Gaaarrrrbarator By Kaelin

Gaaarrrrbarator

Last week garb came in and I was so excited. 
When I got on the wave tried to airscrew but I couldn't. I cep trying but I just couldn't get a good bounce so  I went to ask Nick and he said the I needed to get more on my edge. So I kept trying.  I went up to the top of the wave and the wave just nocked me over again and again. I tried but I kept getting knocked over or spun out. I was pretty disappointed but kept trying and slowly got more and more control. 

After lunch we watched the video from the morning and I learn from it and saw my mistakes. After watching the video we went back up to Garb and on my first ride I hit a big air blunt. I was so excited. After that I was hitting so many tricks that I thought I would never be able to do that morning. 

I was so happy to feel like I  was learning and getting better on Garb.

How to master your roll at keeners - Matt Brotton

Now there is definitely the main ways to learn your rolls, which do work great but they sometimes just don’t cut it. If you wanna give yourself a decent challenge follow these couple steps and you’ll be learning your flat water roll whilst practicing your whitewater roll at the same time! So theres obviously a huge difference between flat water rolls and whitewater cause in flat you setup but in the rapids you can flip at any time on any side. So first try your rolls the regular way. Once you’ve done that a couple times and you feel comfortable start trying to challenge yourself. Instead, put your paddle above your head and try that,another way is hold the paddle behind your back and try your roll, this will help you improve on where you need to put your paddle when your not in a setup position. You can get creative yourself and hold your paddle in different ways to give yourself more of a challenge. One thing you gotta remember is that EVERYONE learns at different paces some people will get there roll in 20 minutes some will in a couple weeks, either or it doesn’t matter everybody in this world is different and thats more then fine so if your having trouble with your roll just like i do just don’t get mad and frustrated cause that will make everything harder, just stay calm and practice practice and practice nobody becomes the best over night, Everything takes time, I really hope these tips helped you like it helped me. Have fun paddling and be safe!!

A short and epic memory on the Ottawa

Last afternoon a storm hit our group while surfing Babyface, and it was surreal. I remember watching the clouds beginning to roll in, giant streaks of rain stringing out in the distance. Then, downpour carpeting Keenerville's eddy and the group watching in amazement. And finally: being, feeling, experiencing the storm itself. Surfing through walls of water and paddling through seas of bouncing glass beads. This scene was both exhilarating and serene. It excited everyone's sense of adventure - the need that continuously overrides our fear - and brings us back to Keeners year after year.

David Koyrakh, Week 1

Breathless on the Ottawa - Brooks Botta

Is it the amazing whirlpools sending a person so far underwater their ears pop? The amazing waves and kayakers? The beautiful views and gorgeous sunrises? Something about the Ottawa River just leaves me breathless! Every day, I have the opportunity to kayak some of the biggest, most pristine whitewater in the world as part of the keener program.

With about a year of kayaking experience under my belt, my friend Kyle Neese and I gained the opportunity to be part of this excellent experience. It's absolutely insane to think that less than a year ago, I frequented class two and three whitewater. Now with the help of excellent coaches, I am learning new moves, and refining my paddling each day! Some of the moves I hope to work on are my kick flips, blunts, and airscrews. The river provides a unique local to practice moves that are difficult to attain on my home rivers of Alabama.

I am so excited to see what new moves I will be learning over the next two weeks, but also see how I will be shaped as person.

Brooks Botta

The Choices of the Ottawa by Ben Heath

When people think of the Ottawa river, they normally think of Mccoy’s Rapids, along with the main channel. The main channel is the classic Ottawa river. It is the home of the Colosseum Rapid, one of the biggest and most challenging stretches on the river, as well as so many amazing features, such as Pushbutton, Garburetor, Waikiki, Mini-Bus, and of course the world famous Buseater Wave.

However, not all of these features are in at the same time depending on the water level. At some levels, none of them are even in! Right now, with the river level at 6 ft, only Waikiki is in, leaving the main channel without many features to play on.

However, the main channel is not the only part of the Ottawa River. After Mccoy’s Rapids, the river parts. If you were to continue straight instead of hooking a right to go to the main, you will be brought to the Middle channel of the Ottawa. The Middle channel is definitely a step down from the Main as far as size and difficulty goes, but it is able to hold it’s own as far as features go. With the water level at 6 ft like it was today, S bend, Butterfly, and Upper No Name were at prime play levels. Instead of camping out at Waikiki for hours, struggling to get a quality surf, we were able to surf on these beautiful features without any real effort to catch them.

