North Carolina's Green Narrows is one of the finest pieces of white water in the U.S. So why would anyone want to run it in a kayak? With apologies to George Mallory, because it's there. Recently pro kayaker David Fusilli did just that, taking his long and more ponderous boat into a stretch of the river that is meant for something short, fast and agile. The results can be seen below.

Demshitz sea kayaking the Green River narrows from David Fusilli on Vimeo.

Blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer found himself in an odd situation a few days back. Canoe & Kayak magazine is reporting that Erik was detained by locals in Peru while kayaking down the Marañón River, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon River. Weihenmayer is in South America with a group of 20 paddlers training for an attempt on the Grand Canyon next year and the team was mistaken for a group of scouts looking for suitable locations to build a dam on the Marañón. This is a highly controversial plan in Peru that has many of the locals up in arms.

According to the C&K report, the kayaking team was held overnight after being confronted by locals who warned them if they had proceeded further down river they would have been met by hostile villagers at the next location. Fortunately, the situation was resolved when it was revealed the paddling team's leader – James “Rocky” Contos – is a conservationist who is campaigning against damming efforts and has even made a film about the situation.

Weihenmayer is best known as the first blind person to summit Everest, but if you check out his website, you'll see that is just one of his many adventures. Erik has also climbed the rest of the Seven Summits, raced in the Leadville 100, competed in marathons and adventure races and a host of other activities.

After it was determined that the paddlers were not part of a dam survey team they were allowed to go on their way. But the situation underscores how passionate many Peruvians are about this topic. Commercial organizations have reportedly identified 20 locations to build a dam on the river, which will substantially alter its course and the landscapes around it.

These kinds of water rights issues are major points of contentions in South America at the moment. Chile is also facing similar resistance to several of it's rivers as well.

Back in August and September I posted a couple of time about the TitiKayak expedition. For those who don't recall, that was the attempt by Belgian adventurer Louis-Philippe Loncke and Peruvian explorer Gadiel "Cho" Sanchez Rivera to become the first people to circumnavigate Lake Titicaca by kayak. The lake, which is located at 3812 meters (12,507 ft) in altitude and falls along the border of Peru and Bolivia, covers an area of 8372 sq. km (3232 sq. miles) and is widely considered to be the highest navigable lake in the world. Lonke and Rivera set out to paddle 1100 km (683 miles) around Titicaca's parameter while taking photographs if its shoreline and GPS coordinates of its current position. The hope is that the data will allow researchers to study the impact of climate change on the lake in the years to come by having baseline numbers to compare their readings to.

The expedition actually wrapped up in late September but due to busy schedules and other commitments, it has taken a bit of time to upload the photos from their journey and share details of what it was like out on the water. All told, it took Lou-Phi and Cho 38 days to paddle around the lake, staying close to the shore for most of the way. Stopping frequently to take photos and gather GPS data, the two men were meticulous in their approach and stuck closely to their plan as much as they could. They did run into some issues when attempting to cross the border into Bolivia, as law enforcement at the checkpoint between the countries were reluctant to let them pass, in part because they had never seen a kayak before. It took two days to sort out the paperwork, but eventually it came together and the adventurers were allowed to continue on their way.


Dealing with immigration officers were the least of their worries however and there were plenty of other challenges to keep them on their toes. For starters, August and September are winter months in the Southern Hemisphere and this was one of the coldest winters in recent memories. The boys faced freezing temps for much of the way and the Puno region through which they traveled received its highest amount of snowfall in the past 30 years. Cold temperatures, snow and a big lake don't always make for the best of conditions.

The primary focus of the expedition was to not just paddle around its shores but to also survey the health of the body of water. What Loncke and Sanchez Rivera discovered is that Titicaca is facing some serious challenges. The water was littered with garbage and is contaminated by chemicals and sewage dumped into into it from the surrounding communities. In short, the lake faces some major issues in the future and with no regulation or proper water treatment in place, it is going to get much worse before it ever starts to get better.

