The Design and Development of the Liquidlogic Stomper Creek Boat

Initial Stomper Model before Gelcoat

Its been a while since we (Liquidlogic) introduced a new extreme boat design.  I mean what are you going to do next, once you have the Jefe as your go to creek boat?  The answer is that we have done nothing for 6 years.  Few other creek boats have come close to the respect and accomplishments of that which has been normal and expected of the Jefe series.  So we came at this project with the knowledge that it was going to take a special boat to accompany the Jefe in our line as a legitimate design.  Let alone we have to face our team of paddlers when we say we are going to come out with a new boat.  John Grace, Tommy Hileke, Evan Garcia, and Adriene Levckencht are not gonna just let us come out with an average kayak as the next great thing.  They want it to be something special.

Pretty!!

What we have come up with through lots of encouragement from paddlers all over the world is  The Stomper series.  Where the Jefe plugs and tracks The Stomper spins and carves.  The Stomper is an integration of the Jefe and the Remix.  It has an amazing combination of speed, and carving, with an added sense of confidence inspired stability and comfort.  The Stomper design is all about finding an ability to skip though big holes, maneuvering in technical water, and giving paddlers something they have never experienced in an LL design, a flat hulled creek boat.

Jefe on the Left, Early Stomper 80 proto on the right

This is the beginning of the story of its development.  Some of it is pretty and full of perfect lines... however some of its development is dark and horrible.  When you reach beyond, outside your comfort zone you find edges, and darkness.  When you decide to design a creek boat to compliment one of the greatest creek boat designs ever you have quite a task ahead of you.  The road is not clear however the testing is a lot of fun.  My desire is to post over the next two months a complete story of the development of the Stomper.

Adriene Stomping "Go Left" at 25"... Thats really really high!

The Stomper will be sold in two models.
Stompers will be shipping in Late July and August!!
I suggest you ask your dealer to get a demo in immediately.

Here are the basic specs.

Stomper 80
8'2" Long
25 3/4" Wide
15" Tall
110- 210 Paddler Weight
80 gallons
XL Cockpit

Stomper 90
8'6" Long
26 3/4" Wide
16" Tall
170- 270 Paddler Weight
90 gallons
XL Cockpit

Retail Price will be $1099

Here is to the hype!

And here is the slideshow of a bunch of photos.


Cheers
Shane

Giant Slalom on the Green River

Jeff "Freight Train" Payne givin'er

This is my favorite form of racing on whitewater.  I love the technical nature of paddling harder rapids with gates hung that make you paddle places you might not have or even wanted to paddle necessarily.  In fact setting the gates makes a rapid that you may have paddled a hundred times a totally different problem because you have to look at it and paddle it in a different way.

Checking out the lines

Gate 1:  Go over drop backwards to the left,  Go into the parking garage on the right.

John set up a great course on a river that most of us know so well we can point out one inch water level differences on just about any section of the river.  The fact that he set up some moves that many of us had never done before was awesome.  Let me give you a run down.

Adriene focused in on Gate 1

The starting point itself was somewhat unknown.  The race started just below the Pencil Sharpener drop in a crack in the rocks.  Many of us have started here a time or two but its very unusual.  The thing that makes it more unusual is that its 5 strokes from there that you are dropping through the notch of Gorilla and headed for the first gate.

Yours truly feeling good about first gate little did I know what would happen next.

The first gate is the one that had every competitor focused, and a little nervous.  It was hanging in an eddie.  No big deal right?  The only problem is that this eddie was 3 strokes from the top of a big drop that lands on rocks, between rocks, and finishes in a river wide hole.  Top that with the fact that rumored changes in the currents around the drop that is Gorilla were leading to many creative lines including numerous backwards runs through out the spring and summer so far.  It was awesome to watch the focus come over every ones face at the start line.

Nice race bib rescue by Nate.  Thanks!


