West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012 and the entire Volga River two years later, relaxes after a paddle training session on Lady Bird Lake in May 2021. Pam LeBlanc photo

West Hansen won’t lead a kayaking expedition through the Northwest Passage this summer as planned, but he will paddle across Alabama instead.

Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012 and the entire Volga River in Russia two years later, will compete this September as a solo paddler in the Great Alabama 650. The news comes a few weeks after Hansen postponed the Arctic Cowboys 1,900-mile expedition through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago for the second time, due to the Covid pandemic.

The Alabama race, which promises warmer temperatures and an alligator or two instead of polar bears, starts Sept. 18 at Weiss Lake in northeast Alabama and finishes at Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay. Paddlers, who compete either solo or in two-person teams, have 10 days to complete the event, the self-proclaimed “toughest paddle race in the United States.”

West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012, paddles the 2021 Texas Water Safari. Pam LeBlanc photo

Then again, the Texas Water Safari, the 260-mile race from San Marcos to the Texas Coast that Hansen has completed 21 times, makes the same claim.

Hansen will bring four boats, including a plastic surf ski, to Alabama for the race, switching vessels as needed depending on conditions. The route, which follows the Coosa, the Alabama, and the Mobile rivers, features an 8-mile stretch of whitewater with Class 2 and 3 rapids.

“It was kind of a last-minute gig when things looked like they weren’t going to happen in the Arctic,” Hansen says. “I got on the wait list for this thing and was surprised when the (organizer) called last week and asked me if I wanted to do it.”

A maximum of 20 paddlers – five each in four categories – can compete. As of today, three spaces remained open. The top male and female solo finishers, along with the top two-person team, will each win a $2,000 prize.

Two Texans, Mollie Binion and Holly Orr, finished second in the tandem division and fourth overall in the 2020 race, and two more, Bill Siersdorfer and Scottie Trevino, plan to compete this year.

Top teams typically finish the race in six to seven days. Hansen considers veteran endurance paddler Salli O’Donnell, who grew up in Alabama and competed at Auburn University as a gymnast before blowing her knee out, among his toughest competition.

“She’s a badass racer,” Hansen says of O’Donnell. “She’s almost won the Safari outright in solo, almost won the Missouri River 340 outright in solo, and almost won Alabama twice solo. She was edged out by guys in all these races at pretty much the last minute. I think she’s pretty formidable.”

West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012, paddles through the Intra Coastal Waterway in 2020. Pam LeBlanc photo

Hansen’s own resume is packed with paddling accomplishments. He’s won the Missouri River 340, a 340-mile paddle race down the Missouri River whose website helpfully notes, “this ain’t no mama’s boy float trip,” four times overall, including once as a solo paddler.

Hansen this year completed the Texas Water Safari, in which he and teammate Allen Spelce still hold a record set in 1997 in the USCA C-2 category, for the 21^st time. He has racked up category and overall wins in an array of regional races.

Unlike the 260-mile Water Safari, during which top finishers forego sleeping, paddlers in the 650-mile Alabama race stop to rest along the way. Hansen hasn’t yet determined if he’ll stop a few times for longer stretches of sleep, or more frequently for shorter naps. He’s now assembling a bank crew that will support him as he makes his way down the rivers.

West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012 and the Volga River in Russia two years later, prepares to paddle Lady Bird Lake in Austin during the February snow storm. Pam LeBlanc photo

Hansen says he’s excited to compete.

“I’m also anxious. It’s a new race I’ve never done on a river I’ve never paddled, and a distance I’ve never done,” he says. “All the variables make me anxious.”

But the race gives Hansen, who works part time as a social worker in East Texas and part time in Austin doing construction projects, a goal to get in shape, cut out junk food and booze, and provide some needed time away from the buzz of modern life. “And it’s nice to see what I can do, to push myself a bit,” he says.

In the meantime, he’s giving up checking ice flows and temperatures in the Arctic for now.

“It’s nice to step back from the Arctic expedition,” he says. “It’s kind of nice to let that go.”

Pam LeBlanc drives her Ski Nautique boat toward Pennybacker Bridge. Chris LeBlanc photo

I can’t think of a better way to start an Austin day than with a water skiing session.

Water sooths my soul, and getting out on the lake and using my muscles jolts me awake. Plus, my husband Chris and I go early, so instead of other people, we get to mingle with swans, ducks and turtles that are just waking up. It’s our private time, before the bustle of the day begins and we have to face our real lives.

Chris LeBlanc enjoys an early morning ski run on Lake Austin. Pam LeBlanc photo

Chris already owned a boat when I met him 24 years ago. (Not the same one.) I’d skied once or twice growing up but didn’t really know how to ski hard. Then, when I turned 40, a friend who was a former state champion skier took me under his wing. We spent a summer practicing, and by September I could run a slalom course, a series of buoys set up so skiers can weave through them.