You can read more about the expedition and the team's experiences on the TitiKayak blog. You can also review the photos they took along the way in their Photo Inventory. All of the images have been uploaded and organized, but GPS coordinates have not been matched to them just yet. That is a big job that will be completed sometime early next year, completing the full data set of the inventory.

Congrats to Lou-Phi and Cho on completing this amazing adventure. Great effort on both the exploration and environmental front.

Freya Hoffmeister, the queen of long distance paddling, has returned to South America and is planning on resuming her epic journey around that continent by kayak. If all goes according to plan, Freya will hit the water again tomorrow and resume a journey that has already consumed many months out on the water.

Freya arrived back in Colombia on Tuesday and is now preparing to return to the border between that country and Venezuela where she'll climb back into her boat and once again continue her journey. She has been back home in Germany since May and during that time she has gathered her strength, taken care of pressing business and generally been getting ready for the next leg of the journey. If all goes according to plan, she'll soon round the top of South America and start heading south, back to Buenos Aires where she first launched her expedition in September of 2011, early two years ago.

Initially Freya believed it would take 24 months for her to cover the 24,000 km (14,913 mile) circumnavigation of South America. She is rapidly closing in on that date and there is no way she can finish in the time frame that she has set for herself. She still has thousands of kilometers to go and plenty of challenges ahead. Nothing she can't handle of course, after all we are talking about a woman who managed to paddle around Australia a few years back. Yes, Australia.

If you want to follow Freya's progress as she turns for home, check out her blog, which she updates on an almost daily basis while paddling. Sometimes it's just to report her daily mileage and location and other times it's more in depth about what she is experiencing while out on the water.

Another impressive adventure. It looks like Freya will be on track to wrap up her expedition sometime later this year. There are some big challenge that remain but she is determined and razor focused. I know I'd certainly never underestimate those qualities in a German woman.

Two explorers are about to embark on a paddling adventure around Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America and widely considered the highest navigable lake in the world. Their expedition is expected to take six weeks to complete and will cover 1100 km (683 miles) as they survey threats to the healthy of the lake, which is located at an altitude of 3812 meters (12,507 ft) in the Peruvian Andes.

Belgian adventurer Louis-Philippe Loncke and his partner Gadiel Sanchez Rivera will launch their kayak journey tomorrow, August 16. The plan is to circumnavigate the shoreline of the lake, taking GPS coordinates and extensive photographs to document the current position of the water, which can then be compared to future readings to determine if Titicaca is shrinking in size due to climate change. As temperatures warm up and glaciers in the Andes retreat, the rivers that feed the lake will provide less flow. That could spell trouble for the ecosystem around Lake Titicaca and the communities that fall on its shores.

Those same communities are already facing issues with water contamination due to chemicals and sewage being deposited directly into the water. The hope is that the expedition will help raise awareness of these threats to the lake and spur those communities to plan for water treatment options before it is too late. While paddling around Titicaca, the two explorers will discuss these issues with the local inhabitants, many of whom are already suffering as a result of pollution in the water.

Neither of these two men are strangers to exploration. Loncke, who is a member of the Explorers Club, once trekked solo and unsupported across the Simpson Desert in Australia and kayaked for 600 km (372 miles) along the waterways of his home country of Belgium. Rivera, who is better known by his nickname of Cho, spent two years walking the Amazon River with Ed Stafford a few years back. LouPhi and Cho have recently become fast friends and are now ready to embark on an adventure of their own.

A paddling expedition around Lake Titicaca sounds like it should be amazing and I'm actually surprised that no one has done it before. Taking GPS readings of the shore line may prove only marginally useful however as GPS readings are only accurate to within a few meters, which isn't necessarily close enough to track retreating water lines on the lake. The photographs they take will help to alleviate this somewhat and should prove useful in creating the first ever extensive inventory of the lake's shore. We'll be able to follow along with the adventure on LouPhi's blog where he will be documenting their findings and posting updates of their progress.

This new promo video from Backcountry is so much more than a commercial for an online gear store. It's an endorsement for the lifestyle that many of us have chosen to pursue. It teases us with images of incredibly beautiful locations but then slaps us in the face with the hardships and challenges we endure in our ongoing search for adventure. This video is inspiring, energizing and the perfect way to send us off into a weekend. Enjoy!

