Misty morning on Lake Whatcom Photo by Gene Davis
lenge to Reg and his team. “For the 22 and a half miles of portaging over Mt. Whitney, we looked into an aerial drop, we looked at using pack animals, and there was no real legal way of doing it. . . So we were going to go through Yosemite and hire some climbers to help tow some gear but Doug ended up getting a couple employees from Espirit [the company he owned at the time]. We all carried our own kayaks but there was extra gear these employees carried. Once we got to the river, they carried the backpack frames and other stuff back out. So, it was a really good experience for them
and it worked out well for us. ” The climb was arduous and the long, steep whitewater was a mental and physical challenge, but the trip ended in weary, wet success: the first running of the upper Kern. Reg and his team had done the impossible. I asked Reg how his success at these massive climbing/kayaking expeditions affected his understanding of what “difficult” really means. “It’s funny now, if there’s a quarter mile portage people start grumbling. You have to do stupid stuff to make it all relative. It’s the same thing with doing
Gear Spotlight: Beer and Gear by Chris Gerston Beer and Gear seems to fit the northwest somehow, and I’ve noticed it hitting the rest of the country lately too. As a sucker for versatility, I’m reviewing a multipurpose do-everything pack, the Deuter Speed Lite 30, along with the equally handy and lightweight Momma’s Lil Yella Pils. Weighing in at 2 pounds, the Speed Lite 30 is great for Spring tours after the melt/thaw has locked most everything in place. It’s 30 litres of load handling suspension takes 30 pounds easily and has been
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a comforting cragging and alpine rock pack. During winter travel, it’s even been my wife’s pack of choice. Momma’s Lil Yella Pils, at 12 ounces, is similarly light when you’re working hard, comforting when under duress, on point when needed, and liked both by men and women. Chris Gerston owns Backcountry Essentials, an outdoor specialty shop located at 214 W. Holly in Bellingham, WA. Check out more gear reviews by Chris Gerston at AdventuresNW.com Paid advertisement
long days. Usually 20 miles in a river is a good long day, but five or six times in my life I’ve done over 100 miles in a day. So you can do 20 miles in an afternoon if you have to. You just keep moving. ” And Reg kept moving. He continued finding new explorations in California and went on numerous coastal expeditions in Chile. During this time, he was running his own kayak shop and learned the intricacies of kayak design. He was struck by the differences between sea kayaking and whitewater, and he explains why he prefers the whitewater. “There’s a great line from songwriter Chuck Pyle: ‘For every mile of road there’s two miles of ditches. ‘ On the river, for every mile of river there’s two miles of shoreline. So there’s a lot of really good scenery. You take it all in, experience it. You drop down through some different life zones and there are different trees, the river changes character. It usually starts out steep and gets milder near the bottom. We’d put in at over 9000 feet sometimes and drop from alpine to tree-line to high desert. It’s an interesting experience. ” Nowadays, Reg Lake is busy with his friend Sterling Donalson at Sterling Kayaks in Bellingham, Washington. They build some of the most beautiful and technologically advanced kayaks in the world, with orders coming in from all over the globe. A recent fire destroyed the shop, but after some understandable grief and consternation, they are back at it and plan to be running at capacity by summer of 2013. If you want to get Reg Lake excited, talk about kayak design. “I was getting frustrated with sea kayak design because I kept modifying >>> Go to AdventuresNW.com
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