Even thought many people tend to view the Middle channel as a smaller, wimpier brother to the Main, it can be easily forgotten that the Middle is home to Garvin’s Chute, arguably the hardest rapid on the entire river. Garvin’s is a rapid that is normally just portaged by boaters, because it is normally not runable at all at lower waters, and when it is, it is definitely a challenging rapid. Garvin’s is not just one rapid however, it is actually split off into four different drops all adjacent to each other. Elevator shaft on far river right, followed by Dragon’s Tongue next to it, then ST Chute, and then WT Chute.

Running WT Chute

All of these, with the exception of WT Chute, are very challenging rapids that are super
fun to run, and definitely make the Middle channel a great, if not better, alternative to the Main channel.

Keep Calm and Paddle On (by David Koyrakh)

Hey! David Koyrakh here, for my Week 2 blog post.

Last weekend was this session's first weekend at Keeners, which means we got to go free paddling! Since we didn't have to take First Aid on Saturday some friends and I decided we'd run the main channel. After about an hour of bothering people Jahn and I formed our river squad: Jacob, Maddie, Jahn, and me.
One thing to note is that it was raining on and off for a few days prior, so the water level was rising.
...No, it was skyrocketing.
But we didn't realize that until we passed McCoy's, where all of the familiar rock islands were not so familiar anymore. Everything looked different, and then it hit us: the water level had gone up.
At first we were excited, more water means more fun!
But then we got to the lunch site and learned that the gauge was at 5.5, compared to 4.25 in the morning (which is a lot considering it was 0.5 all week beforehand). And it was still going up!
Someone in our group (not gonna name any names) started freaking out.
"We gotta turn back!", he cried.
"Lets get Devyn to pick us up!", he screamed.
"I need an adult!", he whined.
But the rest of the group wouldn't hear it. We managed to calm our buddy down after about 20 minutes, with our final compromise being that we would scout every rapid and portage if needed.
So on we went.
We Paddled.
And we Kept Calm.
And everything went smoothly until we got to Colosseum, which looked huge (at this point of our trip the river was at about 6). We scouted for a little while, and then Jacob, Maddie, and Jahn ran it with no problem. I decided that I`d paddle out to the far right side and avoid the juice, the flesh, the action, of Colosseum rapid, and all went well. The trip was a success. We had a blast.

Moral of the story, if you are already on the river and things take an unexpected turn, assess your situation.
If it is safe, what do you do?
Keep Calm, Paddle On.

The Middle Channel of the Ottawa River

        For those of you that are unaware, the Ottawa River Rocher Fendu section consists of two white water channels that kayakers as well as rafters run. The Main Channel, which is where most of the water flows meaning higher volume rapids, larger holes and waves, deeper and faster moving water. There is also the Middle Channel which is much lower volume with much shallower and generally shorter rapids. Although the Middle Channel may seem less interesting, It is still a fantastic place to challenge yourself and practice some skills. Some of these reasons include:

Map of the Rocher Fendu Section

1. There still are large rapids.
        The Middle Channel consists of one of the largest and most difficult rapids on the Ottawa River called Garvin's. This rapid contains three main lines that may challenge you all in different ways. ST Chute is the river left most channel which is a small chute with a giant hole at the bottom. Although the hole is very flushy, making it through upright is always a challenge. The other middle section is called dragons tongue, which within itself  has two lines, the main tongue with a small drop at the end and also the Boof of Destiny. This line has always been the result of lots of carnage and people getting worked. The river right most line is called Elevator Shaft, which at the current level is completely dried up but at higher water is a fun rock slide.

2. There are plenty of spots to play.
        The Middle Channel consists of many play spots with virtually no line up the majority of the time. The holes, although shallower and smaller are a difficult place to practice skills, The kayaker must be in complete control of their boat as flushing is very easy. Although this may not seem very appealing, it helps improve a kayakers ability to understand and be aware of what is around them or risk flushing off of the wave or out of the hole. These holes are also deep enough to do every trick imaginable without risk of anything down stream and the eddies are also fairly large so it is rarely a challenge to catch them even if you miss one or two rolls. 

