Let It Rain...

Hey Y'All-

The rain has been falling and the weather has finally turned so this past weekend I headed to West Virginia.  I met up with fellow team member and Potomac Paddlesports Instructor "Professional" Pete Morey and some other friends and set out for laps on the Lower Big Sandy.  The LBS is a gem of a creek and the day could not have been more perfect- 75 degrees and sunny!  I was pretty excited about the opportunity to paddle with Pete and to spend some on-water-time with the man behind the legend.  Pete is not only a super talented paddler but also extremely skilled and technically proficient at analyzing both the water and the paddler.  Wonder Falls is extremely straight forward and easy to access making it the perfect drop to analyze and work on boofing technique.  Check out the video below; definitely not my best boof, put with Pete's feedback I know exactly what I need to work on!

• Approach - speed is not as important as one may think; stay a little ahead of the speed of the water and focus on timing..
• The Stroke - the boof stroke is a vertical stroke but is not a forward stroke.  If you look at my top hand in the video you will see that it is significantly in front of my body- this is NOT necessary for this drop.  Bringing my hand closer to my body will allow me to use my paddle more effectively in launching my boat by acting as a pivot point.
• Stroke Placement - although my paddle is in the right place I don't actually do anything with it in this video. I am not grabbing the water but rather turning a forward stroke into a draw stroke.  Working on keeping my lower hand in the "power alley" will lead to a more effective boof.
• Body Position - Reaching for the stroke moves your weight forward and prevents you from falling into the backseat when thrusting your hips forward. In addition, unwind your body in the opposite direction of your boof stroke.
  Check out Pete putting it all together...

The Maryland Chute-Out

Looks like MD Chute-out will be held at Center Chute ledge.

Registration will be from 4:30-5:30 at anglers inn parking lot.

The MD Chute-Out is a very fun, very low key freestyle competition. It's free and any one can come. It's also a great way to get to know paddlers in the community and hone your freestyle skillz. You don't have to be an amazing freestyle paddler to win prizes either, after each competition there's a raffle and many awesome prizes are given away.

The competition is held on the last Thursday of every month April-September. The next chute-out is this Thursday, April 30th. Registration is in the parking lot 4:30-5:30 and the competition begins at 6. Feel free to show up and register at the hole.

Come back Wednesday night or Thursday morning to check where the MD chute-out will be held this month or check http://www.boatertalk.com/forum/BoaterTalk

NC/WV trip video

NC/WV trip video from Jordan Poffenberger on Vimeo.

Just a little video of what I've been doing for the past month.

Enjoy!

Junior Team Trials

Junior Team Trials

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This past weekend was the USA Junior Team Trials for Slalom. Kids froma all around the country showed up to try and make it onto the US junior team. Inorder to make it on the junior team the competitiors had to come with in 20% of the top racers time. The Junior team trials was held at the Nantahala, April 4-5. Here are the results.

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K-1W

1-Kate Lewkowicz

2-Hailey Thompson

3-Chelsea Bornemann

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K-1

1-Michal Smolen

2-Petter Lutter (Local)

3-Nick Wilkening

4-Simon Ranagan(Local)

5- William Farmer

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C-1

1- Bug Lokken

2- Tyler Hinton

3- Liam Malakoff(Local)

4- (yours truely) Jordan Poffenberger(Local)

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C-1W

1-Hailey Thompson

2-Rebecca Moore

3- Chelsea Bornemann

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And congratulations Petter Lutter and Simon Ranagan for representing the Potomac on the US Junior Team.

(will post pics later)

Webster Springs Festival '09

Last weekend I went to the Webster Springs Festival, an annual event that is held in the mountains of West Virginia. It's always lots of fun. The main attractions are the "Fruitbasket" rivers: the Cranberry, the Cherry, and the Williams (nevermind that the Williams isn't a fruit). This year we got some rain and I was able to catch the Back Fork of the Elk for the first time. It starts out on Sugar Creek for a quarter mile, then joins the Back Fork and floats along lazily for a while before getting down to business. The meat of the run is the "Three Falls" section, which consists of six ledges ranging in height from 4-12 feet. I ran each of these three or four times because I didn't know when I'd get another chance!

I'm thankful to have met up with such a great group of people to boat with. I didn't know any of them before the weekend began, but spending a beautiful sunny day on a great river is a sure way to make friends. Below are some photos from the weekend for your viewing pleasure.

Scouting the biggest ledge on the Back Fork of the Elk	Craig running the ledge
John	Katy
Steve	Joel
Jim	Joel bow stalling in the pool below

Group strainer, er, photo. Left to right: Joel, ???, Steve, Katy, Joel, John, Craig, Jim, ???

On the way home we caught Wills Creek outside of Cumberland, which was another first for me. I didn't take any photos because we bombed down it, but the continuous III-IV whitewater had me smiling from ear to ear. All in all it was a great weekend!