Dominik, his friends and family, Vanessa and her husband and family and I went to the Naish Columbia Gorge Paddle Challenge in Hood River. It was great fun.

The first day (Saturday) was perfect for the course race. Flat water, no wind and hot. Lots of Camelbaks and water bottles out on the course. The surf class did 2 x 1.5 mile laps, the 12'6" class did 3 x 1.5 mile laps and the 14' class did 4 x 1.5 mile laps. 6 miles of paddling as hard as you can. Better stay hydrated.

Dominik placed 3rd in the Open Surf class, 17 to 49 year old division. Great job Dominik!

This was a great family event. Lots of vendors. Great food.

At 3:05 into the video watch Conner Baxter get an awesome hole shot at the start of the Elite class race. Baxter ended up winning with a narrow margin over Kai Lenny. There was only 10 seconds between first and fourth place. These paddlers, male and female, are definitely world class athletes.

Day 2 started out a little sketchy. The 8 mile downwind race was scheduled to start at 10 am. No wind! The weather report said the wind should start to blow a little later, so the race was pushed back until 12 noon. Fortunately the wind started blowing and the race was on. Eightyfive SUPers paddling like crazy, trying to catch "a glide from a bump". Downwind chop was on most of the course with a few sections of small swells. There were a couple of good glides on the small swells. More wind and bigger swells would have been great. Maybe next year. Same time, same place.

Next year Scott, Dominik,Vanessa, myself and anybody else we can drag along are going to compete. I plan on paddling all winter and developing a workout routine for the gym that will help my paddle conditioning.


Stand Up and Paddle!

Maiden Voyages

Scott and Kelly put there SUPs on the water for the first time Tuesday night. They really liked their new boards. Kelly gave each of the grandkids a ride on the deck and then let their daughter try it. Everybody liked the new boards.

Vanessa (HoeHe'eNaluWahine), a SUPer I had met a couple of weeks ago, was at Wade Park in Pasco paddling too. I had caught up to Vanessa while she was on an upstream paddle from Wade park to the anchor buoy just down stream of Chiawana Park. I caught my breath and drank some Powerade (very important to take something to drink on long conditioning paddles) then we had a nice talk on the downstream cruise. She mentioned that she has not seen very many SUPers out on the river and was hoping people in the area would get their boards and get paddling. I know there are a few people in town with some nice SUPs. The last time I was in Hood River at Big Winds, the sales guy said he has sold several boards to people in this area.

Come on people, lets get SUPing!

New Mud Hole SUPers

My buddy Scott and I went to Hood River last week to get edumicated on SUP technology. We stopped at Big Winds first to see what they had. Wow! We had struck SUP gold. They had several different product lines, sizes and shapes. I had purchased a SUP there a couple of weeks ago so I knew what to expect for pricing and design considerations. Scott had been online looking at different manufacturers, models and technology. I thought that if we started at Big Winds we would have a good reference for shopping at the other stores. We went to a couple of shops there in town. Some of the shops had pricey light weight boards and some had durable heavier boards that were less expensive.

Scott and I did a long distance paddle about 5 days before the trip (about 9 miles, from Leslie Groves Park in north Richland to Wade Park in Pasco). Scott had used my board previously and decided SUPing was fun and would be a good workout. The true test of fun and exercise was the 9 miler. We got Scott set up with a rental board from a shop in Richland called Greenie's (they don’t have any SUPs for sale, yet). It was a typical durable, stable rental board with a basic paddle. We headed for the river, shlopped on some spf40 and hit the water. We were bucking a little bit of a headwind but not too bad (except for a few gusts). A couple of hours later and a few unexpected, yet welcome, falls into the river we arrived at our destination. We had just burned over 1000 calories and had a blast doing it. Scott’s wife was waiting for us at Wade Park. She wasn’t gonna let us have all the fun. She had never been on a SUP before but wanted to give it a try. We gave her the down and dirty version of SUPing 101 and turned her loose. Scott and I needed to get the rental SUP back to Greenie’s before they closed so we loaded the rental into the back of Scott’s truck (no racks) and left his wife to fend for herself on my board. When we got back about 45 minutes later she had a big grin on her face and was hooked on SUPing.

