AIRE Blog

CU OTW - Clackamas Style

Do you have a thirst for river CARNAGE, which cannot be quenched?

Are you hungry to compete against top athletes to win whitewater bragging rights?

Whether Pro or Beginner, are you interested in having fun and connecting with the boating community?

Is there a particular AIREcraft, which you’ve always wanted to Test Pilot?

Tyler in Wave Destroyer

If you answered YES to one or more of these questions, then you are the ideal candidate to visit the Upper Clackamas Whitewater Festival (UCWWF)! AIRE representatives are excited to attend and hope to see you there. For all details on the UCWWF, please check-out the website:

http://upperclackamasfestival.org/

With our 20+ years of IK building tradition, AIRE is proud to sponsor two Inflatable Kayaking Competitions. Both AIRE sponsored events are exciting for the competitors and even more fun for the spectators.

The AIRE IK Slalom separates the river-ninjas from the swimmers. Negotiating the gated slalom course through class IV requires the skills, drive and endurance of a Sensei. Do you have what it takes to battle the northwest’s grand masters? If so, sign-up for this event!

The AIRE IK Mass Start is the “Chinese Downhill” of Clackamas competitions. The Lemans-style start and overcrowded course create an environment, which is highly conducive to awesomeness! Whether competitor or spectator, this is a must make event.

In addition to the competitions, the UCWWF is a great place to have some fun with a huge boating community. Prizes, auctions and awards will add to the atmosphere. The festival stays true to the river-rat style and will undoubtedly include camping, live music and plenty of tall river tales.

Paddlesports dealers and manufacturers will be present with information and product to offer. Stop-by the AIRE booth with your questions or to demo a boat. To make a pre-festival demo request, send me an email, tyler.harris@aire.com, and I’ll do my best to grant your demo wish.

Hope to see you on the water!

Tyler and Sheena

 

AIRE 2011 Video Contest. THE RESULTS!

AIRE has the best customers. Thanks to everyone who submitted a video in the contest!  Most of the videos can be seen in our gallery and on the product pages.  (We could not post a few in the gallary because they were Vimeo vids and our player is a you tube player.) We had a little of everything; kayaking, R2ing, big water, calm water, oar rigs, fishing and flipping!  We had videos submitted from as close as the Payette River here in Idaho to as far away as Switzerland.  We were all particularly impressed by the camera angles, editing and creativity put into bringing the theme to life.  Needless to say, picking the winner was tough…really tough.  So tough that we have a few honorable mentions we are going sling some dry sack to.  So without further ado:

 

Honorable Mentions:

Best Flip:

The Yampa River is huge in this movie,  The camera angles were awesome and the flip was very convincing.

  

 

Most Creative:

We could tell that is movie had some serious thought and editing put into it.  Warning:  This video is cute and a little cheesy, you will like it.

Duckie Tales from Dee Gardiner on Vimeo.

 

Close, yet so far:

This vid. was right on target with the theme and we loved it, but it was voted out in the office pool for bad language.  Still, we are happy to show it, but be warned of the F-bomb.

 

Best Cause:

Alzar School and a free flowing river scheduled to be dammed. 

  

 

Top 3:

Best Edited: 

This video was a little different in a few ways.  It was the only video to have so many different angles and not have a fixed point for the camera.  It slowed down the feel and had good...texture.  The titles, sounds and video is all really well put together. 

  

 

Runner Up: 

Really, how could we pass up such style?  This is a good kayak video, it is well edited, a little different and shows that AIRE is essential to life all over the world.

 

 

Best Overall:  

Brush Creek in a raft…really?  Amazing.  Good camera shots, gnarly river, living it up! 

 

 

Thanks again to everyone who participated (AIRE T-Shirts and AIRE Hats are finally in the mail, i promise ;)

Peace,

Sheena 

 

Meet Dan McCain. He is a little nuts and we are happy to have him rafting on AIRE!

