The RiverVibe Review

Hello and welcome to RiverVibe's famously new blog concerning my generally river related doings!

While the descent to some tedious and tepid pool of narcissism is always a very real and dangerously slippery slope (and I'm sure we will eddy out there from time to time), it is my intent as set forth here to stay true to my intentions of maintaining a personal and pertinent review of the tools, materials, and techniques that allow me to live, love, and explore the rivers of our living Earth.

And now for maybe a little background...  I currently live in the middle of the most beautiful Rocky Mountains, in a little town called Salida, Colorado.  We have a river here.  The mighty Arkansas River is born just a couple of hours north past the town of Buena Vista and turns east at Salida on its way to Pueblo and beyond into the fields of Colorado's Eastern Slope.  There is a nifty whitewater park within walking distance of my home.  

During the summer, I work as a professional river photographer.  Many of these days start, after coffee, with me being the first boat on the waters of Browns Canyon, our popular Class III day run.  I'll kayak in at least one camera, laptop, and other essentials.  I'll then set up my office at the Zoom Flume rapid and take pictures of all the private and commercial river runners.  Then in the evening I'm often the last boat off the water. 

On my days "off" I'll often play the part of the safety kayaker for one of the local rafting companies on our local Class IV stretch.

All the while my goal in life is to then travel and kayak as many new runs, rivers, and creeks as I am able.  I'm often heading south to New Mexico and the Rio Grande and the Rio Embudo when she runs.

I have been running rivers since around 1996, I think.  My start was on the rivers around Austin, TX, but I got to the mountains as quickly as I could and in the intervening years I've been through many kayaks and canoes and have been fortunate to be a part of the fantastic expansion and maturing of the river running lifestyle.  Gear has advanced considerably and these days are particularly exciting as designs continue to get ever more refined.  

Currently, the topics you'll see me write about will be mostly my new Pyranha Shiva, Molan, and Fluid Spice as well as the trips and logistics that get them on new creeks.

Why am I doing this?  The sort answer is that I obsess.  I obsess about gear and runs and spend so much time talking and thinking about them that I reasoned I should make my thoughts available to a wider audience in the hope that they will stimulate further discussion.

I hope these upcoming musings will be helpful to someone, or at least interesting.  This blog will (I hope) be entertaining for me... why else do anything...  and if it happens to cross the line to being entertaining to you the reader, please don't blame the author.  That may well be a conversation that needs to happen privately between yourself, your psyche, and a psychologist.  

Enjoy!  Maybe we'll meet on the River!