{"id":1530,"date":"2011-10-14T08:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-14T15:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/?p=1530"},"modified":"2021-07-11T23:33:02","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T06:33:02","slug":"video-susitna-river-first-descent-aka-kayaking-masters-of-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/paddle-trips\/video-susitna-river-first-descent-aka-kayaking-masters-of-the-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: Susitna River First Descent (aka, Kayaking Masters of the Universe)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the most incredible video, taken in the 1970’s, of the first descent of the Susitna River in Alaska.<\/strong>  I am totally awed by the massive water these guys go through in old school boats and gear of that time – no Gore-Tex, no foam core paddles, no big-water hull shapes.  This video has no sound, it’s just plain awesome on its own.  (Check out the sequence at 3:38 – amazing.)<\/p>\n

According to the YouTube comments on the poster’s channel<\/a> and also a Canoe and Kayak article<\/a>, the paddlers included Walt Blackadar, Darwon Stoneman, and Mike Huges, and the film was made by Barney Griffith.<\/p>\n

Apparently this run was in part a response to a proposed dam project on the Susitna, which was abandoned in the 1980’s.  Ironically, in checking around for this post I saw that there’s now a new proposal for a Susitnu dam<\/a>, which the Coalition for Susitna Dam Alternatives<\/a> says has the potential to be “destructive on a massive scale” to salmon runs and caribou habitat – no big surprise.  But Governor Parnell appears to be gung-ho, and according to the papers plans are moving forward fast<\/a>.  This would be the 8th tallest dam on earth, but according to that article, would generate only 280 to 300 megawatts of electricity per year.<\/p>\n

I also saw that there’s a biography of Walt Blackadar’s life called “Never Turn Back<\/a>” which is supposed to be really good, I’m going to check it out.<\/p>\n

Update: Since then I’ve read it, and it is for sure worth a read. Amazingly, it appears he struggled with his roll most of his life. Imagine running the kind of water he did in this video if you knew you didn’t have a reliable roll – talk about courage!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the most incredible video, taken in the 1970’s, of the first descent of the Susitna River in Alaska.  I am totally awed by the massive water these guys go through in old school boats and gear of that time – no Gore-Tex, no foam core paddles, no big-water hull shapes.  This video has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,45],"tags":[251,252,255,254,250,253],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}