The next gate was the one that evaded the most paddlers.  It was placed just downstream of the speed trap below Gorilla and near the right hand wall.  The current coming out the hole is pushing hard into the eddie on the left thus making hitting this gate on the fly very difficult and nearly impossible to get from the eddie if you miss it the first time.  This gate lead to my demise on my first run.  I came off the drop in perfect position to move towards the right side of the hole and thus stay right as I came through the hole, but just as I was hitting the hole I angled a little too much to the right and the hole stopped me dead.  I had a millisecond to try to pull through but I didn't get a good stroke then I felt myself dropping back into the hole.  I tried to line it up for a good back ender that usually pushes you out of the hole.  I was hoping it would also drive me towards the gate just below but my freestyle background kicked in by accident and I threw my body back more like a loop than an ender and unfortunately I stuck it and proceeded to side surf, do another end, and then get pushed up against the wall where I gave up while face surfing and flailing roll attempts.  At any rate this gate was tough and in a second many paddlers were given 50 second penalties for missing the gate.  I was given a good solid ounce of humility.

Heres the beat down video from John Grace and LVM.

Shane Benedict caught in a rare moment of carnage from Lunch Video Magazine on Vimeo.

Now after a little set back like that there are a couple ways it can go.  It can all go down hill from there or you pick yourself up and go for it again.  First of all I was bummed because I knew I could have done well in this type of event.  After the down river part of the race I was in 4th and I knew my strengths were in the Giant Slalom.  So that was a bummer and of course I was not that psyched about swimming at all but after getting it back together I knew I had to go back up there to do my second run and see if I could actually make it to the bottom of the course :).  I was tired from the swim and my arms still felt the stress from the down river race.  So sitting at the top of the race course and looking back down the throat of the notch was not very high on my list of things I wanted to do but it was that thought of knowing it was something that I could do that gave me calm in that moment.  My second run went very well and it ended up tying for one of the  fastest runs of the slalom course.  


Here is the video of the 2nd run.





Shane Benedict cleaning up his run #2 in 2010 Giant Slalom. from Lunch Video Magazine on Vimeo.



That was a good feeling. 

So it was a crazy day.  The excitement of competition.  The nerves of challenge.  The expectations of performance.  The failure.  The dose of humility. The challenge of refocus and finally the contentment of pushing through.  It was a great day.  A different day than most but a great day.

Adriene coming into Gate 3.  You can see Gate 1 and 2 behind Lil A.

The Scream Machine gate, gate 3, was placed further left than most people run that drop.  It wasn't a scary spot but it did make for some shaky runs down Nies'.  The fast line was to go left of the gate then use the pillow currents on the left shore to push you across to the river right line at Nies' which lines you up for the 4th gate below the boof on the right of Nies'. 

Toby "Budget" McDermott riding Frankenjefe III into Gate 4.


The 5th gate was all the way on the river left side of the river from gate 4.  The tricky part about this gate was that it was possible to hit it while going downstream but it was very tight and only a couple people were able to clean that line.  It was much easier to clean going upstream from the eddie but the trade off was the speed downstream.

Sprinkle, smooth as ever, trying to sneak by the tricky Gate 5

After the 5th gate we had to drop down through Power Slide and keep it lined up for a tiny finish gate between the rocks in the middle of the river.  This proved to be one of the hardest parts of the course where numerous paddlers spent 20 or 30 seconds trying to line up the final move to stop their time. 

Dropping into the final move

Great day with great folks on the river.

There was also a sprint race as the start of this event.  Which seeded everyone for the slalom portion of the event.  We raced from Big Hungry (the put in) down to Chiefs' rapid.  It was about a 10 minute race and it was brutal.  The scores from the two slalom runs were 50% of the score and the sprint race was 50% to make the placings for the entire event.   Congrats to Pat for paddling beautifully and winning the event.


The entire results are here. 

 LVM Green River Giant Slalom Results

Here are a bunch of shots from the event.  Thanks Betsy!