Today, Chris and I keep our 1998 Ski Nautique on our driveway in Allandale and tow it to Walsh Landing on mornings we want to ski.

At 19 feet and 6 inches long, our boat is small by comparison to other boats on Lake Austin. With an inboard, direct drive motor, it’s designed to create as small a wake as possible so a skier can zip across it without changing body position. Most speed boats on the lake these days are designed to create a big wave suitable for surfing. That’s bad for us – when a surf boat goes by, we wait for the water to settle so we can ski. You can’t water ski over waves.

Pam LeBlanc stands with her water ski on her boat on Lake Austin. Chris LeBlanc photo

That’s why we get up early, and ski as the sun rises.

We’re efficient – it takes about 10 minutes to get to the boat ramp from our house, and another 5 minutes to launch. Chris backs the truck and trailer down into the water, and I back the boat off the trailer into the lake. (When we’re finished Chris hops off to get the truck, and I drive the boat back onto the trailer from the lake.)

We ski for an hour or a little more most days. That’s just enough time for each of us to get in two or three solid runs, with bonus time for parking in Bull Creek cove or beneath Mount Bonnell to skinny dip before we head in. I love the feel of water on my naked body.

Pam leBlanc skis on Lake Austin in November 2020. Chris LeBlanc photo

We ski at least once a week during the warm months, and here in Austin those warm months last a very long time. Last year I made my last run in early November, just as trees were turning color and the lake steamed like a hot cup of tea.

If you’re driving over the Pennybacker Bridge early on a Sunday, look onto the lake. If you see a small boat pulling a skier, it might be me.

I’m the one with the big grin on my face.

Every summer, weary from the heat, droves of Texans pack up their hiking boots and a sweatshirt or two and head to the mountains of Colorado.

Most travelers think of the usual hotspots to get their fix of chilly mornings, aspen-shaded trails, and alpine lakes. But I just spent five days in Fort Collins, a bike-and-beer crazy town – and the inspiration for Disneyland’s Main Street USA – which offers plenty of action without the crowds, all within an hour’s drive of the Denver airport.

Here’s my list of a dozen things to do in FoCo:

Rafters make their way down the Poudre River with A Wanderlust Adventure. Pam LeBlanc photo

1. Raft the Poudre River. I climbed aboard a bucking yellow bronco of a rubber raft for a half-day trip through class three and class four rapids with names like Cardiac Corner, Pinball, Roller Coaster and Pine View Falls with A Wanderlust Adventure. 
2. Rent a bike and hit the trail. Fort Collins is one of just five platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Communities in the country, according to the League of American Cyclists. You can bike to breweries, museums and restaurants via paved trails and bike lanes in town, or head to the city’s outskirts to access gravel roads and perfectly paved routes.

A cyclist tackles a hill during the Foco Fondo bike event in Fort Collins. Pam LeBlanc photo

3. Visit a brewery. Fort Collins is the Craft Beer Capital of Colorado, with 25 breweries churning out everything from sours to hoppy IPAs, German lagers, and pale ales. Among my favorites? Purpose Brewing, founded by former New Belgium brewmaster Peter Bouckaert, who is widely credited with bringing sour beers to America. The brewery specializes in small experimental batches that change weekly. Some of the most memorable include Floof, a lager crafted with two types of French hops, to Street Taco, inspired by Mexican food. “People still talk about that. It knocked a lot of people’s socks off,” says taproom manager Kyle Boerger, who moved to Fort Collins from Austin, where he worked at now-defunct Skull Mechanix Brewing. “Really, keeping people guessing is our main purpose.” For more information go to purposebrewing.com.

Kyle Boerger mans the taps at Purpose Brewing in Fort Collins. Pam LeBlanc photo

4. Check out the pair of black-footed ferrets, once believed extinct, that now reside at the City of Fort Collins Museum of Discovery.  A population of the endangered animals was reintroduced to nearby Soapstone Prairie Natural Area in 2014.

Visit the Trial Gardens at Colorado State University to see what horticulturists are developing. Pam LeBlanc photo

5. Visit the Annual Flower Trial Gardens at Colorado State University, where you can ogle more than 1,000 different cultivated varieties of annuals. It’s free to visit the gardens, which bloom May through October, and you can vote on your favorites.

Katy Schneider hikes up to Arthur’s Rock at Lory State Park in Fort Collins. Photo by Pam LeBlanc

6. Hike to Arthur’s Rock at Lory State Park. You’ll have to scramble the last quarter of a mile of the 1.7-mile out-and-back trail, but at the top you’ll be rewarded with sweeping views of Horsetooth Reservoir and beyond.

7. Visit Horsetooth Reservoir, where you can rent a standup paddleboard from What’s SUP, which has locations at South Bay, Sunrise Swim Beach or Satanka Cove (which doesn’t allow motorized traffic.) You can also launch your own kayak – or go for a swim in one of the designated areas. (I swam at sunrise, and I’m still swooning.)

