the truth is, most years we have at least a month of reliable creeking. Last year, we had more than two months during which the best rivers we have were running every day on a diurnal cycle. This year...well, the grim snowpack -- not surprisingly -- gave way to a grim snowmelt season.…

Well, we've now had a week straight of record high temps (in some places by over 20 degrees). Apparently we skipped right past spring (typically in April) to the hottest part of summer here in New England. Conveniently enough, I got the week off work, so I've been paddling every day since spring started 2.5 weeks ago. A solid week of training attaining the White River before melt got going was a good start to the season, but now we're fully into creeking and I've been taking a lot of days…