A brief paddling history of the Risch brothers

I first got into a whitewater kayak during the summer of 1997 after my freshman year at Clarkson University. One of my high school buddies had tried it before and invited me out. The trip was a full day of flat and moving water with one set of class II rapids at the end of the river. Even though neither of us had a roll or much experience I managed to stay upright down the rapid and was instantly hooked on whitewater.

That Fall, back at school I signed up for a trip with the Outing Club. My friend Mark had started the previous spring and together we started to charge up the whitewater ladder. My river running and reading skills developed faster than my roll. I ended up running and swimming lots of rapids in Upstate NY that fall and the next spring following the back of our mentors Overflow.

I borrowed two of the outing clubs boats for the summer of '98 and got my little brother out on the river. When we weren’t paddling on the local class II's and III's we were in the lake working on our rolls. That summer I found an Overflow for sale in Richmond and Mark and I headed south on our first paddling road trip. That trip we paddled the New River Gorge, where I finally hit my first river roll, and the Upper Yough. The next three years at Clarkson I fell in with a crew of hard charging paddlers running and exploring the amazing creeks and waterfalls in northern NY, and the rivers of New England with my brother in the summers.

Through the ROTC program the Army helped pay for my schooling and in return I signed up for a 4 year tour of duty, so after graduation in May of 2000 I headed south to Transportation Officers School in VA Beach. That summer I spent a lot of weekends on the New and Gauley and ran the Green narrows for the first time. In September '00 after finishing the Army school I headed to my first duty station in Mannheim, Germany.

I lived in Europe from September 2000 till May 2004. While I was there I paddled in Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Corsica. With me in Europe Matt found his own crew at Johnson State College and spent a lot of time exploring the Green Mountain Creeks.

Matt’s first trip over to visit me in Europe was in the summer of 2003. I was living in Italy at the time and we paddled in the Lienz valley in Austria and the Val Sesia in Italy. In 2004 he took his second semester off from College and came to Italy to live with me for three months. I was finishing my Army service in May and had 60 days of vacation saved up. At the end of March we set of on a 30 day paddling road trip, putting on rivers in Slovenia, Croatia, Corsica, and Italy.

That summer I got out of the Army and headed to Maine for raft guide training. Matt headed to WVA for an "Internship" at a rafting company. Shortly after completing guide training, I was offered and took a Job in Afghanistan as a Logistics Contractor. On my first vacation Matt and I and another paddler from WVA went to Galicia, Spain for two weeks around thanksgiving. The next R&R I headed home to NH in time for the White Mountain creek season. I finished my contract in Afghanistan in July '05 and we headed to Norway for three weeks. Matt started grad school at Clarkson in the fall of '05 and we paddled a bunch up in Upstate NY. I was able to take advantage of the heavy rains in the North East in October and November before heading back overseas to Kuwait for my current job as a Logistics Project Manager. In June '06, Matt, Dad and I went to Eastern Turkey and competed in the Coruh Extreme kayak race and explored the steep creeks and gorges of the rivers draining into the Black Sea Coast. Following in the Blog is the trip reports, photos and videos from these trips and from future trips Matt and I take.