3. There are still opportunities to get worked and challenge yourself. 
        When a group of us went down the Middle Channel on Tuesday, some of us decided to try to do a boof off the side of a rapid called Butterfly. Virtually everyone followed our instructor Kalob Grady through a line that we thought was the line we were supposed to run, however he was trying a new line and ended up getting worked. Not knowing what the actual line was, all of us followed him and got a good beatdown. 

        Although many people opt to run the Main Channel as they feel it may be more of a challenge, The Middle Channel is always a fantastic option to improve your skills and have a fun day. It is always how you make of the day and how you use your time to become the best that you can be with what is given to you. It is also always a fantastic idea to try and challenge yourself in new holes and new waves so you learn how to read the water and not just understand the one play spot you spend all of your time in. 

How I Became to be a Keener By Nick Markoff

Practing Playboating Drills in Warmup

It all started when I was finishing up another boring day at school, my dad came to pick me up and as I got into his old Range Rover and asked, "Do you want to kayaking with Isabel in canada for three weeks?" "Sure!" I replied. I had no clue about what I was getting myself into and I, over the next few weeks, asked my dad random questions about it either stating that he didnt know or that he would call and ask. What we did know was that it was on the Ottawa and to bring a playboat. I had been on the Ottawa river the previous year and had enjoyed myself immensely so I was really excited! On the other hand, the other piece of information I had was that I was to bring a playboat... I had never set foot in a playboat before and had seen them on rivers surfing the holes an waiting in line. My old kayaking teachers at a different camp had taught me river running and we had never spent much time surfing. When the date to leave drew nearer, I became very nervous about if I would be able to paddle this boat. When We left, we took my cousin Isabel and we drove from Maryland up to the Ottawa. After our ten hour drive ended, we went to Keenerville, my home for the next three weeks, and met Anna who was to be our keener mom. I went to bed early and woke up to "mom" banging on our door asking us if we were awake. When we had gotten our gear on, we went though the basics of playboating and I felt so off balance and out of my element, but through our instructors Steve-0, Kalob, Juan, Devyn, and Clay, I have already improved greatly and been able to start surfing and learning the basics of the tricks we are to eventually learn for the rest of the time here. I am stoked to see the progress I make throughout the next two-and-a-half weeks here!

The Keener Experience (David Koyrakh)

Three days into Keeners and the fun has already begun!

Hey there, my name is David Koyrakh. I am a beginner play-boater and this is my second year at Keeners. I chose to return for a second year because it is truly a great experience and I want to get better at kayaking.

We started off the day on the water by splitting into groups. My group was lead by Kalob (shout out to Team Alpha!). To kick things off we went to surf Babyface and then we paddled the Middle Channel. At Babyface I had my first real surf, which lasted about one minute! For readers that have never surfed a wave before, it felt a lot like wakeboarding or sketchy tubing. Needless to say it was one of the funnest minutes I have ever experienced. Catching your first wave is like a playboater`s first steps, and Babyface is perfect for that.

Throughout the day we surfed a couple holes and I worked on strengthening my whitewater roll. Here at Keeners we improve quickly because we kayak for three weeks straight with some of the best kayakers on Earth. But Keeners doesn`t just make you a better kayaker, it makes you a better person.

Here we learn independence, communication skills, proper etiquette (both on and off the river), and how to take care of our environment. Every morning we are expected to do the morning exercise, cook breakfast, and, most importantly, clean up after ourselves. On Mondays we have Speech Night, where we take turns giving `speeches` to the group. Yesterday was the first speech night and the topic was the Icebreaker Speech. Writing weekly blogs and giving speeches improves our people skills.

To wrap this up I would like to give a HUGE shout to our coaches, keener moms, Mr. Kowalski, and everyone who helps keep this program alive. Without Keeners there would be a couple extra hundred bored thrill-seeking teenagers (a dangerous combination) wasting their potential every summer. Thank you!!

Boof Of Destiny

Boof of Destiny

Dragons Tongue on the Middle Channel has always been my favorite rapid on the Ottawa River. It looks like a very intimidating rapid but its actually not that hard. The normal line has always been my line of choice until yesterday. The boof of destiny is a boof on the left side of dragons tongue. It doesn't look bad but a past keener got stuck behind the curtain of water for about 40 seconds. I have scouted that line many times, but the fact about getting stuck behind the curtain has always stopped me from running that line. Yesterday, I went for three runs down the normal line and felt confident that I could hit the right line at the boof of destiny. Me and Max decided to give it a go. We both had very good lines and made it down safely.

