I wrote this short article about Austin paddler West Hansen for Expedition News. Hansen is heading to the Arctic this summer, and I’m going along as an embedded journalist. Stay tuned…

 

By Pam LeBlanc

Special correspondent, Expedition News

Austin paddler West Hansen will trade Amazon tropics and Russian waves for crushing ice and polar bears next summer, when he attempts to lead the first expedition to kayak the Northwest Passage.

Hansen, 56, made the longest source-to-sea paddling descent of the Amazon River in 2012 and the first descent of the Volga River in Russia two years later. Team members include veteran paddlers Jeff Wueste, 57, and Jimmy Harvey, 55. Launching in August 2019, they’ll cover 1,900 miles, half of which have never been kayaked.

The team will follow the same east-to-west route that explorer Roald Amundsen took during his landmark three-year navigation of the passage, completed in 1907, starting in Baffin Bay and finishing at the Beaufort Sea. Along the way, Hansen will monitor plankton and jellyfish populations, and record ice coverage.

The expedition is expected to take 60 days and cost nearly $75,000.Hansen is looking for sponsors, and can be reached via west@westhansen.com.

“(Firsts) are getting more and more rare, and it’s pretty special doing something no one’s ever done,” Hansen says.

The paddlers will face gale force winds, car-sized slabs of ice and pummeling waves, plus orcas and polar bears.

“You can’t fire a gun (to spook them) because it sounds like cracking ice and polar bears are used to that,” Hansen says, noting that the team will carry satellite phones, emergency beacons, firearms and screaming flares to ward off 2,000-pound predators.

“It’s been attempted several times, but no one’s ever come close to accomplishing it,” says Hansen, who has applied to carry an Explorers Club flag. “We have a lot more experience in long distance expedition paddling than anybody else who’s tried. And we’re older, which is always a bonus.”

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Pam LeBlanc is an Austin-based freelance writer specializing in adventure travel, fitness and conservation. She will join the expedition as an embedded journalist.

 

 

Next up? Ice climbing.

I’m heading to Telluride, Colorado, tomorrow for a few days of adventuring. At the top of the agenda? Ice climbing.

I’ll also be snowmobiling and fat biking, but I’ve done both of those things. I’ve never scaled an icy waterfall wearing crampons and wielding an ice axe. (Actually, I’ve never scaled an icy waterfall, period, although I’ve watched people do it in Ouray, just down the road from Telluride.)

Telluride, by the way, ranks as “most scenic” in my list of favorite ski towns. It’s tucked in a box canyon, and no matter which way you look (up, for example), it’s gorgeous.

It’s also the setting for the book “Tomboy Bride,” a non-fiction, first-person account about what it’s like to live in a tiny mining community high above where the town now sits. I picked up that gem last time I trotted through town and loved it.

I’m shacking up at the Hotel Telluride during my stay. Any tips or suggestions on what not to miss this time?

 

I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to get comfortable using a single-blade paddle, which is what I’ll be using most of the time during the Texas Water Safari in June.

But because the race is so long – 260 miles from San Marcos to Seadrift on the Texas coast – my teammates want to mix in a little double blading to break things up.  Tuesday night, teammate Sheila Reiter delivered a little trial by fire in the form of a double bladed training session on Lady Bird Lake.

We hauled the tandem canoe down to the water and she handed me two funky looking spoon-billed paddles that snapped together to make a double bladed paddle. After some land demonstrations, I got in the boat and felt like I was back at square one – tippy and awkward and completely out of my element. Again. I might as well have tried to use a giant double-ended spoon to scratch the backs of an imaginary pair of dogs swimming alongside the canoe.

We paddled to Red Bud Isle, turned a few circles, paddled down to MoPac, made another turn (I got to put my cross bow draw stroke into play) and then cruised back to the dock.

Just when I think I’m making progress, I’ve got plenty more to learn.

 

I’ve ridden my bike all over this city, and every time I put wheels to the pavement, I discover new street art.

That’s part of why I like to travel by bike – I see the little changes, the stuff you miss if you’re whizzing past in a vehicle. Biking lets me slow down the pace, drink in the air and stretch my legs.

Sunday, I took an 18-mile jaunt from my home in the Allandale neighborhood through the Mueller development, where I bumped into cycling advocate Preston Tyree, out for a ride with Ani Colt, then down Berkman on some amazing cycling lanes to East Austin, where I met a guy on a giant trike taking his family for a ride. (That’s the other amazing thing about biking – you meet all kinds of interesting people.)

I zoomed around East Cesar Chavez and surrounding streets, where new murals seem to pop up everyday, then headed back home through the University of Texas campus, where I paused to say hi to the “Hi How Are You” mural by Daniel Johnston that kind of started it all.

My favorite discovery? The Lover/Fighter mural on the side of Print Press at 1209 East Cesar Chavez.

Another hotbed of murals adorns the outside of Native Bar & Kitchen at 807 East Fourth (don’t forget to take a look at the west side of the building, along the access road to Interstate 35.

And please, don’t miss the kitty in pink underpants on the side of the East Side Pies on Airport Boulevard. He’s one cool cat.

 

 

I hopped in a 38-foot canoe yesterday, filling seat number four in a five-person canoe on a ripping run from Martindale to Luling.

I consider the nearly 30-mile trip my first really official training session for the 2019 Texas Water Safari, a 260-mile paddling race in June from San Marcos to Seadrift on the Texas coast.

I started the day with blue lips and triple clothing layers, and finished stripped down to a T-shirt and jogging pants. Thanks to flow rates of about 1,400 cubic feet per second, we zipped down the San Marcos River at an average pace of just over 7 mph. (Multiply yesterday’s distance by nine, cut the river flow way back, remove four strong paddling arms and I’ll know how it really feels.)

Driver Jeff Wueste steered us downstream, and I tried to put what I’ve learned from paddling instructor Holly Orr of Paddle With Style into practice. My stroke feels good on the right side, but awkward – like I’m trying to scoop ice cream with my non-dominant hand – on the left. By the end of our excursion, my left wrist felt like someone had snipped a tendon in it.

But, onward. I’m sure that’ll feel like nothing compared to the barf-fest that awaits on day two of the actual Water Safari.

Highlights? A coyote trotted alongside us for 25 or so yards, a beaver skidded down a muddy bank, an eagle scanned the river and we put a foot-long, zipper-shaped scratch in the side of our boat when a jagged rock popped up out of nowhere. We spotted a feral hog strung up by its heels on a rack in someone’s backyard, and watched as half a dozen parachutists dropped out of the sky. We also saw an array of turtles, deer (one injured, not a happy sight), blue herons, red-tail hawks, vultures and a couple of caracaras with bright orange beaks.

Thankfully, Sheila Reiter suggested that I pack a dry bag with spare clothes to take on the river in case of unintended mayhem. The boat never flipped, but I took a dunk trying to get out of the canoe as we approached a low water bridge at Prairie Lee 1.5. Lesson: Never, ever jump in the water right before a bridge. You might get sucked under and stuck like wad of lint in a dryer filter. That could be fatal.

Thankfully I survived, and happily I just stripped off my wet clothes and changed into dry ones. The sun baked me warm and dry in a few minutes.

It’s the changing spirit of the river that draws me to this sport – it shows off a slightly different skin every time.

 

Yesterday’s theme? Fast water and mud, mainly.

You should have seen us struggle to hoist that boat up the muddy bank at the takeout in Luling. We looked like stars in a slapstick comedy, sliding down the bank, slipping on our butts and coating ourselves in thick ooze.