Borrowing a line from Field of Dreams, the Nantahala Outdoor Center gears up this week for the 2012 NOC Freestyle Shootout April 20-22, the first official freestyle event to be held at the newly built Nantahala Wave, designed for the upcoming 2013 ICF Canoe Freestyle World Championships... Read more.

Fearless: One Woman, One Kayak, One Continent is the story of Freya Hoffmeister, a 46-year-old former sky diver, gymnast, marksman and Miss Germany contestant, who paddled alone and unsupported 9,420 miles around Australia in an adventure that virtually every expert guaranteed would get her killed. She was determined not only to survive the trip through huge, shark- and croc-infested seas, but to do it faster than Paul Caffyn, the only other paddler to have completed the circuit, 27 years earlier. PL catches up with author Joe Glickman... Read more.

Existing whitewater festivals throughout the country will get a new dose of SUP added to their line-ups this year. Boardworks recently announced a new 2012 Show Up and Blow Up SUP Demo Tour, featuring a fully stocked caravan of pros and boards touring the country offering free SUP demos, races, clinics and more... Read more.

Looking for warmer weather and more dependable river flows, the Reno River Fest has moved its dates forward a month--to the exact same weekend as FIBArk. Read more.

A new program launched by American Rivers, the nation’s leading river conservation organization, is helping local businesses and outfitters connect with customers and join the effort to protect rivers and clean water... Read more.

While last year’s flooding in New England had area rivers at near-record highs, a pentathlon did so to heart rates this year at the Zoar Outdoor Center in late March... Read more.

You want this guy on your canoe team. On March 12, Hungarian Gabor Rakonczay became the first person to single-handedly canoe (yes, with a single blade) across the Atlantic, taking 76 days to paddle from Portugal to Antigua... Read more.

Yvon Chouinard can have his Let My People Go Surfing book. Thanks to longtime paddler, author and wilderness adventurer Alan Kesselheim, paddlers now have Let Them Paddle, his latest book on revisiting rivers with his three children that they unknowingly floated a decade and a half earlier as fetuses. PL checks in with the author... Read more.

With the introduction of the new Kayak Angler series of paddles, Bending Branches has raised the bar for paddle manufacturers yet again. These angler specific paddles excede all expectations. Read more.

First it was Savage Designs. Then Riot Kayaks. Now industry stalwart Corran Addison is moving on from the third company he’s founded in the paddlesports arena, this time leaving stand-up paddleboard company Imagine Surf. Read more.

A few more kids might be getting wet than normal this paddling season, thanks to a new series of grants offered by Outdoor Nation. The group recently announced the 13 winners of its Paddle Nation Project, aimed at connecting young Americans with their waterways through recreational paddling... Read more.

Small World Adventures, which runs uber-sweet kayaking trips in Ecuador from its lodge on the banks of the Quijos River, is entering a new chapter with the sale of Small World and Cabanas Tres Rios lodge to Guy Erb, of Spokane, Wash. Erb plans on joining the SWA team for the 2012/2013 season and is leaving the structure of the staff, trips and logistics the same. Having been there to sample its first-class whitewater wares, PL checks in... Read more.

Paddlers give up water? A tall order, perhaps, but that’s what Teva is asking paddlers to do on the eve of the 19th annual World Water Day... Read more.

Who would think that a kayak fisher like Jim Sammons would wind up on NBC? Yet that's where Heliconia Press has landed the angler in a new TV series airing on the peacock channel... Read more.

Talk about throwing down when you need to. At this past weekend’s Pan American Championships in Foz do Iguassu, Brazil, with the U.S.’s sole C-1 and C-2 London Olympic spots on the line, U.S. paddlers Eric Hurdand and Jeff Larimer took first in the Men’s C-2 final, and Benn Fraker took home the Gold medal in Men’s C-1, ensuring the U.S. will have Olympians in both the C-1 and C-2 categories at the London 2012 Summer Games. Read more.

Finalists have been announced for the 4th Annual MillerCoors River Network Grant Contest, which will award more than $55,000 in grants to local watershed protection groups. Read more.

Legally blind Canadian sea kayaker Doug Pace plans to paddle the length of the Mississippi River, unassisted, to raise money for blindness. Read more.

The international Reel Paddling Film Festival is on the road again, bringing some of the top paddling films in the world in nine categories to more than 100 cities. Read more.

While the Aussies won the team event (and coveted Club Waikiki Trophy) of the inaugural ISA World StandUp Paddleboard Championships in Lima, Peru, two U.S. SUP gals helped the U.S. secure a second-place finish. Emmy Merrill, 18, ripped her way to first place in the women’s SUP surfing final with a point score of 15.94, and Brandi Baksic swept the women’s marathon. Read more.

A trio of paddlers is banding together to raise money for global peace through competitive endurance paddling. PL checks in with founder Dwanye VanHoose... Read more.