Thanks for pulling me out of the drink Nate!
Shane

The Pilgrimage to Oh Be Joyful Creek

Oh Be Joyful creek is a pilgrimage for paddlers every year.  It has all the makings of mecca for paddlers.  If the season in the Crested Butte valley were a couple months longer there would be 100s of paddlers moving in for the summer but because the season is only a few weeks long it has the feeling of a carnival camp with new members rolling in daily and a frantic pace of paddling and partying up and down the valley.   Camp itself is an awesome scene.  Its a beautiful spot directly at the base of the Oh Be watershed with the Slate River flowing by.  Just upstream is Daisy creek and up the valley from camp is a fantastic view of the mountains of Gunnison National Forest and the snow pack that promises the next days adventures.

If you haven't paddled continuous fast pace stuff your first time on Oh Be can be disconcerting at best.  As you walk up the run, earning every turn, you see lots of slides and fast paced whitewater.  The 9,000 foot elevation makes the eddies look very small and the holes look bigger but as the light headedness dissipates and the first run is under your belt the butterflies calm and you become more comfortable.  Most folks do a few laps on the first walk up from camp.  Two things happen during the session.  You as a paddler get more comfortable and the river begins to rise.  The morning runs are often a little bonier and the evening runs can get downright juicy.  And as the paddlers come down off the mountain side the excitement is intense.  The stories are of all kinds.  First timers are jacked with adrenaline and excited about how fast and long the last slides are or how sick their line off the big drop was.  There is goodness for the old pros and the setting itself is different from just about any river you will ever paddle.  There are stories of whoa from missed lines, tortured gear, and drowned vehicles that didn't quite make the trip across the Slate river.  This year in the first 36 hours we were in the area 3 vehicles were stuck in the river while trying to cheat the hike up to the put in.  I did climb into one rig that was stuck mid river to have dinner and a couple shots.  It was a pleasant mid river camp spot but expensive I think.

The Glorious Ride Across in the Morning.

The Unfortunate Aftermath in the Evening

Even putting in on OBJ is a different experience.  You have a couple choices.  One option is to put in above a drop called Ankle Breaker which is fun but it does land in 3 feet of water (not many people do this).  The other option is to put in, I kid you not, 15 feet and 4 to 5 paddle strokes above a good 15 foot drop that they call the 18 footer.  Fortunately you are well warmed up and light headed from the hike up the valley, or holler as we call it here in the Appalachians.  From there the river is pretty much non stop with small eddies and lots of willows overhanging the banks.  We coined a new phrase this time up..."willow turns".  There are times instead of doing eddie turns you have to do a "willow turn" to stop and set safety.  Here are a few shots and a slide show as well as a link at the bottom to 100 shots of our stay at Oh Be Joyful.

Cheers
Shane

Put In Above the "18 Footer"

The 18er

The 8 footer

Grace Stylin' the Big One

Headed back to Camp

Road Prong and West Prong of the Little Pigeon in my Liquidlogic Remix 79

Hiking up the trail to the Road Prong

Sunday evening the rain started at my house.  Early morning Monday a hard driving rain woke me up.  I called in sick? well? What ever.  It was raining and everything was running.  Andrew, Adriene and I met up at the classic Cracker Barrel meet point and headed over the mountains to the Knoxville side of the Smokies. West Prong was the chosen run.  We figured it would be high but we could wait for it to drop in to a better level.  

Classic Smokey's Low Volume

When we got to the gauge for the West Prong and it was over 2 feet and since none of us knew the run that well we decided not to jump on at what even the locals call very high.  We went to the put in and ran over to check out a large tributary, Road Prong.  You can get all the info for this run here.

https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/detail/id/2971/

Road Prong is a hike up run so you earn your turns.  You actually hike right up from the put in for the West Prong.  I hadn't ever run this section before so I was pretty excited to go.  The water was low but we had a great time.  Lots of quick boulder pile, classic Smoky Mountain paddling with some wood involved.

Go slowly, drop over the ledge sideways, dodge log with head and paddle, land on rock, surf out of small hole.  Yep thats the line.