Next Wednesday marks the start of the 2013 Yukon River Quest, an annual canoe and kayak race down the Yukon River in Canada. The course runs from White Horse to Dawson City and covers a distance 715 km (444 miles), making this the longest yearly race of its kind in the world. The grueling event is a marathon that tests the strength and endurance of everyone who enters as they face a number of challenges along the way.

The year, a two-man team of rowers has decided to challenge the speed record for the race down the Yukon. Steve Price and Colin Angus hope to beat the current time of 49 hours and 32minutes to paddle from White Horse to Dawson City. That record was set in 2008 by a six-person team paddling a voyager canoe, who actually had to take a mandatory 10 hour rest, which was included in their time. So, with that in mind, Steve and Colin are actually aiming at rowing non-stop with a target time of 39 minutes as their goal.

Since rowers aren't allowed in the Yukon River Quest, the two men won't actually be competing in that race. They will however be running concurrently with that competition when it gets under way next week. Because they won't be official entrants of the YRQ, they won't have to adhere to the mandatory 10 hour rest time either, so they intend to push on, non-stop.

They'll be rowing a boat that was designed and built by Colin to be fast yet stable in the Class II and III whitewater they'll face along the way. The 16-foot (4.8 meter) rowboat tips the scales at a mere 56 pounds (25.4 kg) which should hopefully make it light and fast on the water. This will be the first shakedown cruise for the vessel, which is called the Oxford Wherry.

Colin and Angus intend to row the boat non-stop with each man taking two-hour shifts. You'll be able to track their progress via their SPOT page when they get underway next week.

Good luck guys!

I haven't come across a really great kayaking video for awhile but the wait for the latest short film from Teva was certainly worth it. The video below is entitled Beyond the Drop and it features a team of six pro-paddlers who travel to Mexico to take on the Rio Tulijá, an amazing looking river with a series of five amazing drops. But the film is more than just that as it mixes local culture, the fun of exploring a river and joy of like-minded people coming together for a common goal. Excellent stuff.

Thanks to The Goat for sharing.

The Redbull Divide and Conquer is a three-stage race during which a three-person team has one member of their team cover each leg. This year's event took place on June 8 on Vancouver's spectacular North Shore. The video below gives you an idea of what it is all about, but judging from how amazing each leg of the course looks, I'd have a hard time deciding which discipline I'd want to do the most. It all looks spectacular to me! And as a side note, I'm jealous that hose living in Vancouver have this outdoor playground right in their backyard. It looks beautiful.

One of the largest and most popular event for outdoor athletes is now underway in Vail, Colorado, where the GoPro Mountain Games kicked off yesterday. These are the same mountain games that we've come to know and love over the past number of years, although this time GoPro has stepped up to be the title sponsor replacing Teva.

The events kicked off yesterday with a light schedule to get things started but things will pick-up considerably today as we head into the weekend. As usual, there are a number of great outdoor sports for athletes to take part in with bouldering, slacklining and slope style mountain biking taking center stage today. The number of events really ramps up tomorrow as climbing, kayaking, cycling and many other competitions begin, and of course the battle for the title of the King of the Mountain kicks into full gear as well.

Of course, there will be plenty to do for spectators as well. In addition to cheering on these amazing outdoor athletes, the Adventure Village returns to give kids an opportunity to learn more about the sports they're watching while Gear Town will be a great place to check out new outdoor equipment and possibly even score some killer deals. As always, there will be plenty of live music, parties, food and photo competitions to help keep everyone entertained.

For a full list of events and to get more details on the GoPro Mountain Games, click here. If you're in the neighborhood this weekend, it looks like this will be a fun event worth checking out. And if you're up to it, you might still be able to get involved in some of the competitions.

