Illinois River...

Oh yea, busy couple of weeks in the EP world. In addition to working on the next kayaking video in the EP line up and of course kayaking for fun, I'm also working on producing a documentary about salvage logging in the Siskiyou National Forest. Salvage logging is when timber companies go into areas burned by wildfire and harvest the trees. Sounds insignificant since the trees have already burned, but; the burned trees provide habitat to many animals and logging can hurt the regeneration of the forest. For recreation uses like kayaking, hiking, rafting and on and on, clear cuts are ugly, and the replanted conifers look like tree farms not forests.

Given that I love rivers we decided to take a look at the burned area in the Siskiyou and the Kalamiopsis Wilderness area from one of the coolest places I've ever been, the Illinois river. It runs in-between multiple timber sales for one day of rafting/kayaking, then heads through the Kalamiopsis Wilderness Area for 2 days of river travel. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, it's got very challenging rapids for rafts, it was my first time in a oar rigged raft, and I brought 18 of my closest friends along for the ride. We had 4 rafts and 3 kayaks, two experts on fire ecology and salvage logging, 17 college students and a lot of whisky. It was increadible, absolutely beautiful and we got great footage for the documentary!

Paddle the Illinois, it's one of Oregon's most incredible multi-day rivers and it's beautiful.

Photos to come really soon, check it!

We're heading up to the Colombia River Gorge this weekend, should be great kayaking in our very near future.

peace,
trip