Kayakers tackling Class V Gore Canyon on the Colorado might soon be bringing playboats on their racks as well as creekers. Grand County is planning to build a whitewater park on the Colorado River below Gore Canyon, just above Pumphouse and at Inspiration Point. But the movement needs paddlers' help by March 7... Read more.

The Green River's whitewater canyon Gates of Lodore and the popular fishing stretches upstream in Brown's Park have at least had a water flow stay of execution with FERC recently dismissing the initial permit application for pipeline project that would pull water out of the Flaming Gorge Dam upstream... Read more.

$27,500 can buy a lot of shuttle gas money. Or, it can buy you a stand-up paddleboard. That was the price tag for the world's most expensive SUP, a Jimmy Lewis-designed board which recently sold an auction as a benefit for the Everglades Foundation in Palm Beach, Florida... Read more.

A four-acre land donation from a resident of Friendsville, Md., should mean a permanent, safe, and convenient takeout for the Upper Youghiogheny this spring. The land is large enough for a 125-car parking lot with room for expansion. Read more.

Starkell is probably best known for his World Record two-year and 20,000-kilometer canoe trip from Winnipeg, MB, to Belém, Brazil. Don and his sons Dana and Jeff set out on June 1, 1980. Although only Don and Dana finished the journey, they arrived in Belém on May 2, 1982 after surviving alligators, piranhas, drug smugglers, pirates, food poisoning, hurricanes, and their own personal relationship issues. Read more.

The extreme sea kayaking world lost one of its most ardent pioneers with the recent passing of Eric Soares, a founding member of California’s Tsunami Rangers, a kayaking club specializing in big-wave feats along the rocky California coast. Soares died unexpectedly on Feb. 1 at age 58... Read more.

What would you do if you were an extreme boater living Down Under in New Zealand and vying for a spot on the Olympic Slalom team to compete this summer in London? If you’re Teva team member Mike Dawson, you hang up gates on a flooding Class V Kaituna to train on perhaps the toughest slalom course in the world... Read more.

In 2009 Freya Hoffmeister—a 46-year-old former sky diver, gymnast, marksman, and Miss Germany contestant—paddled alone and unsupported 9,420 miles around Australia, breaking Paul Caffyn’s record set 27 years earlier. Now she’s at it again, this time nearly 150 days into her expedition to circumnavigate South America alone and unsupported. Click on for clips from her blog, which include surviving three brutal days on a deserted pile of rock called Isla Deceit while scratching her way to Cape Horn... Read more.

In the search for their newest Team Rider, Shred Ready was accepting video. While hundreds of stout paddlers submitted footage, only one, Jordan Byrum would join the team. Read more.

In this installment, USACK member Benn Fraker arrives in Australia to begin his training for the London Games. Who knew the training involved cliff jumping? Read more.

First Descents, a non-profit founded by Brad Ludden that provides free outdoor adventure experiences for young adults battling cancer, is taking its programs international with new offerings from Peru to Costa Rica... Read more.

Sure, Freya Hoffmeister might have circum-navigated Australia. We’d like to see her keep up with the exploits of Australian Tanya Faux. This spring, Faux, a longtime creek and rodeo competitor and Australia’s2008 Adventurer of the Year, is leading a group of eight women into one of Australia’s most rugged and remote areas: a 30-day uncharted, unsupported, river exploration of the Kimberley region that aims to promote the Save the Kimberley campaign. Oh, and did we mention the Class V and crocs? Read more.

Okay, all you free-loading dirtbags. No more free lunch. It's permit season. So get off your duff and send in your applications for your favorite river trip instead of waiting to get asked along. Plus, that way you can invite who you want (which hopefully will include us). Here's all the info you need... Read more.

It’s blog time here at PL, with who else chiming in but PL friend and mono-blader Benn Fraker, at sixth the highest-placing U.S. finisher at the Beijing Olympics who just took off to the land of Aus for a two-month training stint in preparation for the Games in London this summer. Tune in for his semi-monthly reports from the field. But first, this primer so you can get to know him... Read more.

Crossing Canada from the Pacific Ocean to the Hudson Bay under your own power would be a gruel no matter how you slice it, never mind trying it in a canoe. But that’s what Pete Marshall, Winchell Delano and Steve Keaveny are planning with their Trans-Territorial Canoe Expedition from May through to September 2012. PL checks in to see how their planning is going... Read more.

More paddlers will name be able to claim they’re Okies, if not from Muskogee, at least from Oklahoma City. USA Canoe/Kayak, the national governing body for sprint and slalom, just moved its headquarters from Charlotte, N.C., to Oklahoma City. PL reports on the move, with a special Q&A with CEO Joe Jacobi... Read more.

Finally, the Nantahala River has a sweet play wave. The Nantahala Gorge Organizing Committee (NGOC) will celebrate the grand opening of its new 2013 Wave on Friday, December 16 with a ceremony, reception and paddling exhibition starting at 12pm. Read more.

