The Klingon!

The new Klingon sprayskirt from Immersion Research replaced the popular SBD (Simple, But Dry) series and has clearly evolved from the earlier design. For those unfamiliar with this style of sprayskirt, it is a bungee skirt that sandwiches a flap of neoprene between the bungee and the cockpit rim. What was unique about the SBD (and continues to be so great with the Klingon) is the rubberized coating on the underside of the neoprene where it contacts the cockpit rim, which creates an impressively dry seal.


My first exposure to this design came a few years ago while gearing up at the put-in for the Gauley when a friend showed me the SBD design he was using on his playboat. As soon as he showed me the rubberized coating on the neoprene, the light bulb went off in my head. It was so obvious! The give of the neoprene, combined with the sealing ability of the rubber coating, would mate much better with the cockpit rim than skirts with a hard rubber rand or regular bungee skirts. I was sold… I ordered one for my playboat the following week.

(Little River Canyon, AL - photo by Cliff Knight)

As a Pyranha paddler, every boat in my fleet has the one screw on each thighbrace that sits right where the rubber rand of a skirt would seat against the cockpit rim. Once I started using the SBD on my playboat, difference in how dry my boat would be was remarkable. The harder rubber rand of the skirts that I had been using were not as malleable and therefore couldn’t seal against the screw the way the soft neoprene of the SBD/Klingon does. I was so impressed with how dry my new skirt was keeping my playboat, after a few months I ordered one to fit my creekboat and immediately started using it as my primary creeking skirt.

(Johnnies Creek, AL - photo by Drew Armstrong)

Last year I tore a sizable hole in my creeking skirt right around the time the SBD was upgraded to become the Klingon. Naturally, I upgraded as well and couldn’t be happier. The Klingon is easier to put on (especially when dry) and so far seems to be more durable (better reinforcement on the topside and a more durable rubber coating on the underside). The rubberized coating of these designs also makes them more implosion resistant than other bungee skirts because of the way it seals/sticks to the cockpit rim. Before the SBD, I had always used rubber rand skirts due to fears of implosion, but now use the Klingon with the same degree of confidence.

(Short Creek, AL)

Since switching to the Klingon, I’ve paddled lots of creeks, waterfalls, and a speedy (7-day) self support trip down the Grand Canyon. The Klingon has served me well under all of these conditions and it provides the driest fit of any skirt I’ve tried (especially for that tricky Pyranha thighbrace screw). In the spirit of fully testing this skirt, I’ve even tested the grab loop (twice!) and can fully testify to its functionality (but those are stories for another day). As with all IR skirts, it’s available in a full line of tunnel and deck sizes or it can be mated onto their drytops to create a custom drydeck (which I hope will be my next purchase!). Weather you’re playboating or creeking, anyone who prizes a dry boat should consider the Klingon as their next skirt.

Until Next Time…

Adam Goshorn

(Little River Canyon, AL - photo by Cliff Knight)

kayak session

Winter Weather Advisory

Typically December is great month to be a kayaker in Alabama. Frequent rainfall and mild temperatures usually result in lots of river days without much discomfort. However, December 2010 started out with a deep freeze that swept mercilessly across the southeastern United States. Alabama is typically around five to ten degrees warmer than the rest of the southeast paddling scene, but even here nighttime temperatures dipped into the single digits and daytime temperatures stayed below freezing for days on end.


What’s a paddler to do when the water is low and the weather is unkind? The same thing we do the rest of the year, of course! Go kayaking! The lack of rainfall has left many rivers too low, but Little River Canyon in the northeastern corner of Alabama remains runnable at quite low flows. A trip down Little River Canyon at higher flows is usually characterized by pushy water and big holes (lots of fun in its own right). However, at low flows it channelizes between the huge boulders and creates a run that is more the style of a low volume creek and is a local favorite when most other rivers in the region are too low.