Sponsorships are a little tricky for manufactures, but when Dan submitted his proposal, list of rivers, first descents planned and waterfalls dropped, we knew had found a talented athlete. One who was just crazy enough to push the edge and smart enough to do it as safely as possible.  

So Dan, when did you first start rafting?

"I first started rafting when attending Montana State University in Bozeman, in my home state of Montana; I rented a raft from the university sporting shop and ran a class 3 big water section of the Yellowstone River.  By the end of the first rapid, I knew I was hooked.  I continued to raft and stumbled upon the Lochsa where I truly fell in love with whitewater.  I convinced many of my unsuspecting friends to be guinea pigs and let me guide them down this Idaho classic."

 What has kept you hooked?

"I decided after graduation to attend Dental school and Oregon seemed to be the best spot where I could still get out into the country and enjoy the outdoors; being a Montana kid and all this was important to me.  I started doing quite a bit of rafting but it seemed like there were many rivers that were regularly rafted and soon we had been down most of the ones that were.  I soon met a kayaker named Jacob Cruiser, and rafting changed completely for me.  He liked to get away from the popular runs and head off the beaten path and convinced me to start going with him into places that had never been rafted (some for good reason).  After these excursions, rafting has never been the same for me; rafting has taken me to some of the most unbelievable places with top-notch scenery; some places had only been seen by the few people who could kayak down them."  

What is your favorite river?

"I have had the good fortune to run many rivers but there are definitely a few that stand out as my favorites.   Eagle Creek in the Columbia Gorge will always stick out in my mind as this was one of our first creeking runs where we really got to see what was possible in a raft—running a 35 and 40 foot waterfall and somehow landing both of them in the boat. The Little White Salmon is also at the top of the list of favorites as it is possible to be on the river in an hour from Portland and everything ranging from the rapids to scenery are the top of the class.  The North Fork of the Snoqualmie (Ernie’s Canyon) is one of the most challenging runs I have done as many of the top kayakers said it was impossible to raft as it is one of the hardest kayak runs in Washington.  The Big Quilcene and the Carbon River are the most committing runs I have ever done as both had never been rafted and contained class V+ rapids with an inescapable gorge.  The scenery on those two runs is amazing.  Probably my all time favorite run is the North Fork of the Payette.  The run has 15 miles of class V that never seem to let up.  We got the opportunity to r2 the entire 15 miles and the whitewater was world class.  Jacob’s Ladder on the NF is and will be for a long time one of the best rapids I have ever had the good fortune to run."

 Favorite Beer?

"My favorite beer is the one and only PBR!"

Lastest Falls?

Chinook Falls, footage to come. 

What is next for you in life, beside running AIRE?

I will soon be moving to Corvallis, Oregon as I have transferred into the Pharmacy School there and will also be out exploring the rivers near there.  

You stoked to be an AIREhead? 

I am especially excited to start rafting in an AIRE boat; working in a rafting shop has given me more opportunities to compare AIRE boats with others and I have concluded that they are truly the best boats on the market.  I will always remember my first rafting experience in an AIRE on Eagle Creek; the raft was very stable going off the big falls and was easy to control in the tight technical sections.    I look forward to many more experiences rafting with different AIRE rafts!

We are looking forward to the stories, photos and footage!  Thanks Dan!

Peace,

~Sheena and Dan

 

I Where my Sunglasses

The water is up and river season is here!  I like to do little blog bits on river gear from time to time, so I thought I would post this comentary from one of our long time dealers, Lee with The Boat People.  Here you go, enjoy:

"Few of us would ever embark on a raft trip without the safety basics – life vest, appropriate clothing for the air and water temperature, and perhaps a helmet, river knife, or unwrapping kit. We tend to think in the near future rather than off in the distance, and occasionally there is one bit of headgear we do leave in the shuttle car: sunglasses.

 
 Most of you wear them for rafting, and a fair percentage of kayakers and open canoe pilots do as well. But there are others among us – most notably people who wear regular prescription glasses – who often forego shaded clip-on’s or the like. Today’s lesson is about why that is a very bad idea.