River guides rejoice: finally a book you can all relate to. Former river guide Tom Mahony’s Flooding Granite (Casperian Books) details the plight of river guide Zack Pruitt, a college drop-out who abandoned his girlfriend and young son when things got tough and headed back to the Sierra Nevada to guide. But he gets more than he bargained for. PL catches up with the author for a quick Q&A, and gives it a thumbs-up for those jonesing for whitewater action this winter... Read more.

After much time watching guests struggle during unexpected whitewater swims, Hamish McMaster, 20 year whitewater veteran and owner of the International Whitewater Company, Water By Nature developed the leg floaty. Read more.

The poach-fest continues. On Nov. 28, Southeast kayakers Pat Keller, Isaac Levinson and Chris Gragtmans dropped previously unrun 90-foot Noccalula Falls in Alabama's city-owned Noccalula Falls Park, causing park officials to scratch their heads and re-evaluate city ordinances. Bonus: Steve Fisher chimes in on a local news outlet's blog... Read more.

Finally, some accolades for all those walrus attacks, kayak-dragging, freezing temps and kidney failures. After completing the first successful circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island this summer, kayakers Jon Turk and Erik Boomer have been recognized as National Geographic Adventurers of the Year for 2012. And you, as paddlers, can vote to help them win the coveted People’s Choice award... Read more.

Proud of your summer paddling feat? That’s peanuts compared to Nepal's Sano Babu Sunuwar and Lakpa Tsheri Sherpa’s Ultimate Descent, going from the highest place on earth to the sea in one continuous non-motorized descent, with kayaks playing the final role... Read more.

In the latest merger news in paddlesports, Emotion Kayaks of Pennsylvania has been sold to Lifetime Products of Clearfield, Utah. PL checks in with Emotion founder Tom Strauss for the lowdown... Read more.

Worried about tipping over on your SUP in whitewater? Boardworks and partner company Badfish of Salida, Colo., recently unveiled a new inflatable paddleboard that will do wonders to keep you on the surface where you belong. Read more.

Holy tie-fest. Marking an event with the most ties in its 16-year history, this year’s 16th annual Green Race on North Carolina’s Green River was once again as carnage- and competition-filled as ever, with Isaac Levinson winning the crown and coveted “Glass” trophy for the first time ever. And for the women, Adriene Levknecht three-peats with a new women’s course record of 4:57... Read more.

The Cuban Team finished on top of the medals table with nine medals, including four Golds, while the Canadians grabbed seven medals at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico. Led by Carrie Johnson with two golds, Team USA claimed the third position on the medals table, earning two starting positions at the London 2012 Olympic Games... Read more.

Ann Raiho and Natalie Warren have some blisters and a place in the record books, just becoming the first all-female team to ever paddle from Minneapolis to Hudson Bay... Read more.

For the second year, the Save the Colorado River Campaign Fund has made donations to 15 environmental groups up and down the basin – from Denver to Las Vegas to San Diego – to help protect and restore the Colorado River. The river’s water supplies are being stretched thin, and the river itself has been stretched beyond the breaking point. This year the Colorado River’s 5 trillion gallons of water were once again drained completely out and never reached the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. Read more.

The U.S. might be slaying it in the stand-up surf scene with the likes of Slater Trout, but when it comes to surf kayaking, Basque Country and the UK are barreling to the top of the line-up -- and podium. That’s how things played out, at least, at this year’s World Surf kayaking Championships, which recently wrapped up at North Carolina’s Outer Banks.... Read more.

In a sign that the paddlesports retail world is, if not riding a wave at least creating ripples, on October 22 the Nantahala Outdoor Center opened the doors of its groundbreaking experiential retail and outdoor activity concept shop, NOC Asheville, inside Asheville, N.C.'s The Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa.... Read more.

After nearly a century, Washington's White Salmon River in south central Washington is flowing freely again. Earlier today, a hole was blasted in the base of Condit Dam, and its reservoir - Northwestern Lake - began to pour through it. The reservoir is expected to be fully drained by sundown... Read more.

The International Whitewater Hall of Fame (IWHOF) moved to the banks of the South Fork American River Oct. 14-16 to honor members of the Class of 2011, including this year’s inductees: Explorer - Richard Bangs (USA); Champion - JP Burny (Belgium); and Advocate - Oliver Cock (UK)... Read more.

Who’s the paddler to beat in the extreme kayaking world? Twenty-three-year-old Sam Sutton from Rotorua, New Zealand, who once again demonstrated his dominance by winning the fifth annual adidas Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championship in Tirol, Italy, for the second year in a row (and getting to soak in a hot tub with Miss Tirol 2009)... Read more.

After three days of tight competition at the World Rafting Championships on Costa Rica’s Pacuare River, the Teva US men's and women's teams nab 7th, while Japan strokes to its first-ever world title. And PL was there for every dip of the blade... Read more.