One of my favorite online resources for news and information on kayaking, Paddlemag, has released its third issue, bringing a host of stellar articles and stunning images to readers. The e-mag always has excellent content available in a beautiful – not to mention free – .pdf file format that brings together all the slickness of a traditional magazine with the convenience and portability of a digital one. This time out, Paddlemag profiles Jason Beachcroft, who is attempting to circumnavigate Australia in a Kayak. Unlike Freya Hoffmeister's circumnav from a few years back however, Jason intends to include Tasmania in his expedition. The mag also takes a look at Ryan Fulton's Stand-Up Paddleboard journey along Australia's Gold Coas to Melbourne, traveling a distance of 2087 km (1296 miles) in the process.

A new issues isn't the only thing that the editors at Paddlemag have brought to the table. They've also launched a revamped website that is clean, easy to navigate and provides plenty of news and information from all aspects of paddling sports. It also provides access to the previous issues of the magazine, which are available to download as well.

Perhaps more exciting is that Paddlemag is now available in the Apple's App Store and Amazon's Kindle Store. The apps are free to download, but the individual issues are AUS $4.50 (US $4.28), which is actually a solid deal for a fully interactive digital magazine of this quality.

If you haven't checked out Paddlemag just yet, drop by the website and download an issue. I think you'll find that it is a fantastic magazine that will change your perceptions of what is being done in the digital arena.

A few weeks back, 25 amazing students completed a 100km (62 mile) paddling expedition down the Whanganui River on the North Island in New Zealand. That alone would be a pretty cool story, but they also made the journey in kayaks made out of plastic bottles. The video below gives us a glimpse of that journey and those kayaks, which I have to say look fantastic. A longer documentary of their adventure will come later and you can find out more on the group's Facebook page.

Thanks Lou-Phi for sharing this great video! Great stuff!

From October of 2011 through January of 2012, Will Stauffer-Norris and Zak Podmore traveled the length of the Colorado River. Their journey began in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, the source of the mighty waterway, and it didn't end until they reached the Sea of Cortez. Along the way, they got to know the river intimately and documented their journey. The short film below is a documentary of that journey, and while it is a few months old at this point, I still thought it would be of interest. It is beautiful, powerful and moving. Defintiely worth your time if you have 45 minutes free to enjoy it.

Remains of a River: source to sea down the colorado from NRS Films on Vimeo.

Running along the remote border of Russia and China in the Far East, the Amur River stretches across thousands of kilometers of wilderness. It is the tenth longest river in the world, but more importantly it is the single longest river to remain completely undammed. The waterway begins in Mongolia, not far from the birth place of Genghis Khan, and flows east across the wide open Mongolian Steppe and into Siberia, before eventually emptying into the sea of Okhotsk. Along the way it is surrounded by some of the most wild and unexplored territory on the planet.

This summer, a team of four adventurous women intend to paddle the length of the Amur beginning at its headwaters in the Onon River, which have their origins in the Khentii Mountains of Mongolia. Their journey will cover more than 4000 km (2485 miles) taking them source-to-sea before ending in the Pacific Ocean Delta. Along the way, they hope to collect data about this important watershed, while capturing images of the wild places they visit. They also hope to speak directly with the locals to get a better sense of the environment in which the Amur River flows .

With their gear packed, their basic plan outlined and their travel plans made, the ladies are about to embark on this ambitious adventure. The team includes Becca Dennis, Sabra Purdy, Amber Valenti and Krystle Wright, all of whom are about to depart for Mongolia and the launch of their expedition. They have named this endeavor the Nobody's River Project and they have invited us all to follow along with their progress. Over the next few months, they will be posting updates to their blog and Facebook page, as well as sharing stories on the National Geographic Adventure website and its Facebook page as well. It is sure to be quite an experience and one that will certainly be worth following.

Good luck to Becca, Sabra, Amber and Krystle as they depart for Mongolia and the adventure of a lifetime.

Looking to get your paddling fix in video form? Then you'll definitely want to checkout the latest entries in Kayak Session magazine's annual Short Film Awards. As of now, there are five outstanding entires, although submissions are still being accepted if you have a film you'd like to share. For consideration, your film must be under five minutes in length and it will be judged on cinematography, editing, image quality, storytelling, creativity and kayak performance. The first place winner will receive $5000 cash, with $2500 going to second place and $1000 to third.

