Our Boys Are Hucksters.

Here at Wend, we’re good friends with Andy Maser, who also blogs for us at times.  He’s a pro kayaker, environmentalist, and filmmaker that rolls with a tight crew of whitewater wizards that go by the name of the Epicocity Project. So, I’ve shot a lot of action sports photos in my life, but haven’t done much river shooting and had expressed interest in going out with these guys to work on my waterfall documentation chops.

Andy had organized a little grassroots race on the White Salmon River, which is about 5o miles up the Gorge from Portland. The wifey and I headed out to check it out, and Maser gave us coordinates to hike down to a waterfall that they planned to launch.

“Mile market two, park, head down, fade left.”

These were Andy’s instructions. So, we get there, and the wifey is till healing from a bum ankle, and I notice that the approach is essentially a  60 degree decent on a moss covered talus slope into a slot canyon. Definitely not flip-flopable. So, I put on some actual shoes, left the wife, grabbed the camera bag and the dog, and started heading down. Half hike, half butt slide, I made it to the location after about 2o minutes or so. There it was,  the waterfall. Probably just about 3o feet. I noticed someone had already set up there. There were a couple tripods and some packs. And a bottle of water that I pilfered a drink from. I sat there for about a half hour, and then noticed some kayakers pulling out and portaging the falls on the far bank. Then comes Maser. He hiked down to the film spot with another couple from Sisters, who had been waiting since 8 am to shoot this.

Apparently, they had no idea that these guys were running, but figured that someone would be that day, so they decided to kick and wait. Andy’s got a massive HD vid camera and tripod that he’s been kayaking with. Ridiculous. That think must have weighed a ton. Anyway, Maser hiked back up and dropped the falls along with 17 year old Teva Sponsored kayak prodigy, Todd Wells. Pics of Andy are in the orange boat, pics of Todd are in the yellow. Pretty sick gentlemen.  Stay tuned for some bow mounted GoPro footage from Andy.