Flying Off the Boof of Destiny. Photo Stephen Wright

The boof of destiny has now become my favorite line down dragons tongue. After four years of scouting that line I finally decided to give it a go and it went smoothly. Today is race day and I hope we can race down Dragons Tongue. Not a boatercross race but we can time our runs through different lines and it could be very fun.

Mauricio Martinez Laresgoiti

Brook's Relationship with Little Trickle

Flipping over on the reactionary at Little Trickle

Over the last three days I have run the Little Trickle Rapid three times. The first time that I ran the rapid was less than awesome. Even though it isn't the biggest rapid, It was my first whitewater in over a year and I was a little rusty. I flipped and swam on the very first wave. It wasn't exactly the best way to start Keeners. The next day, we ran the same line.yI improved a little, and made it down to a hole at the bottom. I flipped, but stayed in my boat.  Today, I finally made it down the entire rapid. I was pretty proud of myself. I hope that during the next week I can keep on improving and have another success story for next week.

Jonny's First Day Back on the Ottawa River

My name is Jonny I am 17 and this is my second summer of Keeners. I come from a small town about an hour south of Keeners called Pakenham in Ontario. I have been on the Ottawa River before when the water was lower, and was surprised at how different the river features were with the higher levels. The rapids were just not really the same, and the river had a completely different look to it; it was almost like rediscovering the river.

 My favorite moment today on the river was playing at Butterfly. Butterfly is usually a chute with a small wave you crash through at the bottom. At the current levels it was bigger and had two fun surf waves to play on. All in all it was a great day of many to come.

Holding up my profile- written in code- for a Keener Introduction

Differences Between Keeners and Paddling at Home

    My name is Grady Kellogg and I come from a family of fourteen. Five girls and seven boys including me. I live in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, U.S.A. This is my first time at Keeners and my first time out of the United States. From the first week of Keeners I have found many differences between paddling here on the Ottawa and paddling back at home.
    The main difference is the Ottawa River is big water and has mostly natural wave features. Back at home it is all low water artificial hole features. I have been kayaking for about three years and became very accustomed to these very consistent, mellow, and shallow hole features and almost had never surfed a wave. Hole surfing is a lot different than wave surfing. In most holes you can flip over and stay up-side-down for a little bit before rolling back up and still retain the feature. Also most man made hole features are calm and don't throw you around when waves are bouncy and can trash you a lot easier. On that note, it was a bit difficult to come out here to Keeners used to something completely different than what's here.
    Also, back at home I know everyone, especially my family. Here at Keeners everyone was new to me. I had fun learning everyone's name and making new friends. Some of them had been to Keeners before so they helped me out by showing me how Keeners worked. A lot of the time, at home, I am showing others about the rivers and features even my own family. Coming from that, everyone at Keeners was showing me where to go on the river, so everything was new to me.
    To wrap it up, there a many differences between Keeners and paddling at home. Including the difference in the flows and features, and this is my first time at Keeners so everything is new. I'm having a lot of fun here at Keeners and never want to leave.

What I'm used to.                                                                                   

David's 2nd Post: Beatdown day and Reppeling

Hey guys I'm back for my second post at OKS Keeners!

As you may know from my last post, I paddled with the teen camp last week to learn how to roll. Well this week is my first week on the river with the keeners, and so far it's been a blast!

Today was big water beat-down day, so everyone did things that we were afraid to do or haven't done before (get trashed in right-side Phil's, etc). To start off the day everyone had to run Makoy's three times, and every time had to be a line that we have never done before. My first line was the Right-Side Sneak, my second was Phil's Tounge, and my last line was to punch through Left-Side Phil's. I got pretty beat-down in my last run and I ended up swimming.

After our three runs at Makoy's rapid we all ran the main channel of the river. It was my first time running the main, and I liked it a lot better than the middle channel. We also got to simulate a waterfall and practice the falling position by jumping off a 10 foot rock in our kayaks. Needless to say i got to practice my whitewater roll a lot.

Anyways, this past week has been awesome and has gone by so quickly! Make sure to check back next Thursday for my last Keener blog!

Getting Beatdown in Left Side Phils. It was an experience. 

