drivin down to the dirty . . .

Fall comes early in Alaska. By September the once vibrant yellows were in a state of decay and the rafts prickled with frost come morning. The cruise line garys had stopped touring and business was slow. With little work and slim pickings at the cook shack Nick and I checked out early and were in route to Fairbanks before dinner on the 8th.

The next four days it rained. The all day showers followed us throughout the Alaska Highway, albeit mercifully intermittent as we set up camp in the Yukon and BC. Compared to the drive up in May there was fewer game hunting the highway, excluding a lone wolf circling the civic as we entered Canada. Somewhere near Mile 1--Dawson City-- our stash of fresh moose hind dwindled as our noodle a la sriracha dinners had a bit of added color from roadside produce stands.

On day five we arrived at my uncle's property on the southern tip of Key Peninsula, a bit of coastline jutting into Puget Sound. We unpacked the car and hung busted camping gear to dry while we stretched our driving legs into a pair of sea kayaks, trailed by a duo of spotted seals.

We had planned to hang low and take the scenic route back but after a nightmarish vision of apocalypse we decided to rush home. We left around lunch with hurried goodbyes and damp clothes, stopping only for gas, coffee and Backwoods. Near Olympia we rented the final installment of Harry Potter on CD and didn't rest till peace had been restored at Hogwarts, a 27-hour stretch from western Washington to southeastern Colorado. There was an oil change in Wyoming, a sunrise through the canyon lands of Utah and the Wild West disappeared into a never ending line of angry taillights in the merging metropolis of Dallas- Fort Worth.

From there to Picayune, Mississippi the trip was an uneventful stretch of interstate, where Nick retrieved his home on wheels and I made the final stretch back to the suburbs of Atlanta. Over the next month we toured the southeast-- kayaking in Chatoogaland, hiking the Smokies and rafting the Gauley-- before venturing into the dirty dirty south: Chile.

--nickiD

YOU MAY BE A SCUMBAG IF. . .

OK, so this contest is almost an inevitable evolutionary step. It was bound to happen eventually. Email your "You may be a scumbag if..." submissions to glenn@teamscum.com for your chance to win a Limited Edition 'Glenn Webster' Tshirt. The Top 10 submissions will be read aloud with commentary by Glenn and will receive one of said Tshirts.



- Submissions must be received before Dec 1
- Winners will be announced daily in a Top 10 Countdown beginning Monday Dec 6
- Please include relevant contact info with your submission

Swan Strokes

Saw a bunch of people walking up to get multiple laps at Gorilla this weekend. Some good lines some not so nice lines, check our Dane swan strokin' off the pad.


arlyn-

Seven Finger Brown Clawz

I woke up and checked gauges and resigned myself to the fact that i would going to school instead of kayaking on the first day of the fall creekin' season. But I got a call from Wilcox and it did not take much convincing to get me to blow off school and throw my kayaking gear in the van instead of my school books. I have been kayaking for a couple years now but I have never seen torrents of exploding water like I saw yesterday, standing holes with foam piles double overhead are mind blowing. No pictures of kayaking but i'm sure any kayaker would appreciate something like this. If you can name the place I got a free TeamScum T-shirt for you, email me at arlynag@hotmail.com if you know where it is.








I got my mustache on for the Green Race

cheers
arlyn-

The Fork!

Check out the new Fist, not much room for error!

The seasons continue to change and everyday I realize how much I love being in the southeast for the fall. This past weekend I made the trip up to Elkhorn City to explore the depths of Breakspark with two of my best paddling friends, check out some of the pictures from the trip.

Probably my favorite photo from the weekend, if you look close you can see a paddler dropping El Horendo
Check out my new boat!
They even had some karaoke for us at the paddler appreciation event in Elkhorn City. Hope everybody is getting excited for the Green Race coming up. Hopefully the boys at Tuxedo Hydro station will smile on us this weekend!

cheers
arlyn-

Full Moon Reflections

We are putting the miles behind us. Tailwind or headwind, downpour or warm shoulders, we paddle. Well, we at least float. We've taken up the habit of procrastinating on sunny days. Instead of paddling, we lean back and catch some floating shut-eye. We wake with pink faces and unaware of the time. Other days, when it rains, we put our heads down, enter a state of zen, and paddle until we get to camp.
Our first event was a huge success. Yesterday, we hosted eight hours of eclectic music, 20 gallons of soup, and several barrels of delicious beer, compliments of Summit Brewery. By 10:30 a.m., youngsters were running around with face paint and sidewalk chalk. By noon, their parents stood, watching the kids climb all over the St. Paul Fire Department truck and the St. Paul police car. Fortunately, anyone who went in the backseat didn't have cuffs on. The public servicemen donated their time and resources to entertain the kids and adults alike. Later in the day, the party got cranking, people got to dancing, and before we knew it, we were getting more barrels. The raffle was a huge hit, too. The Bending Branches paddles and Joe Mauer's signed baseball were huge money-makers. We raised just under $2,400. That puts our running total over $10,000. That's a lot of dough that's going to help out a lot of people in Haiti.
Tomorrow, we hit the River again, get back into our stride, and migrate with the geese. Sometimes the crew ends up in a V-pattern and I wonder if it's instinct. The full moon has been wonderful, reflecting off the River at each bend. We may try to use the still large waning light to do a night paddle. Weather looks to be cooperative for the coming week. Temperatures are undeniably lowering. Leaves are turning summer into autumn. We will chase these colors to the Gulf. We've determined we'll begin the journey of borders tomorrow as we leave Minnesota's body and instead have it on our right, while Wisconsin will be on our left. This is all quite exciting. We're getting a bit rough around the edges- real River Rats.