After finishing off the Road Prong at 5:30 in the evening we jumped on the West Prong and headed down.  The water was still nice and juicy and the minute we touched it we knew we were on a completely different run.  I don't know that we had 200 cfs in the Road Prong, but the West Prong was pumping some fun volume through its river bed.  My guess would be around 500 or 600 cfs but I don't have any idea really.  Here is the info on the West Prong.

https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/detail/id/2969/

The action was non stop.  Andrew nor I knew any names so it was funny to run into Howard Tidwell, hes about as local as it gets, and learn that just about everything had a name and most of the names we had heard in stories before.  We did stop quite a bit to make sure things were good to go.  I also stopped paddling upright so that I could work on my roll.  By the time we got the the takeout I was ready and we were pretty much done with day light.  Awesome awesome day out there.

Can't wait to do it again and know some of the names and cut down on the roll practice.

Later

Shane

Looking downstream into perfect evening light with lots of fluffy water all around.

A Mini Epic on the Snow Covered Green River

Adriene and I joined a good crew from Charlotte for an awesome mini epic on the Green during the snow storm that hit Western North Carolina last weekend. We had as much as 24" of snow in the mountains and down on the Green River we had about 10 and in all my time living in the area I had never been on the river when there was lots of snow. So even though the small roads were impassable we were determined to get out on the river. I was able to get out of my neighborhood and Adriene and I were able to meet the other folks at the exit for the takeout of the Green and run shuttle to that point. We drove back to my house and walked a couple miles down into the river and paddled out to the take out of the Narrows. The walk out was the tough part but after 1 1/2 hours we were at the top thanks to Holly delivering tasty beverages.

All totaled:
2 1/2 mile walk in.
7 miles of river
2 miles walking out straight up the mountain.

Heres the Video.


Snowy Day on the Green from Shaneslogic on Vimeo.


Have a great holidays everyone and I hope you are getting out there.
Shane

The Drought Is Over... 19" on the Green

19

It is good to be in the "South" again. After a few years of drought the South is on the rise again. Before the Green Race Duke Power had started trying to draw down the lake so our flat water bretheren could work on their docks, and clean the algae from their foundations but we started getting rain, wetness, and we have really been enjoying a great fall and winter. As soon as they announced the draw down Duke has been behind the 8 ball. The lake has been nearly full to spilling ever since the race. Today the river was flowing over the dam at 100.5, which means there is 6" of water flowing over the damn and with the 1" plus of rain we had last night the river is cranking. When we got to the gauge it was reading a solid 19". Which is an awesome level because there are some really fun lines that open up with the higher level. There are also some holes and pushy current that come into play as well.

We had a great crew. Toby "budget" McD, Riley Cathcart, Adriene Loveconnect, Mr. Brookes, and myself. It was one of those days that if you woke up early and slightly wimpy feeling you wouldn't go kayaking. Luckily we all saw the rain and slept in to find clearing skies and high waters in the afternoon."Budget" fired up the Monkey and we all conveniently found our way down the left side of the river to "set rope" and "document" Toby firing it up.

This is what is looks like at 19"

This is what it looks like normally. Thanks original photo person.

This is Rob Rostermundt dropping in at a normal flow.

Good indicators are the rock above this guy on the left that backs up the notch eddie. Notice in Tobys shot how there is no rock. Its a little tough to tell but there is sooooo much more power in this spot when the water is high. Gorilla beomes so much more when the water is high. Not only is the Notch sort of a nightmare spot in the world but the slides below start to form large... no wait giant holes and Toby found his way into on of them. Luckily he worked his way out.

This hole not only stopped Toby it pulled him back from a good 15 feet downstream. He kept his head together and worked his way out of the hole and cleaned the second slide so that he could make his way into "the happy place".

Another fun line at high water out on the Green is the direct Sunshine line. When the water is high you don't have to worry about the rock that makes Sunshine the nighmare rapid that it can be a normal flows. Normally if you mess up the boof you could be paying with your ankles or more. But nicely at high water you can just air it out right down the middle.

After a nice day like that what more do you want than a nice dinner. So in a fine southern tradition I decided to fry me some catfish.

YUM!

Later

Shane

The Green Race Part 2: Race Day Saturday!

