IMG_0188
Originally uploaded by yaknski

Silver Mountain opened 5/17/09 for a free day of skiing.  Warm, sunny and good snow made it a fun day.  I use Zardoz when the snow gets wet and sticky, it gives you a definite advantage, your skis don't slow down or come to a dead stop when you're warping down the mountain in the wet snow, preventing you from going out the front and providing a spectacle.

I saw Mr. Bill and Jason Wing up there.  Silver is open next Memorial Day weekend for riding/skiing with $25 lift tickets.

Pretty awesome day - sleeping in, coffee in the hot tub, skiing 2 hours and then kayaking at Dead Dog.  Now if only the Celtics won.  My 2009 NBA Playoff picks have sucked!

Skiing Silver Mtn. 5/17/09 from Dave Turner on Vimeo.

Video of Tyler Bradt of Missoula dropping Palouse Falls - 186 ft!

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"Trailer Trash" - the song

This is a song I did entirely with loops.  Loops are pre-recorded music segments which are then arranged and mixed in various ways.  Hip Hop - among other newer genres of music - use loops. I've only used loops for the drum tracks in my songs ..... until this song - 'Trailer Trash' (inspired by the surf wave on the Spokane River at Post Falls, ID named 'Trailer Park').  My Macbook came loaded with "Garage Band" on it.  I'd never messed around with it until one night after a great session at Trailer Park inspired it.  It was also partly inspired by the iTunes Jud Keiser was spinning last fall when we were camping and surfing The Trail Wave/Hole in Trail, BC.  The entire song was made from loops (basically going mental cutting and pasting the little buggers into the clip viewer) - with the exception of the spoken words (my voice), which was recorded directly using the built in mic on my Macbook.  I was impressed with what the Macbook can do.

Push play and listen to the song while you check out my other posts below if you'd like.

Trailer Trash by Lost Tiger

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Bad Dog - Dead Dog gone bad

Dead Dog Hole - at the state line of ID/WA - has been morphing on and off the past 2 weeks from the normal, consistent, reliable hole that is easy to paddle back up to, into a wave that's hard to paddle back up to once the flow gets above 17,200. The feature becomes a green wave on surfer's left and a nice, breaking wave in the middle and on surfer's right. The breaking wave section is really fun once you get to it. 

 I've seen the morph last 5 to 15 seconds to an hour and more recently for the last couple days.  Thursday night at 17,200 if you paddled like a ninja you could attain the wave with about a 90% success rate.  Friday I was alone there at 17,800 and was successful about 50% of the time, wearing myself out in the process.  As such, I thought it was time to make an eddy in the north channel .....so I did.  With a 60 ft rope attached to the east/most upriver bridge support it made a fairly easy job of getting back up to the wave. You have to pull on the rope maybe 7 feet while keeping your right edge up slightly.  I got the eddy done just in time - quite a few people showed up as I finished (Mike B, Drew, Pres. Gordon, Brain J., Jonah, Nick, Will and a few others I recognize but don't know their names).  If you go to Dead Dog just be careful and don't pull up on the eddy rocks, they may fall off the eddy wall.  

I left a rope (The Bad Dog leash!) up this afternoon - 5/9/09 - for everyone to use.  It got stolen Monday, so here's the deal;

the last boater there please coil the rope up when you're done and stash it in the secret hiding place (like we've done for three years at Trailer Park);

looking upriver from the dirt slide note the ponderosa pine. On the river side of the tree there's a bunch of exposed roots,  stash the rope under the roots and cover with a few pine needles.  

Here's what the Bad Dog looks like from the bridge:

Then, I put my cell phone/video cam in a Pelican dry box and attached that to a remote control submarine to take a look at what's going on under the wave.  Here's what I found:

Here's some photos:

Song by Dave- "I'll Wait For Us"

I'll Wait For Us by Lost Tiger

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This is a song I wrote and recorded in my home 

studio about a year and a half ago. I play and sing all the parts. 

More songs to come.

Dead Dog photos - 5/2/09 16,100 CFS

My honey - Kathy - took these shots at Dead Dog 5/2/09 at 16,100 CFS. Age range was 50 to 14, but the Dog doesn't care how old you are.  You get treated the same regardless.  My favorite shot is the last one.  

You can check more of Kathy's shots from this day at my Flickr page.

Sunday Evening Soul Surf at Dead Dog Hole, State line WA/ID

Moose on Spokane River
Originally uploaded by yaknski

5/3/09 Dead Dog Hole . Saw a huge moose down river-left on the gravel bar/island that you can see from the bridge/parking area.

No one else was there. Soul Surf Time with the waterproof ipod! Level was 16,200 CFS.

Got in the river at 7PM and the hole/eddy looked normal.The sun was shining bright under the bridge on The Dog. Then at about 8:00PM it changed from Dead Dog Hole to a wave while I was still surfing. It became green on surfers left/entry and a breaking pocket surfer's right. It really reminded of the surfer's right side - half of Duplex Wave at 8500 CFS. There was enough of a backwash eddy to paddle into it, but I could see if the flow was higher it would be a chore to paddle into it. It remained this way until I left at 8:35.  I preferred the hole version of Dead Dog hands down, but the 'Ghost Dog' Wave gave up some good blunts. Dead Dog did the same morph job 2 years ago.

Brian Jamison was there Saturday 5/2/09 when it changed. The last time it happened that I know of was 2 years ago. It's a weird phenomenon and people's theories on why it occurs are even weirder. I've heard theories;  1)of a 'fridge being in the rock and the door opens creating the phenonmenon, 2) a chunk of rock flaked off, 3) a rock rolled in front of the rock that forms Dead Dog.  Then there's Chris Hoffer's 'algae theory'.  This is the stuff that spawns an urban legend.   

(Regarding the cheesy phone cam photo; The black dot in the middle of the channel on river left is the moose)

Dead Dog Hole featured in Couer d'Alene Press video

From April 2009 at Dead Dog -stateline of Washington and Idaho. Jud Keiser gives a riverside press conference .... while sitting in his kayak. Hopefully, the new bridge slated to be built won't effect the hole or eddy. (you will have to sit watch a short commercial before the good stuff starts);

Jud Keiser - Good luck in Reno!

Jud's been training like a Ninja getting ready for the 

competition season which starts up next week in Reno

(photo by Chris Hoffer)