From the Shop: Know your Options
Over the past few years, the Option whitewater canoe has undergone a good bit of evolution. This week’s “From the Shop” looks at the different versions and explains the changes, and how to identify them.
From the Shop: Can I get a Magenta boat? What about Emerald and Ivory swirl?
bucket of plastic
This is the first in a semi-regular series of posts titled “From the Shop,” focusing on the production side of things here at Blackfly Canoes. Today’s topic: Color. I get asked about colors of canoes just about every day. I know it’s important to people, and I wish Blackfly could offer every color of the rainbow. But the reality is it’s just not possible, and to get into why, we need to look behind the scenes a bit.
Blackfly Hits the Green Narrows
Saturday 18, 2014 – Twenty-one rapids, eight whitewater canoes, three miles, and one very big monkey. Team Blackfly hits the Green Narrows in North Carolina.
Green Narrows Canoeing from ALEKS on Vimeo.
Good Gauley!
Setting up for Pillow Rapid, Upper Gauley. Photo: Shawn Alexander.
After two years of hearing all the talk about it, I finally got to go to my first Gauley Fest. What better time to hit the Upper Gauley for the first time, right? And what better whitewater canoe to do it with than the Octane 85? A crew of 12 whitewater canoeists hit the Upper on Saturday of the festival almost bright and not early enough for Mark Z.. I’ll be honest; I was a little nervous peeling out of the put-in eddy. The Gauley has the big-water and beatdown stories that can put the fear of God in you. More
Octane 85: Match Made in Big-Water Heaven
I come from the Southeast where rocks are not only expected but essential to hitting good lines in whitewater. So when I drove north to Quebec with the Boof Sisters summer tour, I was more than apprehensive about the big water waiting for us at Gatineau Fest. More
The Green Dream
Futrapper, Keith Clark, and me scouting Groove Tube. Photo: Michael Lewis
The Green River Narrows is one of the most iconic steep creeks in the Southeast. Most paddlers see it as a right of passage and daydream at least once about running it. After three years of kayaking and just a summer ofwhitewater canoeing, I finally saw the creek at the November 2012 Green Race. I watched as kayaker after kayaker cut between the narrow channel of the Notch and sailed off the launchpad of Gorilla Rapid into the whitewater chaos 16′ below. From that day I started to dream. More
OCtane 91 Whitewater Canoe on the Beaver, Moose and Raquette Rivers, NY
Some action from BeaverFest 2013 in the OCtane 91.
C&K article about the OC-1 world waterfall record.
In April, Blackfly Team Paddler Brad McMillan set a new whitewater open canoe world waterfall record. Here’s Canoe and Kayak’s write-up.
Cold Brook in the Option
This is one of the runs local to Blackfly Canoes World Headquarters.