Ready to be the coolest gift giver this season? Give meaningful and fun gifts that contribute to your favorite paddler’s health, wellbeing and passion for paddling. Read on for my top picks for paddlers who do (or would like to) take on their wellness with as much stoke as they take on the water! Under…Read more »
Kayaking Tips
The Secrets to Calm, Confident Whitewater Kayaking
Want to feel more stable and confident in your kayak in whitewater? Try sinking your weight down into your butt. I know it sounds weird, but it works! Placing your focus on your kayak and hips gets your attention away from doing too much with your paddle. Too much paddling actually leads to instability. That’s…Read more »
Whitewater Kayaking: The Secret to Beautiful Lines
If you’ve taken kayak instruction from me you know that I’m a big believer in the importance of boat angle in running beautiful lines. The ability to set and maintain your angle when running a rapid can make or break your line, and the amount of control you have going in and out of eddies…Read more »
Women’s Paddlefest 2018
Thank you to those of you who attended Women’s Paddlefest at the Nantahala Outdoor Center and raised close to $3000.00 for charity! High water, mudslides and rain days before the event didn’t stop you from joining in community, empowering yourselves and having fun. Instead of canceling we went ahead with the event modifying programming to…Read more »
How to Paddle Class IV with Fewer Strokes
I recently posted a video of me running my favorite rapid, Boxcar, on the North Fork of the French Broad here in Western North Carolina. The rapid consists of a short slide leading into a 15 ft drop that you boof into a beautiful little gorge. Here it is for you! Both my Creek Week…Read more »
Things I Wish I Had Known Sooner: A Kayaking FAQ Part 1
Take a moment to think back to when you first got into kayaking, when you were the new kid on the block. Are there “little” things that you know now that you barely need to think about but that were a source of frustration or puzzlement in the beginning? After spending a summer teaching new…Read more »
Simple Reminders
It’s Sunday morning in January in McCall, Idaho, and I’m kicking away at the snowbank alongside my yurt in an effort to excavate my creek boat from where it’s been wintering underneath. My hands are already frozen from attaching my kayak stackers to my roof rack in the bitter cold, and now my toes are…Read more »
How to Build Emotional Resilience on the Water
According to the dictionary, resilience is defined as, ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.’ A second definition is: ‘the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape.’ When you experience a difficult, disappointing or scary situation on the water how quickly do you recover? Are you able to let it roll…Read more »
Why You Should Take an International Paddling Trip
A really smart woman once told me I didn’t need a drysuit when I could just boat where it’s warm enough not to wear one. Inspired by this approach to winter boating, I booked my first international kayaking trip to Mexico and have been traveling ever since. Although it’s not quite drysuit season yet and…Read more »
The River, my Old Friend
Mind Body Paddle recently re-posted the very first blog post I wrote at Anna’s request—the story of how I became a kayak instructor, written before I actually started instructing. Written before I ever knew that I would end up working for Girls at Play/Mind Body Paddle. I was in high school, writing about this dream…Read more »