Now I’m not here to advocate for any pricey high-end eyewear purveyor. In fact, you would have a difficult time finding any consumer good with the degree of mark up from manufacturer to retailer that plastic-lens sunglasses incur. What you should know is that not wearing UV protection over your peepers may have some long term consequences. Consequences that won’t rear their ugly heads for decades to come.

Before the days of comfortable soft contact lens, I was among the four-eyed of boaters. Between 1980 and 1988 I often wore a baseball hat or visor, but only rarely did I have dark clip-on’s snapped to my trusty coke bottles. And being in California where many Sierra streams flow westward, that meant the afternoon sun was often coming straight at me.

 
 Fast forward a couple decades, to a recent eye exam. It’s worth noting here by the way, that few people experience much change in their lens prescription after age 40. Yet it seemed my left eye did indeed need a new and stronger contact lens than what I was wearing in my right eye. As my ophthalmologist twiddled dials and cast unpleasantly bright lights into my wincing eyeballs, he seemed to be having trouble getting the correct combo for my left eye. He was also commenting that “something isn’t right here”. Oh dear. Glad the wifey has eye insurance through her job….
After multiple dilating drops and no less than 80 minutes, he proclaimed with some satisfaction that the culprit had been found: the beginnings of a cataract in the innermost layer of my cornea, and I'm just in my 40s. That explained my difficulty over the last year in making out people’s faces clearly if they were more than a hundred feet or so away.

The good doctor explained that most cataracts are the results of UV & infrared exposure or eye injury. While I did have a bonk in the left eye as a child, I believe that glare from those early raft trips is more likely the culprit. Skiers know enough to wear sunglasses, but river runners may not always consider eyewear as seriously. I’m off for surgery in a month or three, and grand time though that may be with the buzzy drugs & all, I might recommend the rest of you try to pass. Not wearing sunglasses on the river today will have little effect save the evening headache, but down the road a piece you may come to regret leaving them in the Subaru. The eye surgery industry will do just fine without our help, thank you.

Flows will be high this Spring throughout much of the lower 48 this year, so boat with caution and may the force be with you.

Lee, the boat people"

Thanks Lee! 

Peace ~ Sheena

The AIRE COUGAR (cataraft) is BACK! but only for a Limited Time.

COUGAR!  Years ago when AIRE released the Cougar it was just another good Cat name for a Cataraft.  Now, it is hilarious and we just can't keep the cougar innuendoes out of the conversation here at AIRE.   

Due to an overwhelming amount of customer requests, we will be reproducing a limited run of 2011 Cougars. This cataraft was a true AIRE classic, which was discontinued sometime ago. The boaters have made their point clear and we need to give them what they want: Some Cougar Action!

The Cougar is truly a formidable big water craft. Due to its unique “quad-tube” design, the Coug has many strong performance attributes. With a shallow draft, low profile, great tracking, über-stable platform and unmatched load capacity, this boat has much to offer. This cat has proven its excellence worldwide, including traversing the class V North Fork Payette, hauling large game in wild Alaska and acting as a cozy vehicle for Grand Canyon expeditions.

We will only be releasing a limited pack of Cougars into the wild this coming season. This Cat Boat can be ordered through a dealer in any standard AIRE colors.  It can be ordered by itself, or as a package with a frame. However, it will be necessary to do this before March 31, 2011!  The Cougars will be all done up in April and ready to get wet by the first week of May. The Cougar with the frame is $3999.99 and just the Cougar tubes are $3399.99. 

 

Get your Cougar Order in with a Dealer today!

Peace,

Sheena, Tyler and the rest of the AIRE gang

P. S.  Be watching for fun Cougar promotions and maybe even a Cougar Calendar!

 

 

 

Late Season, Low Water Inflatable Kayaking… Anyone?

