California Road Trip, Yampa Festival and Teva Mountain Games Wrap Up

After three week of epicness in the states I’m back in Holland taking my breath after some healthy jam packet action. I flew into San Francisco on the 11th of May and met up with a bunch of kiwi’s to enjoy two weeks of paddling in California! I was lucky enough to rally with Toni George, who had two seasons in Cali before and taking the lead in our chicks kayak roadie, hooking us up with some sweet clean Californian style runs!

One of my favorite rivers of the trips were the South Silver with a juicy flow and the Kaweah river in Sequoia National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada. The park contains among its natural resources the highest point in the States, Mount Whitney at 4,421m. The park is famous for its giant sequoia trees, including the General Sherman tree, the largest trees on Earth. During the trip I also did my first official multi-day paddling trip, running the Middle Fork of the Feather in two days.

Here is a little edit of the sweet times in California!
https://vimeo.com/43077086

Yampa river Festival
After an amazing time in Cali it was time to hit the road and drive 1000 miles east in our little red car, towards Steamboat Springs in Colorado for the Yampa River Festival. On the weekend there were some fun amateur races as a down river, freestyle, rafting, tubing and slalom.

On Monday the Pro races were on. Due to low water levels they postponed the creek race to later in the day, starting the day with the freestyle comp. Although the water was low the freestyle hole was pretty sick. Courtney won the women’s with me in 2nd and Lulu in 3rd. Dane Jackson won the mens with some awesome rides followed closely by Nick Troutman in second.

After 18.00h the creek race kicked off. Although the river was low it was still fun paddling down! I won the women class, having a pretty smooth run, not hitting to many rocks ;). As it was a combined race I won the overall of the woman’s class Courtney got second en Lulu third. Dane and Nick both tied in the men’s.

Teva Mountain Games
A two hours ride on Monday night brought us to Vail for the Teva Mountain Games. We had two days to lapping the steep creek course and learning the fastest lines, which was really hard due to low water levels. It’s so easy to make a mistake on this course and one mistake can do you for the race.

I had a sweet first run, but made a big mistake in my second run, almost pinned, went into the eddy and had to eddy out back to the current. Luckily I nailed and was fast enough to keep the top spot winning the gold medal! Stoked!!! Louise Jull from New Zealand got second and claimed the fastest time of the race in the women’s. Anne Hubner got third with two solid rides. Mike Dawson had two sick runs styling the men’s coming on top followed by Dane Jackson and Sam Sutton! Shot guys!

Friday the Long Distance Race kicked off. A brutal 24-minute effort down a very low and dry Gore Creek at an attitude of around 10000ft! Epic! I had the fastest time of the girls being 10 seconds ahead of Louise Jull. Mike Dawson also won his second win in the Games having the fastest time in the men’s by 7 seconds. After that the freestyle went off with some impressive move on the low water feature! Check out Pringles post here, for more about the freestyle event!

Besides the kayaking there is so much action on the side. You can fill your bags at the gear town, print some limited edition Teva shirts and of course watch all the other sports, such as the slope style, bouldering and mud run. All super fun and impressive to watch! The 8-ball is definitely the most fun to watch, as so much carnage going on battling for that price money and GoPro Hero.

So I’m now back in The Netherlands making the next plans for another epic trip! – www.martinawegman.com | www.martinawegman.blogspot.com