Katy Schneider paddles a kayak at Horsetooth Reservoir. Pam LeBlanc photo

8. At the Otter Shop, 151 W. Mountain Ave., you won’t find any frolicking semi-marine mammals, but you can buy a custom crash-proof phone case imprinted with your favorite photo.

9. Tour Morning Fresh Dairy farm in nearby Bellvue, where Noosa yogurt is made. Tours cost $5 and includes samples of fresh milk and yogurt. For information go here. 

10. Enjoy a scoop of ice cream at Walrus Ice Cream, 125 Mountain Ave. They serve 29 flavors every day, including a joke flavor like backyard barbecue. (On Sunday your pup gets a free treat, too.)

Andy Warhol signed this giant soup can at Colorado State University. Katy Schneider photo

11. Check out the giant Campbell’s tomato soup can at 1400 Remington Street on the Colorado State University campus. The red and white can was created under the instruction of Andy Warhol for an exhibit about the artist in 1981. It still bears his signature.

12. Stroll Old Town, where you can people watch, admire public art, dine al fresco or shop in buildings whose bones date to the 1880s.

Sculptures and murals brighten Old Town in Fort Collins. Pam LeBlanc photo

West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012, pulls on the top of his dry suit. Pam LeBlanc photo

Endurance paddler West Hansen has officially postponed the Arctic Cowboys kayak expedition through the Northwest Passage this summer.

Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012 and the entire Volga River in Russia two years later, had planned to lead a three-man crew as they attempted to become the first to kayak 1,900 miles between Tuktoyaktuk and Pond Inlet in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. But the Canadian government’s announcement this week that it will open the border to vaccinated Americans on Aug. 9 comes too late for Hansen, who said he needed to launch his boats by Aug. 1 to make it through the passage before cold weather hit.

“Given last year’s postponement and the fact that Canada started vaccinating late in the game and has low supplies of the vaccine, I was pretty realistic about the chance of a postponement, so it wasn’t a huge surprise,” Hansen says. “I was hoping, given the relatively sparse population of Nunavut, that their vaccination efforts would have been more successful by now.”

The expedition is now scheduled for summer 2022.

The postponement is the third for the expedition, originally planned for the summer of 2019. Weather and funding issues delayed the original trip, and the Canadian border closed to visitors in March 2020 due to the Covid pandemic. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, about 51 percent of the total population of Canada has been fully vaccinated as of July 20.

The Arctic Cowboys pass the tall ship Elissa in Galveston in summer 2020. Pam LeBlanc photo

Although the Arctic expedition was put on hold, the team has put in miles on the water. Last spring, they paddled the length of the Texas coast from South Padre Island to the Louisiana border. And in February, when a storm blanketed Austin with snow, they donned dry suits and cold water gear for a shakeout run on Lady Bird Lake while temperatures hovered in the 20s.

While that gave them a taste of the cold, the Arctic Cowboys haven’t had any practice fending off polar bears, which they’ll likely encounter in the Arctic. Polar bears can smell prey a kilometer away and swim 6 miles per hour.

West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012, and Jimmy Harvey paddle Barton Creek in downtown Austin on Feb. 15, 2021. Pam LeBlanc photo

The paddlers will also face challenges such as orcas, storms, and cracking sea ice during the expedition, which Hansen predicts will take about two months.

“The delays give me more time to hone in on details and to apply for more sponsors,” Hansen says. “The level of determination hasn’t changed. Thus far, we are self-funded, so this gives us more time to put money towards the expedition.”

Hansen has stashed his food and other gear in his storage room for now. While the big expedition is on pause, he says he’s spending more time training.

Hansen and the two other members of the Arctic Cowboys, Jimmy Harvey and Jeff Wueste, finished eighth overall and sixth in the unlimited category at the 2021 Texas Water Safari, a 260-mile paddling race from San Marcos to the Texas coast last month.

The Arctic Cowboys, when here at Cottonseed Rapid, placed eighth overall in the 2021 Texas Water Safari in June 2021. In front is West Hansen, who paddled the entire Amazon River in 2012. Pam LeBlanc photo

“After several years away from regular canoe and kayak racing, I’m slowly starting to get back into it and do some training,” he says. “I’ve taken a lazy month off since the Texas Water Safari, (and) now I’m easing back into running and paddling. I’ll enter some of these short races as incentive to work out.”

The newly freed-up schedule will also allow Hansen to do some hiking – and perhaps a trip to the Azores with his wife to celebrate the couple’s upcoming 30^th anniversary.

Pam LeBlanc soaks in a hot tub outside the cabin at North Shore at Lake Bastrop Park. Cristobal Gomez photo

I love camping under the stars, but sometimes a soft bed, air conditioning and – a hot tub? – sound really appealing.