Devon Barker is a rippin' pro kayaker and does the human race proud with her positive outlook on life. We at AIRE all got a kick out of this write up when she sent it to us about a month ago.  When I asked her if I could post the story to our blog she said, "You bet you can use the write up and photos...Thanks a million millions."  

Here is her write up  ~ enjoy!

 

"Late Season, Low Water Inflatable kayaking… anyone?
 
Ten years ago you would most likely finding me overnighting in my IK on the Selway, Owyhee, Big Creek or any low volume, remote creek accessible by plane.  I bought an IK as it was much easier to fly in small planes in the Idaho backcountry than it was with my creek boat.  Today, you will usually find me on a surfwave, but a few days ago I put in on the South Fork of the Salmon River at the confluence of the Secesh and the East Fork of the Salmon River with my brother, Jon.  
 


This was a spur of the moment trip as my brother called at 2:30 pm suggesting we should go paddle but he had no gear.  He just stepped out of a meeting in Boise, Idaho and said, “Let’s go, call the plane, and can I borrow some gear?” I outfitted him in my women’s NRS paddling gear.  He stopped at Sub Way for our food and I scrambled to find gear, a shuttle drive, a dog sitter, and book a flight before 5 pm all in route to going paddle at Kelly’s Whitewater Park.  We left this next morning at 6:30 with my friend Carolyn driving shuttle.
 
The South Fork is a great run with more than a dozen class 4 rapids at 2.1 feet.  The gauge is http://waterdata.usgs.gov/id/nwis/current/?type=flow  The reading is above the Secesh and the East Fork so we estimated we had about 600 cfs, 32 miles, and 43 fpm.  I have paddled this run down to .5 feet and as high as 5.5 feet.  If you are looking for a fall trip this is a must do.
 


There are only four named rapids with a fifth, No Name, in between but there are tons of great rapids the entire run.  Devils Creek is the first larger rapid.  We came upon a black bear and her cub playing on the beach after exiting one of the many boulder choked rapids.  The granite boulders loom above you as you thread between their passages.  As you reach the confluence with the Salmon River take the sneak around the island to the right and eddy hop up to MacKay Bar airstrip.
 
A somewhat easier trip is the Selway River after permit season ends August 1st.  Flying into Shear airstrip is my favorite as you paddle most of the river.  Moose Creek is great as well but the haul to the river is much longer.   A 206 can usually take 3 paddlers and IKs.  Or it can take 2 creek boat and 2 people but you have to let the pilot know before you fly as they usually have to take out the co-pilot seat & take out the back bulk head to accommodate creek boats.  Then passengers all sit on the left behind the pilot.  This has to be done before they leave the airport so if you are flying the take-out don’t forget to do this ahead or you will be stuck at the air strip.


 
Wanting to flying in small planes began in high school as my ski coaches owned McCall Air Taxi and flew all over the back country. Mike Dorris understood when I called him up late season to fly my shuttles.  The flight out of MacKay Bar was exhilarating but a little bumpy. Twenty-five minutes later I stepped out of the plane in McCall, my home and the SF my backyard.  Do you have two days?  Come paddle the SF, I’ll join you!
Devon"

A Theory on Utahans and a Little More About the Wave Destroyer

The drizzly rain turned to snow as we rounded the muddy corner down to the Boundary Creek put-in.  It was an early Spring morning, I had a good caffeine buzz in my veins and despite the snow, I was actually feeling a little relieved.  Relieved that the old Jeep was able to get from Boise to the put-in with a heavy trailer full of gear, relived that the cold weather was holding off the inevitable high water season on the Middle Fork of the Salmon and relieved to be out of the office.   

 After three years with AIRE,  I’m little embarrassed to admit that this particular Middle Fork trip was my very first time rowing a Cataraft.  (Heresy, I know.) With a background in paddle guiding and kayaking, I had never taken the opportunity to row a Cat, or row much at all really. 

