Sunday July 29th, 2007
Got off the plane then Stacie and Kati picked me and Cameron up at the airport. Cameron is from Michigan. The drive to Keeners was about 3 hours after we stopped at DQ where I learned the exchange rate for US-Canadaian money. When we got to Keeners, Stacie introduced me to Steven and Clay Wright, the two head coaches. Cameron, Steven, Clay and I went up to CornerWave which is right above horseshoe and babyface below that. When I got back from surfing I was assigned to White house and went to bed.

Monday July 30th, 2007
All of the new Keeners who got here in the last two weeks ran the main channel with EJ Jackson and Clay Wright. As everyone got to dragons tongue we pulled up to the rock in the middle that separates dragons tongue and elevator shaft we scouted dragons tongue EJ had Dane run it to show us where to go. Then he looked over the group of 12 and pulled Cameron and I aside to run it after himself it was our first time running it even with it being Cameron’s 3rd year being a keener. After EJ ran it I floated up slowly to the edge and set up my line over the tongue and through the goal post and paddled has hard as i could down hitting my line perfect joining EJ in the eddy then we watched Cameron hit his line with laser precision and joined us in the eddy. Then EJ told us we could either go around the sketchy hole or hit the boof on the middle left of the river so naturally Cameron and I followed EJ over the boof into the hole. We then had lunch one of the coolest lunch spots on the river a hut like picnic spot overlooking dragons tounge and elevator shaft after we got lunch we went over to look at the two waterfalls and watched clay run the elevator shaft. When we were done having lunch we finished the river and headed back up to the keener camp site to have pizza for dinner.

 Tuesday July 31st, 2007
Everyone ran the main channel which in my opinion wasn’t as much fun as the middle although when we got to a whirlpool after Norman rapids I had a bunch of fun doing bow stalls, stern squirts, and cartwheels into the whirlpool. After the whirlpools there is a meltdown line that is a lot of fun and you get quite a bit of down time for being in a kayak which is a lot of fun. After the meltdown there is a beat down line that has even more down time then the meltdown so all in all both run are fun but I think dragons tongue makes the middle channel a lot more fun. Then we went back to Keeners and packed everything up and waited to go Wilderness tours for dinner where Keeners eat for free and they have a different meal for everyday apparently Wednesday is steak day really looking forward to that.

Wednesday August 1st, 2007
Ran the main channel again the flat water paddle to the actual rapids seemed a lot shorter than the day b4 since I had a better feel for the river i got to through some huge wave wheels over the waves behind Garberator then we had lunch at another picnic type spot that is right below garb. But instead of chicken burgers they have real burgers witch are arguably the best burgers i have ever had but what is really cool about the shacks is they serve lunch to all the rafters from WT as part of the trip. We went to WT for dinner again the Steak was amazing they even give you a choice of how well done you want it agian they serve dinner to all rafters that did the evening trips.

Thursday August 2nd, 2007
We got to do SFR-T training today we learned how to wade across the river in different formations the only people to make it across were Denis and myself the only reason Denis made it was because I dragged him across we was holding onto my life jacket and floating behind me. The part of the river we walked across got to points of being at the chest and very swift current which would kinda make sense since we were in Swift water training. After we got across we celebrated and Denis was told by Matt our instructor that he had nothing to celebrate for cause he didn’t do any work. J At lunch time we learned to tie knots and anchors. We swam across to do our obstacle avoidance training then we swam down Garb and the pour over next to it a couple of times. when we got back to shore we learned about mechanical advantage which is extremely confusing with multiple ropes and pulley systems you can get up to 9x the power of your normal lifting power so if you can lift 100lbs that’s close to 1/2 a ton which is insane just by using a few ropes and pulleys. Who would have thought, huh? After getting back to Keeners, a bunch of us went and surfed Babyface where I learned that when you party surf you should wait for the person in front of you to carve off to one side before you come out on the wave. I learned how hard a boat feels when it’s bouncing down wave and you’re coming up. Not a fun lesson to learn but a local paddler and fellow Keener Scotty helped me out with who luckily isn’t to big and paddles a Jackson Star. We hit I got stabbed in the left shoulder with the bow of his boat my life vest taking none of the brunt away so my shoulder took every bit of pain from his boat we both flipped. No one thought that I would be able to roll up from how hard he hit me, but slightly down stream I rolled up laughing with everyone having a completely panicked look on their face. He told me it was something like peetoning down a waterfall.

Friday August 3rd, 2007
Today my shoulder still is in pain but I will live. We paddled down to Garb where we finished our SFR-T and took our tests I got 30/36 so I now have a class 3 license. How cool is that! We learned how to unpin boats and body from rocks and logs. I had volunteered to be the pinned body and I have to say we aren’t very good at getting bodies unpinned cause after they got me out they caught the rope on my hand and dragged me down to the bottom of the river I had to stand up and get the rope off in the moving water that was waist deep. That was some fun practice I do have to say I did get a nasty rope burn on my wrist but again nothing permanent and I will live don’t worry. We got back to camp and pretty much chilled out the rest of the day.You can find out more about what we're doing here: http://www.okskeener.blogspot.com/