I zipped out to North Shore at Lake Bastrop Park yesterday to check out some of the new glamping options at the 182-acre, pine-studded property.

Jessica and Diego Viera hike the trail between North Shore and South Shore park. Pam LeBlanc photo

The Lower Colorado River Authority, which manages the park, recently teamed with GLAT to install a new upscale cabin that sleeps six people, plus six safari-style tents, and one bell-shaped tent. All the options are air conditioned, and all have their own firepit and chairs out front.

It’s part of a trend that started at the park a few years ago, when it wheeled in five shiny new Airstream trailers and opened them for rental. (You can read about my experience staying in one here.

The cabin, though, is over the top. Slide open the wooden, barn-style doors and you’ll find a queen-sized bed and two trundle beds, plus a full bathroom and shower, a microwave and mini fridge. Outside you can pull up a chair around the fire pit or soak in the bubbling hot tub. You can even arrange to inflate a portable screen and watch a movie outdoors.

I’ve always been a proponent of backpacking and setting up a tent because it makes me feel self-reliant and it gets me to remote places that most folks never see. But I love the idea of an easy night in the woods, too, and that’s what this offers. No trailer to back in, no tent to unfurl, and no cooking utensils to haul along.

“It’s all about providing different ways to have fun. Visitors tell us they want a variety of opportunities in our parks, and we’re listening,” says Margo Richards, vice president of community resources for the LCRA,which operates more than 40 parks along the Colorado River between San Saba and Matagorda Bay. In recent years, it’s added a slew of recreational attractions to those parks.

“Previously, people visited LCRA Parks to camp, hike, fish, or maybe launch their boat, and that was the extent of our offerings. Now, it’s a different world when you enter one of our parks.  At some, you can zip line, drive a UTV, play mini golf, rent a watercraft, mountain bike or bring your horse on our multiuse trail system.”

Paddlers enjoying Lake Bastrop. Pam LeBlanc photo

The park rents kayaks, sups and more. Pam LeBlanc photo

Oliver Yang cruises Lake Bastrop on a rental fishing vessel. Pam LeBlanc photo

The setting at Lake Bastrop is beautiful, with the safari tents arranged near the lakefront, in a cleared area with a few tall trees for shade. Visitors can head to the nearby dock to rent a kayak, standup paddleboard or a groovy round motorized fishing vessel. Nearly 10 miles of trails beckon, too, including the short and snappy Buzzard Point loop adjacent to the campground or the longer lakeside trail that leads all the way to the south side of the lake.

“Nature – it’s not a bad idea,” Cristobal Gomez, one of the founders of Glat, which installed the cabin and tents, told me as we walked through the shady campground, peeking our heads into the accommodations.

This bell-shaped tent has two single beds inside. Pam LeBlanc photo

He says glamping options like these have boomed in popularity since the pandemic, because people want a safer way to travel. The company plans to install two more cabins here and hopes to expand into other LCRA parks in the future.

Rates range from $150 per night for the bell-shaped tent with two single beds to $450 a night for the cabin on busy summer weekends.

To book a cabin or tent, go here.

Peeking through the tent flaps at North Shore at Lake Bastrop. Pam LeBlanc photo

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The park rents kayaks, sups and more. Pam LeBlanc photo

We picked up a partially full bottle of whiskey on Lake Austin on Sunday. Pam LeBlanc photo

Maybe it’s weird, but I pick up trash.

Last Sunday, during my dawn ski run, I noticed an unusually large amount of trash bobbing on the surface of Lake Austin. Maybe it was the previous week’s holiday, or maybe the garbage had been washed into the lake by recent rains.

Either way, Styrofoam plates, beer cans and tennis balls were spoiling my view. And then, as I was pulling my husband Chris behind the boat, I saw something odd floating in the water. After he dropped off his ski, I decided to go back and pick it up.

It turns out it was a huge glass jug of whiskey – cap off, and about 3 inches of booze still in the bottle.

This is what I’d like to be doing. Instead, I’m picking up trash. Chris LeBlanc photo

We poured the contents of the bottle out, then put it, along with the other trash we’d gathered, into the boat to carry to shore.

I hate to think what would have happened if I’d hit that bottle with the boat’s prop, or if Chris or I had skied over the top of it. I also hate to imagine what the bottom of Lake Austin looks like, with tons of bottles, cans and sunglasses sunk there.

One of my 2021 New Year’s resolutions is to pick up at least three pieces of trash a day. It comes from the mantra “three for the sea.” Pick up three pieces of trash every day to keep them from ultimately winding up in our oceans. If everyone did that, the world would be a far cleaner place.

And I’d be a lot less grumpy.

I love skiing on Lake Austin on weekend mornings. Lately, there’s been a lot of trash. Pam LeBlanc photo