Local Yokles

This past summer i was away from WNC from May-August, needless to say prime time for some bareback Green Runs. I was really looking forward to being back in WNC and running the Green. A bunch of my friends stuck around and ran the Green all summer and you could really tell because everybody looked super strong out there with extremely clean lines. Seems like some of the locals had even decided to start running Hammer Factor with their legs on top of the boat for extra style points.
Check out Jeff Payne with his feet on the deck!

Hope everybody is getting excited about the turning of the seasons.

arlyn-

L'UNION FAIT LA FORCE

So a few months ago some of our friends from the northland asked us to design some Tshirts for a philanthropic paddle down the Mississippi River to help raise money for Haiti relief efforts. They are paddling 2300 miles from Lake Itasca,Minnesota down to the Gulf of Mexico with various riverside BBQs, frisbee tournaments, and concerts planned along the way with hopes of raising $50,000. We thought this sounded great and jumped at the opportunity to get involved. So, teamscum has partnered up with the Paddle to Haiti crew in an effort to help raise cash. The 'L'Union Fait La Force' T's will be available in about a week and the proceeds will go towards the cause.




The crew put on the river Sept 2 and were last seen camping in the rain at Stump Lake. You can follow the adventure on their BLOG and Tshirts will be on sale in about a week at the teamscum.com shop -

HOMEGROWN 6 RESULTS

HOMEGROWN 6 WENT OFF LAST SATURDAY and if you missed it you missed a good time. With over 150 photo and 23 video entries, this year was the strongest showing of highly motivated amateur whitewater photographers /videographers to date. Some of the highlights included celebrity MC Daniel "Terrence" Young making it all the way through the Carnage Video category before the Jager caught up (what proceeded to happened to him the rest of the night is another blog post), nearly 60 full seconds of 4 foot tall jugs brought to you courtesy of Blaine Patrick, Colin Hunt took home a new Pyranha kayak, Zach Dean did not win 1st Place General Video, the LVM Jumbotron only got knocked down once, and Chalwa wrapped it up with some live reggae. You can view all the winning photos and videos here>>


General Video

1st Place // Colin Hunt
2nd Place // Zach Dean
3rd Place // Juice Jones
Hon Ment // Ryan Bailey
Hon Ment // Saunders Southcorvo


Carnage Video

1st Place // Logan James
2nd Place // Patrick Blaine
3rd Place // Preston Woods
Hon Ment // Ben Perrin
Hon Ment // Max Posner






Action Photos

1st Place // Nick Gottlieb
2nd Place // Lauren Farrell
3rd Place // Warren Williams
Hon Ment // Jason McClure
Hon Ment // Pete Lucic




Artsy Fartsy Photos

1st Place // Andy Hinton
2nd Place // Lynne Larosa
3rd Place // Carolina Beltran
Hon Ment // Ben McKee
Hon Ment // Katie Cahn


Thanks to CWO for the awesome venue, all the generous sponsor contributions,the patient judges who evaluated the massive pile of entries,and most importantly everyone who showed up and took the time to send in an entry. Get your cameras ready cause we're gonna do it again next year bitches.

Paddle to Haiti

My eyes have been bugging out from computer screens. I've stopped waiting on hold for more than thirty seconds of elevator music. The planning is essentially done. I'm too damn excited to be inside anymore. Sure, the River will be flowing in a week, but all I can think about is that the River is flowing right now.

The barn is clean and ready for the crew to arrive. Zach is here. Amanda is on her way. Louis and Brett head out from Steamboat tomorrow. Matt is negotiating a journey up here. I'll pick up Little Dipper and Dave in the next couple days from the Milwaukee airport. Warm days and chilled nights are in the forecast for the next week. Perfect for building the oar rigs and scrambling for last minute details during the day. Also perfect for sharing a few evening beers around the fire pit in the corral.

We have a week before loading up the Mohawk canoes and heading north to Lake Itasca, Minnesota. Along the way, we'll pick up seven paddles from Bending Branches in Osceola, Wisconsin. We'll camp the night up at the lake and undoubtedly get that guttural feeling of insecure madness and nerves, all of which will be eased in the next few days as we take the first few paddle strokes. We'll get to Minneapolis/ St. Paul within a couple weeks, and, ultimately, the Gulf. But, along the way, we will be thinking of Haiti. For now, the River flows just as it will in a week and we have some more work to do.