GOPRO MOUNTAIN GAMES

FIRST STOP: UTAH

The Pau Hana crew hauled our way up to Moab, Utah as our first rest stop from Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Moab being as beautiful as it is, makes it difficult for finding a camp site last minute. After visiting nearly every campground in the city, we eventually did find a campground on the Colorado river that was near empty. We soon found out why. There were mosquitos everywhere.

MOSQUITO ATTACK

We realized the reason no one was there as soon as we opened the van door. We were swarmed by mosquitoes who acted more like bees that just had their hive kicked from their tree. Knowing that there was nowhere else to camp and with daylight quickly slipping away, we manically made the largest fire we could to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

The next morning we woke early to find that we actually didn’t have nearly as many mosquito bites as we had thought. After packing up our equipment, we drove on to arches National Park. Even though it was crowded, the hike to see the delicate arch is definitely something everyone who is visiting or driving through Utah should go see.

INSPIRATION ON THE ROAD

Seeing the opportunity to test new board shapes, we had begun work on two prototypes for whitewater river runs a few weeks prior to the start of the competition. Pau Hana founder, Todd Caranto, had a few ideas he wanted to test out on the river after visiting Bend, OR standing wave. So, after making the prototypes and lining them with truck-bed liner for protection we jammed them in the sprinter van and were ready to go to Colorado.

PADDLE BATTLE

The stand up paddle board events are fun to watch, but definitely the SUP cross is the most fun because of the carnage. You have several guys on the whitewater at the same time battling it out and crashing into one another. It makes it the least unpredictable as far as who will win.

Pau Hana athletes Dane Jackson and Nick Troutman went to the finals for the SUP cross event. Dane Jackson ended up placing 3rd in the SUP skills competition

We couldn’t help but to feed in to our nostalgia from the previous year’s surf session at the Glenwood wave in Glenwood Springs, CO. So, the day after the event ended, we headed back to an unofficial potluck at the Glenwood Wave with most of the same athletes from the games coming to relax after several days of strenuous competition. Beers, brats, and enjoying the surf made for the perfect Pau Hana time to end the trip.

Besides having a ridiculously fun time at the GoPro Mountain games, we got some important feedback on the river boards that are in development. Now that we’re back from the games we’re going to make another river board prototype with the suggestions we got from our athletes to make it more maneuverable and stable. Our athletes that competed did a mind blowing job at the event and we had the best time hanging out with them all in Vail.

UNTIL NEXT YEAR...

Keep an eye out for the new river board for the 2017 season which will be armored by our Ricochet Impact Resistant Technology and ready to surf standing waves and go down the gnarliest whitewater features around. If you haven’t paddled out on the river yet then go check out for places to launch and take out and get going on the river. You’ll get addicted to the thrill of it.