Liquid Adventures Named Best Place to Learn How to Kayak in DC

Each year City Paper does a Best of DC edition. This year we were named Best Place to Learn How to Kayak. It was an exciting surprise. Tom and I got a call from Paul, one of our advanced students. He told us to check out City Paper, here is the link.

Thank you to all our staff and students who have supported Tom and Liquid Adventures over the years. We are excited to begin a new season of paddling on the Potomac.

Nathan

Liquid Adventures Boat Clearing House

Greetings interested boat buyers.  We are in a bit of a spring cleaning mode and would like to make room in the yard this season.  We have a variety of used kayaks available for purchase. 

Interested parties should call or email the office to set up a time to drop by.

Here is the list of boats.  Buy any 2 boats and get $25 off.    

Eskimo

Kendo (new version) - $400

Xeno - $525

Salto - $425

 Liquid Logic

Big Wheel - $400

Hoss Green - $500

Hoss Orange - $400

Blue Little Joe - $350

Yellow Little Joe - $350

Orange Little Joe - $400

Jefe Chico Green - $800

       Blisstick                                  Pyranha         

 Flipsstick - $400                    In-a-zone 242 - $350                           

Dagger

3 RPM's - $300 each

3 Blasts - $300 each

As you can see there is a variety here.  Buying our used boats allows you to invest more in the other gear and helps us to continue to provide a good experience for the students in our school.  

2008 Cheat Race Results

http://www.cheatriverrace.com/2008_race_results.htm

The 2008 Cheat River Race was May 2 with 22 LAKS paddlers participated, not including honorary LAKS member, Peter Lutter --- who only finished 2nd overall! The level was 3.5, which presented challenges and opportunities to the racers. For the LAKS paddlers, this was the culmination of the Cheat Race Training program, two months of preparation through attaining and downriver session to improve skills and endurance for the new boating season.

• Tom McEwan was third in the men's long boat class and 20th overall.
  
• Kristin Wood was 1st and first timer Cherie Bartozzi was 3rd in the women's short boat class.
  
• Helene Scalliet was 4th in the women's long boat class.
  
• Great finishes for Hank Durand (50th overall and 2nd LAKS finisher), Craig Campbell (53rd overall and 3rd LAKS finisher) and Eric Colbert (61st overall).
  

Kudos to those who interrupted their race to assist other paddlers:
Paul Harrison, Marka Petersen, Carlos Ifarraguerri, the ever present Hector Pickart and Jen Sass...and any others I may have missed. The river gods will smile on you!

Fast LAKS finished 5th in the team standings. We'll have to try again next year to push higher!

Best of all, everyone met the challenge, performed well and --- despite a nervous moment or two --- finished the race safely. Congrats to all!!!

Olympic News

Congratulations to Pablo for making the Olympic team. news clip here

Creeking with Tom

I had the pleasure of joining Tom last weekend for a Day of Creeking. We had mixed weather, some rain, snow, sleet, sun, wind, but that didn't interfere with the group having a great time on the river. We checked levels in the morning and got lucky to catch the Middle Fork running at a low level (about 350 cfs). We paddled the Middle Fork from Audra State Park into the Tygart. This was most everyone's first time on this stretch and I must say, it is a beautiful section of river and definitely worth going back to. The Middle Fork has lots of boulders, with fun drops and lots of places to practice boofing. There are lots of features to keep you entertained. Tom had us work on forward sweeps, braces, approach to boofs and of course the boof stroke. Once we joined up with the Tygart, there was more flow and the features changed from technical boulder drops to bigger water rapids. Lots of fun!

The newest episode of InBetween Swims:The Whitewater Podcast is online!

The latest episode of InBetween Swims (The Do-ing of the Thing) is now online! Chris Emery of KayakMind co-hosts!!

- Christy Dobson swims!
- Nate and Heather Herbeck talk about 'Toxic Waters'
- Epicocity's Andy Maser gets ready for a first descent on China's Angry River - the Salween
- Chris Galloway reviews his award-winning "Green Race Movie"
- Chris Gragtmans studies and runs a first descent of Alabama's Desoto Falls.

Available on I-tunes or at the link below

(If you listen to the show via I-Tunes, please give the show a rating!)

Thanks for listening!

~jeffmc

InBetween Swims: The Whitewater Podcast

http://www.inbetweenswims.com/

(Photo: Joe Stumpfel on Big Brother - by Maggie Snowel of http://thinkrain.blogspot.com/)