The North Fork of the Stanislaus River might be one of the prettiest, best Class IV+ runs in California, which is saying quite a bit. Incredible scenery, awesome rapids, and a fairly continous nature put this one high in my “best of” list. I had

Webber Creek is a small tributary to the South Fork Of the American River. Parts of it run very near my house, so I was interested in learning what kind of paddling might exist on it. There is very little published information on the run,

Christmas at my parents house is always fun, and I was excited to have Kim join us this year, she wrote a really fun story with her some of her impressions, I’ve posted it below. We had a great time, and it was over far

Last weekend I once again had the great pleasure of spending a fantastic few days on the river with a great bunch of folks. Kristi, Carlos, Ryo, Ting, Beckett, Kim and I got together for a few days of paddling on the South Fork American

A work day for me. Took the Patagonia customer service folks rafting on the Truckee River [nggallery id=”1607″ nggid=”71″]

The Middle Fork American is an incredible run, class IV with at least one Class V rapid on it. It doesn’t get run often, perhaps due to the 8+ miles of “flatwater” in the center. We had a bit of a slow start due to

A few months back my freind Kristi emailed me, letting me know that she had scored a permit for the Rogue River in OR. She and I spent a few months hashing out all the details of the trip, but before long, the trip was

Last saturday I had the great pleasure of paddling with a fun group of folks on the gorgeous Chamberlin run on the North Fork of the American. A fun run, even at low winter flowa. There were several cameras along, and these pictures are from

Baja California is a wild place, it’s further away in terms of culture and people and standard of living than would seem possible for such a short distance. One could easily see from upscale San Diego suburbs to the squalor of a Tijuana slum. It’s

I apologize in advance for any errors, omissions, or outright mistruths. I drank many margaritas and took a few knocks on the head. All photos are courtesy of and copyright Bill Becher It’s 3:45 AM on Friday, and I drag myself out of bed. I

[nggallery id=”1616″ nggid=”80″]July 4-7, 2003 Me, in a self portrait taken upside down in my kayak. I’d trolled the internet and my email address book for something cool to do over the July 4th holiday, and got a few responses. I was torn between surfing

7 or 8 years ago I remember flipping through a paddling magazine, and being captivated by an image (similar to the one on the left)in a advertisement. I remember being captivated by the image, thinking it the most spectacular whitewater I’d ever seen. At the

Alternate Titles for this report: Scary Bars in Ensenada Titanic Nissan Sentra: Not intimidating Jeff and Dennis show up at my place around 8 Saturday Morning. We load up into Jeff’s Izuzu, and head to Mexico. From my place it’s a 10 minute drive. We

..My brother and I took my 5 y.o. nephew ice skating this year for Christmas. Cody did great, pretty timid at first, but he got bolder fast. It was fun, here in San Diego they build an outdoor ice rink downtown. Not quite Rockefeller Square,

My Girlfriend Kim and I recently spent 6 days exploring the Northern part of Baja with friends. She wrote a trip report, which is here. My comments were added in Green Text. It’s long, but I hope you enjoy it. By Kim Luu and bits

My girlfriend, Kim, and I did another marathon last week. Her writeup was funny, so I’m sharing it here instead of writing my own. Lazy, yeah… Anyway, this was my first road marathon, I’ve done a bunch others, all on trails. I discovered that although

It’s 4:15 in the morning. Monday. It’s been a long weekend, and now it’s my day off. I should be sleeping in but I peel myself out of bed, stumble to the car. I stop for gas, and head to the shop. Damian is waiting,

It’s Saturday morning, last night I had a long drive to Paso Robles, California, met up with Kim and looked for a way to avoid paying $35 a night for camping. I had a fitful night of sleep, I was nervous, knowing that once again

Febuary 3-12, 2001 It’s time for me to find a job. I quit Western November 3rd, and have had an enjoyable few months of climbing, relaxing, running, and looking for a job. A setback/disapoinment occured when I accepted a horrible, horrible job, that I quit

There were certain things I expected to a problem during this marathon. My IT band has been sore. I haven’t run much the last couple weeks. Etc., Etc. There were other things I never expected to be problematic. a) Rain -> Death Valley gets 2″

Wow. What a run! While my last two big runs have been woeful epics, this one was so great, it almost seems that writing a report on it won’t be interesting at all! If you don’t feel like reading the whole report, here are the

(This was posted on Tom Lambert’s Site, Ergophobe.com, back when it was new. That site is not the same anymore, and the story was missing. I found it on the Interent “wayback Machine, and have ccopied it here. It was written by Tom, not me)

Fresno Dome Trip Report. � May 2000 When Karl Lew and Christian started talking about Fresno Dome I was excited. Longer routes, up near Yosemite. And I hadn’t been there, so it was another pin for my map. Elevation @ 7,000 feet. I was stoked.

FRESNO FOLLIES A 2-day mass assault on a misplaced chunk of Yosemite I exit the CA-99 freeway at Rosedale in Bakersfield. I am to pick up Geoff Jennings in a matter of minutes, provided I can find his place. After slightly misinterpreting his directions, I

For a period of a couple years, I climbed a fair bit with an east coast climber, Dawn. here are her stories.