Vince's back

Hey its Vincent again. This week has been great. On bigwater beatdown bacon
Thursday I had the opportunity to run Big Trickle. It is a nice little technical creeky run. We all had great lines. Friday was comp Friday. I ended up with a 0. My loop wasn't quite straight enough and didn't get quite around for my Felix. Even so, it was great to see everyone try tricks! Saturday and Sunday was first aid certification. We were learning how to deal with scenarios that my come up in life and on the river. Next, on Monday we all had a great time on the river. On Tuesday, we had SRT. We all learned to throw ropes and be more helpful on the river. Race day Wednesday was another fantastic day we had a race on little trickle and I didn't do as well as I liked but it was pretty fun! To conclude our day we split into groups. Some people raced on Upper No Name and Lower No Name. Andrew won for the second time for race day. On the other race it was a run to the start and into our boats. Jordan and Gabriel were the winners of that.

 My blunts are getting closer and bow stalls are getting closer. By the end of keeners I am hoping to blunt consistently, airscrew, helix/Felix, flatwater loop, and any other tricks I can get. With our keener coaches Stephen, Juanita, Devin, and Tyler. So far keeners has been an experience of a lifetime and still stoked from much more!

Nicole's First Blog of Session 1

Hey everyone its Nicole Dannecker here. It has been a great first week here at keeners and a great beginning of what I’m sure will be an exciting three weeks of kayaking down the Ottawa. I don’t know what else I can say other than the coaches Devin Scott, Tyler Curtis, Joel Kowalski, Juanito De Ugarte, and all the other keeners are great! They are very encouraging and we are growing into one big happy family, well something like that at least.

This weekend we had our first aid course for us keeners who haven’t taken it yet, and while yes it is a bit boring, it is very reassuring to know that everyone we are paddling with has the ability to take care of anyone should anything go wrong.

Running Little Trickle Rapid

 I am really excited to take on the second week with our new head coach Steven Wright and take on all of the challenges he has to offer. The last thing I have to say is that I am so grateful to my parents for getting me started with kayaking and sending me here and most of all listening to my excitement about all of the rapids here and the keener camp and also to our keener mom Anna Bruno for taking care of us and giving us advice on and off the water!

Alex's first blog

Hey!

Contemplating the line at Little Trickle 

My name is Alex I am 14 years old and am from Ottawa Ontario. I started this wonderful experience about a year ago on the Ottawa river.  As soon as I had my first day on the river I fell in love with kayaking. I'ts all I could talk about for months.  Although I didn't have much time last year for kayaking, this year I decided I was going to take advantage of the high levels and join the Keener program.  Since it was my first year in Keeners, I thought it would be really awkward but I was wrong, everyone here is so nice and is so helpful! Being a keener is by far the most fun I have had in a long time!  Between beat down day Thursday, race day Wednesday, and competition day Friday I think its safe to say I could stay here forever.  I'm really looking forward for the next 2 weeks and I hope its sunny and the water levels stay high.

Bye everyone!

Big Water (no beatdowns)

DISCLAIMER: This blog was meant to be posted Monday, but there were some technical difficulties.

Hi my name is Greyson Cohen. I’m 16 years old from New York and this will be my second year at Keeners. Today was day 2 of the first session and things have started off well. The water level is at around 14 (to put that in perspective; last year during session 1, the level was at around -3) and Buseater is on its way out.

            Despite the dropping levels, many of us decided to have fun and surf it anyways. For me, (and I’m sure many others) it was the largest wave/hole I’ve ever surfed. We practiced dropping in from the eddy above to get comfortable dropping in on a large wave. I personally missed the first three tries but I kept trying and got two satisfying surfs afterwards.  Surfing mini-bus was the most fun I’ve had surfing a wave EVER!  It was definitely comforting to know that there was good safety set below and flipping in it would flush you out almost immediately.

            After that, we had a lot of fun playing in the whirlpools that form at Butcher’s Knife, which is the next rapid below The Lorne. Afterwards, we ran Lunch Stop Waves and Norman’s which both consisted of large wave trains, which were fun to launch off of. Next we stopped to scout Coliseum. Running it was very different than last year because of the high water but the line was really simple and big.

            Overall, paddling on the Ottawa for the past two days was a totally different experience than anything from last year due to the high water. The high water created an incredibly fun experience. If the past two days are an indicator of what is to come for the rest of the session, then things will be great.