The follow video features Little River Canyon at around 250 CFS. This is about the minimum flow that all the rapids can still be paddled, portage free. Although Terminal Eddy is often walked at such low flows (risk to reward ratio is a little off on that one). The video also features all the mandatory elements to EVERY paddling video you’ve EVER seen… sped up footage of the sky/shuttle/hiking, shameless gear plugs, slow-mo boofing, post credits bonus footage, and even a little carnage. Formulaic, I know, but there is a reason paddling videos follow such a predictable path, because paddlers like them that way.



Additional footage of winter paddling in Alabama is featured in latest issue of LVM, which is available now. See a preview and order LVM 35 “Love Thyself “ here.


Until Next Time…

-Adam Goshorn

Mexico Nostalgia

(Photo below by Leigh Knudsen)

For the last five years I have been lucky enough to spend the late fall/early winter in the magical paradise of eastern Mexico. The rivers that drain the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre Mountains boast beautiful turquoise water and a seemingly endless number of waterfalls. Abundant water, lots of drops, and sometimes challenging logistics are all part of what made the annual pilgrimage to Mexico such an adventure every year.

(Photo below by Kim Rudge)

However, early in the fall of 2010 as friends and I discussed a possible Mexico adventure for this year, the combination of security concerns and lack of funds led me to the decision not to go. Now that it is the time of year that I would normally spend south of the border and the great memories from all of the great trips in previous years are at the forefront of my mind. After five consecutive years, I thought

(Photo below by Kim Rudge)

I hope to restart my annual migration south at some point in the future, but for now I thought I would share my nostalgia through a few pictures from various years and a video from our 2007 journey. Our trip in 2007 was especially memorable because it included my first time running several rivers that quickly became some of my favorite in the region, including the Rio Verde, Rio Minas Viejas, and Rio Tamasopo.



Until next time…

-adam goshorn

(Photo below by Leigh Knudsen)

Alabama Awakening: Fall 2010

The fall of 2010 has been especially dry in the southeastern United States, leaving boaters to rely on dam release runs we waiting for the rains to return. For north Alabama, the fall of 2010 has been the exact opposite of the fall of 2009. In 2009 the rains came back in force in mid September and provided consistent natural flow into early June 2010. However, at the end of the first week of June, things dried up and there have been very few natural flow events since… until this week!


Early this week, northern Alabama received around four inches of rain over the course of two days. By Tuesday morning the ground was thoroughly saturated and the rain was still coming down in copious sheets. Despite the formerly low water table, rivers and creeks everywhere sprang to life. Flows in Little River Canyon went from 50 CFS to 8,000 CFS in less than a day. As the rivers emerged from there long hibernation, so did the network of boaters across the southeast. I think I received more calls, e-mails, and text about boating in two days than I did in the previous two months combined; everyone was beyond amped!


Leaving work a little after noon I met Cliff Knight at the put-in for Chinquapin Creek, AL. The classic section of Chinquapin drops a whopping 350 feet over only 0.75 miles as it falls into Little River Canyon. The last time I had paddled Chinquapin, I wondered about what the creek may contain in the couple of miles upstream of the traditional put-in. The gradient was milder, but the upper sections other local creeks all had favorable bedrock features so I had to wonder why no one had ever checked it out. Cliff and I debated for a few minutes before concluding that anything was worth doing once and the only way to really know what was there was to go paddle it!


My expectations were pretty low as we put on, but I couldn’t help but feel that excitement that always comes from paddling into the unknown. I love exploration and finding out what is around the next bend, especially when you really have no idea what you will find (in this situation, I was fully expecting to find a tree choked portage fest). As it turned out, we were presently surprised to find that Upper Chinquapin was a fun class III-IV run with no portages for wood. A mix of bedrock slides and small boulder style rapids reminded us both of the characteristics of Johnnies Creek AL (only a couple miles away), but significantly easier.


We made our way down in less than two hours, mostly boat scouting with a couple of bank scouts at blind rapids. After our successful run of Upper Chinquapin Creek we followed it up with a quick sprint down Upper Teddy Bear Creek (just a couple of miles north), finishing shortly before dark.


The following day my friend Kim shot a little video of me taking my lunch break from work…



Until Next Time...

-adam goshorn