Keelhauler’s Ka-news May, 2011 Libby Wolf paddles a sea kayak and is affiliated with the Chagrin Next Club Meeting is River Canoe and Kayak Club. Tuesday, May 10th Trip Reports: at Middleburg Hts Community Center Gene Baker reported on their trip on the Vermilion above the 1 6000 E. Bagley Rd Birmingham race put in. Gene reported that this section is nice scenic stretch of river. Doors open at 7:00PM, meeting starts about 8:00PM, followed by refreshments. Bob Bair reported that he, Andy Gross, and John Rasinski paddled Map to Middleburg Hts Meeting the KHCC race section of the Vermilion the day after Gene's trip. Program: A Documentary Video by Kent Ford, Pat G reported on his KHCC scheduled trip which was moved from Call of The River ... 100 Years of Whitewater the Slippery Rock to the Vermilion. Pat reported that the Adventure. Featuring vintage canoeing and kayaking Ashtabula was at 2 feet and presented a surf fiesta with wave after wave to hone the surfing skills. All told, 11 people attended footage. The film chronicles the world of whitewater from its early beginnings in Europe the trip. This is a great trip at this level with a very short shuttle through its position as a major outdoor sport in the for a relatively long river trip! world today. Starting with the early explorations in John Kobak spoke about his trip on the Little Sandy. fragile wood and canvas boats, to hand made fiberglass boats and finally to hi-impact plastic Upcoming: boats. Learn how paddling exploded in the 1970s as John Kobak promoted the Southern Rivers Trip. The trip is the sport grew with multi-manufacturer line-up of scheduled for April 22 to April 29, 2011. Contact John if creek, play and river-running kayaks. interested in this great trip. All meetings are open to guests. Membership: Invite a prospective member! John reports 269 members paid at present time. Trip Schedule: This time of year, there are many great KHCC trips coming up. KHCC Minutes April 12, 2011 Please see the KHCC Home Page for the latest schedule. New Members/ Guests: Program: Paul and Tim representing the Brooklyn Exchange Club spoke about A great discussion of First Aid and boating was led by Dennis the World Record Canoe and Kayak Challenge to be held at Hinckley Dukeman. Lake on May 21, 2011. SYOTR, Sandy and Joel Edmonds, Karen Paulsen, Pam Alexander, and Kathy Yourkiewicz. This group of friends is presently interested in sea Pat kayaking and flatwater but also expressed interest in whitewater ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paddling. National Paddling Film Festival about the usual freestyle on monster waves as well as a funny foamboater movie. The movie Trout on the Wind was a nice piece By Mike Larkin about dam removal on Trout Creek in Washington. It is an environmental flick about how a river can come back to life. The weekend of February 25-26 I attended the National Paddling Film Festival in Frankfort, Kentucky. I have never been to the The feature film of the evening was a dud called Raven Fork. This festival before and it was a last minute decision if I would go or was a fictional film about a couple of buddies and a tragedy on the not. I couldn’t find anyone around here that wanted to go, and I river. Even though the movie was about whitewater, this may be wasn’t sure if I wanted to go solo. However I contacted a friend one of the dumbest movies I’ve seen in a while. I couldn’t drink that lives down there and he said he was going to the festival so I enough to keep it interesting. The plot was predictable, acting jumped in the car and barely got out of Cleveland in time because terrible and full of cheesy paddling lingo. The “actors” are great of another snowstorm. boaters but they are not actors. The movies has nice footage of paddling the Green Narrows and Raven Fork but after seeing hours I haven’t done much paddling over the last year and I was dying to of sweet paddling footage the novelty wore off. Note to any do anything paddling related. I am supposed to be resting a newly future movie makers out there: fictional river movies are never repaired shoulder but I took my boat with me “just in case”. The accurate (Deliverance, The River Wild) and if you try to make it snow we received in Northern Ohio was all rain in Kentucky. There accurate it usually ends up awful. Keep our rivers out of Hollywood! isn’t a lot of whitewater options in that part of the state but there is the Class II Elkhorn just outside of town. I figured that might Prior to that waste of an hour and a half, the featured speaker/ be good to test the shoulder out. guest host of the weekend, Doug Ammons, said a few words. Getting to see him and talk with him was worth the drive down. If I arrived Friday just as the festival was getting started. I you don’t know who he is, shame on you, but do some homework and checked into a local hotel that was within stumbling distance of the you will find out he is one impressive individual. Doug’s hotel room festival site. This is important because the NPFF is held at a was across the hall from mine so I had the opportunity to have a bourbon distillery, and your ticket includes unlimited beer. For few conversations with him. When some young hotshot paddler $25 you get admission for both days, food, music, and all the thinks he has just done some crazy run, remember what guys like microbrew you can handle from the Bluegrass Brewing Company. I Doug have done. In 1990 he snagged the second descent of British got my money’s worth. Columbia’s Grand Canyon of the Stikine, a 60 mile Class V canyon that is a pinnacle of expedition kayaking. Two years later, he came After getting orientated and taking a quick look at all the paddling back to do it solo - a feat that has never been repeated. goods for sale and auction, it was time to sample the stouts and movies. Between films I spent time around the bar area looking for Saturday morning arrives pretty early. No word from my new local paddlers to hook up with Saturday morning. As I found out Kentucky friend about paddling today. Saw him later that night and the Mighty Elkhorn was flooded running somewhere over 9000 cfs. he said he didn’t get out of bed until close to noon. No boating This makes the main section of the Elk not an option because you today was fine by me because I wanted to check out a local can not portage the dam at this level. Optimal paddling is between paddling shop as well as take a tour of the distillery before the 700 to 2000 cfs. There was a downriver race scheduled for festival restarts. Saturday morning but that was moved downstream due to the high water. I head out to the local paddling shop, Canoe Kentucky. I leave there spending more money then I had planned for this whole trip. I met a local paddler who said he would get out on something I just couldn’t walk out of there without buying my 4 year old Saturday morning and would gladly take me along. Sorry I don’t daughter her first boat. She now has a brand new Jackson Fun 1, remember his name, and I’m sure he doesn’t remember mine. After and of course a paddle too. One thing I’ve learned is that it is hard a couple of ales, we exchanged numbers, and he said he was going to go to paddling festivals without spending more then planned. Do to scout some local micro-creeks that should be running with all they really have to put the cute girls at the merchandise booths this water. He said he didn’t know how early he would get out selling t-shirts, books, stickers and all that stuff that suckers like because there was a long night ahead for him. me buy? As for the movies. The first one I caught was called Ice Water in After breaking my budget it is on to the bourbon distillery tour. the Veins. This documentary is about these goofy French Buffalo Trace Distillery is the host of the festival so it is my Canadians and their traditional sport of ice canoeing racing. If you obligation to sample and learn about their product. The tour was think paddling with a dry suit in the winter is crazy, check out very interesting and I can tell you all the useless information about these Canucks. They paddle these large canoes with 4 to 8 man Kentucky Straight Bourbon that you would ever want to know. Like teams across rivers that are still frozen. They spend most of their all tours it ends in the gift shop and tasting room. Good tastings time carrying their boats over the ice. Actually they are running lead to buying a couple bottles of spirits. over the ice because they wear mountaineering crampons on their feet. The real morons are the people that show up to watch this Back to the film fest. Before the movies start they are offering lunacy in sub zero temperatures. some more bourbon tastings in the festival area.