Scott and I hit a couple of shops got some lunch at Bette’s Place (we both had the Barge Burger, awesome) and headed back to Big Winds. Scott found a board that might fit his needs. It was the Amundson TR 12’6”. It looked like what he wanted but looks aren’t everything. Big Winds has a windsurfing and SUP rental shop at the Event Site on the Columbia River that just happened to have an Amundson TR 12’6”  that they said Scott could try. We drove to the river. The rental guy was busy but he got Scott set up in a flash. Scott paddled around for a while and came back with a grin on his face. He liked it.

Back at Big Winds Scott began putting together 2 equipment packages (a 2012 Amundson TR 11’4” for his wife) and the TR 12’6”. A little wheeling and dealing later, Scott had taken the plunge. Now we just needed to figure out how to get the newly purchased SUPs back to the Tri Cities. Big Winds doesn’t sell roof racks but they pointed us towards Mountain View bicycle shop just down the street.

Mountain View got Scott set up with a Yakima system (Thule showed a NO FIT for Scott’s 2001 Ford F150).  Mountain View didn’t have one of the brackets required but made a phone call to another shop down the street and found it. While we were making sure we had everything right one of the guys from Mountain View ran down the street to the other shop and got the missing bracket. Great customer service! We went a little past closing time and the people that were helping us needed to get to a soccer game but they made sure we had everything we needed before closing up shop. Thanks guys!

Scott and I were going to install the track roof mount system on his canopy there in Hood River so he could take the boards home that evening. It was getting late, we would need to scrounge up a drill and some tools… Ok, maybe it would be better to go home, do a professional install, then come back to Hood River and get the boards. A little over four hours, round trip.

The roof racks are installed and Scott’s ready to head back to Hood River to get the SUPs, paddles, board bags and leashes.

http://www.bigwinds.com/sup/category/63

http://www.mtviewcycles.com/

Can't wait to see these on the water!

Gorge Paddle Challenge - August 20-21

Naish Columbia Gorge Paddle Challenge

August 20-21, 2011

gorgepaddlechallenge.com

Distance Downwinder – Course Race – Relay Race

Elite Class - $15,000 Cash Purse – Open Age Group

Join the fleet of Elite and Open Age Class competitors this August 20 and 21 at the beautiful Hood River Waterfront Park for the inaugural NAISH COLUMBIA GORGE PADDLE CHALLENGE! Two days of races, demos, clinics, music and fun. With activities for the kids, food vendors, beer and wine patio overlooking the river and awesome spectator viewing for the races, the Paddle Challenge is truly a family affair.

Gorge Paddle Challenge Schedule of Events

Saturday, August 20

8:00am                        Athlete Registration

10:00am                      Paddle for the Park

Noon                           Open Age Class Course Race

2:00pm                        Elite Course Race

Noon-5:00pm              SUP Expo with free demos

11:00am-4:00pm         SUP Clinics

5:00pm                        Awards

5:30pm                        Athlete Dinner – Salmon Bake at the Waterfront Park

Sunday, August 21

10:00am                      8-Mile Distance Downwind Race from Viento State Park to Hood River

10:00am-2:00pm         SUP Expo with free demos

1:00pm                        Relay Race Course

2:30pm                        Awards

The Mud Hole

Stand Up Paddleboarding in the Tri Cities Washington

A blog for SUPers living in the Southeast portion of Washington and Northeast portion of Oregon. The Tri Cities WA to be a bit more specific. There is a great spot to flat water SUP near Bateman Island, on the Columbia River, called "The Mud Hole". Watercraft operations are restricted to NO WAKE! I am attempting to start a weekly or biweekly SUP race series at the Mud Hole. (In the winter too. The water is warmer than the air.) We can all be muddySUPers. (It's not really that muddy.)
We can use this blog to coordinate downwinders and long distance SUPs. Downwinders are awesome. You let the swells do all the work. (Port Kelly or the Gorge) Yes, you can surf on the Columbia River. For those of you that have a boat that puts out a large wake, you can SUPsurf the wake. Not in the Mud Hole though!