Put-ins are, by nature, a pain and specifically designed to suck the patience right out of you, the Boundary Creek put-in is no exception.  Yet, on this particular morning I was more focused on the beautiful red Wave Destroyer then on the two inches of mud I was standing in to rig up my light load.   As the boat and I were belayed down the world’s steepest ramp, I thought to myself, “It will be ok if you flip this trip, you are new at catarafting, people flip all the time. You have warm gear on, it will be ok”.  

 We had arrived at the put-in early in the morning with the intention of getting a few miles covered, that intention was slowly dashed out.  Some of our crew decided to take, what they thought was a short cut trail that was marked, “don’t take this trail” after parking the vehicles.  (This further confirmed my theory that the good people of Utah sometimes have a hard time paying attention to details. I first came up with this theory when I did a repair return for a very nice Utah man who, somehow, managed to run over his wifes kayak with a lawn mower). Hours later, after they scrambled around the other side of the ridge in neoprene booties and after we had sent the forest rangers to look for them, they finally came trudging down the trail to the put-in.  I was going to unleash my red-headed rage on them, but they looked like a bunch of starving wet cats, so I saved the red-head for the river.   We did one mile that first day, they did the dishes that night.  

 The Middle Fork was flowing around 4-5 feet (thank you, oh great river gods) and the Wave Destroyer was awesome.  My first few miles were spent fumbling with the oars and trying to reposition the seat so I could row and have somewhere to put my feet.  As I was thrashing around, the Cataraft just floated over everything. 

Instead of rowing really hard as I drop into the meat of Velvet Falls, I froze and thought, “here is my flip”, after a few seconds of side surfing the Wave Destroyer spit right out, upright, much to my surprise.  I manage to completely miss the move in Tappen Falls and, well, went into the hole sideways, again I made it out upright.  My rowing skills and confidence improved daily and the Wave Destroyer performed as if I was a seasoned pro.   By the last day of the trip, the rain let up, the sun broke out and I was able to put that boat where I wanted it, styling the lines and taking big hits. 

This Cataraftn’ rookie didn’t find herself in the icy spring runoff that trip, not because of skill, but because of the meticulous engineering that went into the design of the Wave Destroyer…(and the river not getting stupid huge).  

Peace,

Sheena 

 

 

 

 

The DEMO Sale List is Posted!

Check out our demo boat sale list.  If you see a boat you would like to purchase, give your local or favorite dealer a call to place the order.

 
Peace,

Sheena

The Demo Sale is Coming

We have been madly air testing, cleaning and getting our demo boats ready for sale.  Be watching the specials page on Wednesday, Sept. 15th for the list!

Peace,

Sheena

We've got the situation "Handled"

Raft handles have been a bit of a sore subject here at AIRE.  Three years ago we thought we had come up with a good looking, comfortable, functional handle for our rafts and catarafts.   We were mistaken.  They were marginal at best and to make matter worse, they were particularly hard to replace and that makes for a grouchy repair department.  

   
 
  

 The customer feedback was unanimous, something had to be done!  There was a *battle between the Sales and Engineering departments.  It was fought with dirty looks, swords, passive aggressiveness, and an incident with a forklift.  After the dust settled, a new handle emerged victorious. 

  

 We could all agree on this handle because:

• The boat owner can replace his/her bad handles (thou, we would still be more then happy to do it for you if you want to send it in)
• It didn’t look cheesy or make the boat look cheep.
• We could easy change all our new boats to this new handle mid-season.
• It was more durable in a tear test.
• It is still relatively comfortable.
• We have received some positive feedback from Outfitters.

 If your grey handles are falling apart and you don’t want to hassle sending your boat to one of our service centers, shoot us an email to info@aire.com.  Include a picture of your bad handles and your boat serial number so we can send you the handle replacements.   

Instruction are posted here and under the Installation and Repair Tips tab on the www.aire.com website. A new video on handle replacement is in the works are should be posted shortly.  

 *no staff was injured during the production of this handle.  Well…not seriously injured.

 Peace,

 Sheena