My favorite entry so far is the video you'll find below. It follows a team of paddlers into the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco as they go in search of epic new runs. They find some surprisingly great water to explore along the way. This beautifully shot video captures that adventure quite nicely.

Over the past couple of years we've become accustomed to paddlers making some daring white water runs and dropping over some extremely big waterfalls. But recently three paddlers pushed the limits even further by going over five successive waterfalls in Mexico that combined to make one very big descent.

The team, which consisted of Rafa Ortiz, Evan Garcia, and Rush Sturges, ran a stretch of water along the Rio Santo Domingo that included waterfalls that are 80-, 90-, 60-, 20-, and 40-feet in height, all in rapid succession. That's a total of 290 feet (88.3 meters) in one quick go, with very little time for recovery between each drop.

There isn't any video on this paddling expedition yet, but considering that it was sponsored by Red Bull, you know that it has to be coming soon. I for one can't wait to see what this looks like when you catch it all in motion. Hopefully from a helmet cam that shows each of the successive drops. But for now, we'll just have to settle for some the amazing still photos that are posted on the Red Bull website.

Our friends at EpicTV have just released the first video in a 12-part series that will follow some great paddlers as they take on epic white water in a variety of locations around the globe. In the first episode below, the team kayaks the Rio Baker River, located deep inside Chilean Patagonia. Just how deep you ask? Apparently it takes two days just to drive into the river to begin the paddle itself. As always with Patagonia, the landscapes are breathtaking as well. This should be a great series for sure.

Back in November I shared the amazing story of how blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer was preparing to kayak the entire length of the Grand Canyon. At the time, Erik was training at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in North Carolina to build all of the skills he'll need to paddle the Canyon. It turns out, Erik has been continuing to work on those skills and has even been spending some time in the Grand Canyon itself.

In a recent post to his blog, Erik shared an update on his progress. He had just returned from a 12-day paddling excursion to the Canyon that gave him an opportunity to assess how far his skills have come and determine if kayaking 225 miles down the Colorado River is an actual possibility in the future. While he admits that he continues to have severe anxiety while running some of the more wild rapids, he is beginning to think that this expedition may happen. He says he isn't quite there yet, but the plan is to paddle the river next summer, so he still has 16 months to get ready.

Erik is a guy who never ceases to amaze me. We are, after all, talking about man who became the first visually impaired person to summit Everest and the rest of the Seven Summits for that matter. He's also competed in adventure races, ridden in the Leadville 100 mountain bike race and cycled from San Francisco to Denver. And that is just the tip of the iceberg on his adventure resume. Now, he is set to take on the Grand Canyon, which quite simply put, must be an incredibly scary thing for a blind person. Yet he continues to push boundaries both for himself and how a the world perceives what he is capable of. That may be his greatest accomplishment yet.

The video below was shot on his recent paddling trip. It shows Erik making the first blind descent of Granite Rapids. He may think he's not ready, but his skills look sharp to me. I can't wait to follow his attempt on the full river next year.

Thanks to Clyde Soles for sharing this story. Very inspirational.

As if dropping waterfalls in a kayak wasn't crazy enough, we now have people going over them on just a river board. In the case of the video below, we find boarder Josh Galt dropping the Gorilla Falls on the Green River Narrows near Asheville, NC. It looks like quite a ride, but not one I'll be taking any time soon.

I worked with Josh on two Primal Quest races and I can tell you he is the consummate professional. I know that he takes safety into consideration first when ever he gets into the water and I'm sure that's the case here as well. River boarding off waterfalls and big rapids is probably going to be a new trend though, so I expect similar videos that push the boundaries even further in the future.

As if dropping waterfalls in a kayak wasn't crazy enough, we now have people going over them on just a river board. In the case of the video below, we find boarder Josh Galt dropping the Gorilla Falls on the Green River Narrows near Asheville, NC. It looks like quite a ride, but not one I'll be taking any time soon.

I worked with Josh on two Primal Quest races and I can tell you he is the consummate professional. I know that he takes safety into consideration first when ever he gets into the water and I'm sure that's the case here as well. River boarding off waterfalls and bid rapids is probably going to be a new trend though, so I expect similar videos that push the boundaries even further in the future.