bootfahrer: what happened!?

first trip on the ottawa, doing safety at highwater garvin's chute, middle channel

well, i guess i was working!
like working a lot!
and it was a lot of fun!

the whole summer was ridiculous for waterlevels, the ottawa never made it down to normal low summer flows. which means that we had some pretty intense rafting and a lot of time on buseater. while last year at some point became very repetitive, up to a point where i was fed up with rafting, this years changing waterlevels made it all way more interesting.
being at owl the second year had a few advantagesm, too. lots of work early in the season, sportrafting, some tripleading, really interesting classes at MKC, it was simply way more challenging and entertaining.

of course there were downsides, too. i started the summer with tendonitis, smacked my elbow first dancing and then surfing so hard that i had issues for two months with it and had to take a step back in my boating, which sucked! overall i couldn't go out as often as i wanted to, due to this, infected wounds and some minor issues. i guess there is a price you pay if you are consistantly trying to do as much as possible.
nevertheless, once again the ottawa didn't fail in pushing me a lot. i got into combos, learnt a bunch of new tricks, and spent a lot of time on the water which paid off this fall for creeking, too.
i met a lot of new people, spent some good time with friends, partied hard...

i didn't really make it out to montreal or the rouge throughout the season, the water was simply too high to make it worth it. so there was little to post about and i had a hard time getting stuff done anyways, as life was just too entertaining as it was.

right now i'm staying in vancouver, trying to figure my next steps out. i will spend my winter in costa rica, which is gonna be insane! i will post one or two more updates within the next days, we did a roadtrip over the last month and a half and i'm just sorting out the footage. as soon as i have a bit more downtime and all the video, i'll hopefully be able to post some video, too.
for now just a small appetizer, a few shots from the season, i'll just comment on each of them without trying to paint a bigger picture:

big boat guiding highwater coliseum, the only shot i have of me rafting!
photo erin rayton?

first time high tension
it was a bit low to be prime, but still so much fun! one of the best practice waves, so predictable and so much potential!
this photo is taken by benjamin kraler from austria, we randomly met him and his buddy hannes at the wave. the kayaking world is soooo small!

the bitch came back! buseater in full force, i hated this wave last year, now i can't wait to surf it again! we had something like six weeks of bussy this summer, which is totally unusual.
photo by john jennex

park'n huck in quebec!
i went out for a day with foerster, billy harris and a few more to go creeking near north bay.
this one was big, real big. i took this shot of foerster from a bridge. this massive slide continues under the bridge and then drops down a 10-15ft drop with a nasty left corner.
i was pumped to run it, unloaded my boat and had to find out that there was no outfitting in my boat anymore. thanks mark!