This year the Crooked River has become the local go to run on the West Coast. Partly due to it being located between me and Barny, but also improvements in the track and the styx becoming even more manky! This short gorge has never seen so much action. Be it a lazy hungover afternoon mob, a trip to break up the drive from Murchison to Hokitika for the Kayak School crew or a testing day out for local polytechers... the Crooked provides for all. A short to earn access the gorge, relatively committing whitewater in the class IV-V realm all set in another pristine West Coast drainage.
It may be short but here is a peek into the amazing little gem we're very lucky to have.
Here is the second installement of the Worthy Series, and this time it is the Upper Whitcombe River. This is probably the most reliable run on the coast, with it being one of the biggest drainages. You need a little bit of extra water to paddle it from Wilkinson Hut as an overnight trip. But even if things are low you can always paddle it from Prices Flat through one of the steepest most runnable gorges on the coast. I was lucky enough to get to run this twice this season but still havent had a trip quite like when Barny found a bees nest in the out-house!
Well finally I have got my shit together and started putting the footage together... and we've got some goods! We're kayakers who are filming what we do, not film makers filming kayaking. Barny and myself often struggle to get out of our boats to scout let alone film, so all too often we miss a lot of opportunties to film. Nonetheless, we've made a concerted effort over the last two summers and now have more than enough footage to make our series. We're hoping that this series will entice people to the West Coast of New Zealand to sample its world-class rivers.
Barny and myself came up with the
idea of making this film in October of last year, after a solid season in
California. We put together a short edit from our trip and were stoked with it,
making us think it could be worthwhile trying to do the same on our own local
goods. After two big seasons in New Zealand we have come to two conclusions.
ONE, were not nearly motivated enough to EVER be real film makers… and
TWO, the West Coast is truly a
white-water paradise.
Although the West Coast has always
been a ‘must-do’ destination for any real kayaker, there hasn't really been
any footage that does the place justice. The main reason for this is
that the white-water doesn’t look BIG and IMPRESSIVE. It is remote, steep and technical white-water
with ominous threats everywhere. White-water that will challenge any kayaker. Little did we know that the Red Bull Flowhunters had our backyard in their sights. After seeing the ridiculous amouut of time and money they were putting into their project we decided to change our tact, instead of making a film we'd make several episodes highlighting our favourite rivers here on the coast.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be
releasing several edits of the classic runs on the West Coast, namely the
Upper Perth, Kokatahi, Crooked, Upper Whitcombe, Mungo and Upper Kakapotahi. We’ll also do
an edit of some of the First Descents that we bagged this summer. Hopefully this action will wet your
appetite for the Best Coast and we’ll be on some of these gems with you this
coming summer.