From Green Race Saturday

Once again the Green Race comes and once again I am blown away by how cool it is. Just think, a thousand people walked in more than an hour to watch a 130 or so paddlers giver a go for almost no prizes, no money, no chics, and very very little fame. Its all about a perfect weekend giving it everything you got, hanging with friends, and enjoying the whole thing. The weekend began with folks rolling in for the race. My house was full. Old friends, new friends, some spoke english some didn't, but everyone enjoyed a perfect November weekend in the mountains of North Carolina.

From Green Race Saturday

This event is actually becoming a full on real life tradition. Someday soon there is going to be someone that races on the Green that is younger than the race itself and in extreme racing thats a very big statement. In the photo above you see Polk Dieters (Green Race Vet) with his son Scout checking out his lines for the future.

This year we had all the action and still hardly any injuries (knock on wood). We had the classic nightmares of paddlers of the Green... Numero uno, Swimming over the drop. We also had nightmare numero dos going over upside down. Throw in a couple backwards runs and a few swims, and pitons and you have an action packed day of whitewater racing. The most severe injuries were imparted by the rocks on shore to the asses of folks trying to navigate the throngs watching the festivities, and the punishing blows to the egos of a few of us racers. Nothing a little ice, ibu, and alcohol won't take care of, as far as I know.

From Green Race Saturday

From Green Race Saturday

From Green Race Saturday

For me race day is a blurr of organizing friends and racers, making sure my spray skirt is in the van and remembering that I am actually racing. We all line up for the photo and then all of the sudden its all about you and the river. Everybody else is focused on their runs and you are left with your thoughts while you gear up and walk down to the river. The thoughts for each of us range from hopes to realities and hopes to fears. The walk to the river is quiet and a little lonely. The paddle down to the start line is focused. We are all feeling ourselves out, warming up, and trying to quiet the nerves. The funny thing is that once I got near the start line my butterflies started to go away. There were 50 paddlers fluttering around the starting rocks so the banter was quick and excited. Its a good feeling. We are all ready to go.

From Green Race Saturday

Little did we know that it would be the "Speed Trap" that would be dishing out the punishment.
It may not have been as scary or dreaded but spinning around caught in the corner of the Trap was a nightmare for all of us racers and this year it was in high form. It created a couple swims, crushed a few race dreams, and sapped the will out of a few that had to deal with its grip I know I watched several paddlers go from slight disappointment, to focus, to desperation as their attempts to exit the "trap" failed. Ross Herr even celebrated after getting past this obstacle.

From Green Race Saturday

Once you have finished your race run there is an amazing rush that goes through you. It takes a minute or two to get past the exhaustion of the race but soon the adrenaline pushes past and everyone is smiling and patting you on the back as you walk up through the crowd to Gorilla. Folks are offering you beers and all your buds are just as jacked as you are. Its a awesome feeling.

The paddle out from the race is something that is hard to explain. If you are doing the hike its like that except we are all pretty psyched to be paddling together. The loneness of paddling the race on your own is gone and everyone is just having a good time. A new tradition has been born in the last few years and thats the Southern Cross at Sunshine rapid. Pick a buddy and cross paths. One goes left and one goes right.

From there on out its all smiles, jokes, and happiness. And then theres a party.
The photos may just speak for themselves.

From Green Race Saturday

From Green Race Saturday

From Green Race Saturday

From Green Race Saturday

Congrats to all the racers. What a showing. No we have to say that on Green Race day there was somebody spanking the monkey every minute for nearly 3 hours. Wow you all rock! Andrew you are an animal. Adriene you have set a new standard for women paddlers on this river. Same goes for you Sprinkle and thanks to all the folks that paddle the LL boats. I think we are on to something. 3 out of the top 4 is damn good. Next time maybe we get that top spot in men's as well.

Thanks to Johnny Floor and the Wrong Crowd and DJ Clay? for the awesome music.

Huge huge huge thanks to Woody, Sarah, Tim, John, Jason, Chelsea, Cribbs, Perry, and many many others for making this event happen.
And thanks Boyce the Stinger is fast.

From Green Race Saturday

Here is the whole slide show of my favorite shots.
Shane