TS Paddles: Established November 3, 2014
My passion for paddling started in my childhood, growing up with my father who was adamant about taking our family on backpacking, camping, and float trips as a young child. My parents instilled a passion for the outdoors supporting me through cub scouts, boy scouts ,and achieving the rank of eagle scout. I remember growing up with a green Royalex Old Town canoe, and going on trips in the ozark’s and mid-Missouri area, fishing camping, and trying to catch crayfish while hanging over the boat. On vacation in Colorado, around the age of 14, I had my first whitewater experience with my father and older brother rafting the lower Cache la Poudre river. All of these early experiences were just a catalyst to my addition of paddling.
In 2006, my “uncle”(extended cousin) Wendell, was the person that brought me into the fold of the paddling world. I was around the age of 19 and Wendell invited me to join a whitewater trip along with his son Wade, same age as me, to paddle the lower Nantahala river. He put me in an inflated kayak, all the safety gear and we paddled a short section of the lower Nantahala (Surf rapid to the takeout after bump). Watching Wendell surf and following his running the rapids in a hard boat I was immediately hooked. I wanted to learn how to whitewater kayak in a hard boat as soon as I could. Later that year after a hard rain in Columbia, MO, I got my first chance to paddle a hard boat with Wendell down Hinkson Creek. The following year Wendell and his friend Jim took me and some other new boaters back to the Nantahala river, this time running the entire lower section in a hard boat. It was a disaster, with a thunder storm and multiple swimmers, but I stayed upright. This was the trip that instilled my addiction for whitewater, knowing that I could handle when things do not go according to plan, and keep paddling!
My next learning curve was knowing how to roll my kayak if I was wanting to excel in whitewater. This is where Jim was very helpful giving me the a good explanation on how to take a second to set up, use your core, and “keep you head down!” to hit a good roll. Once I had practiced and learned a solid roll my paddling world opened up, allowing me to explore rivers around the nation/world.
In 2012, I entered into the Missouri 340 Kayak Race from Kansas City to St. Charles Missouri. I had been working at Alpine Shop and paddling whitewater every chance (living in Missouri, it’s not easy), and wanted to take a chance at trying a 3 day marathon kayak race. I failed miserably, this was a year of a massive drought with low and slow water, and 105 degree temperatures with miserably high humidity levels, making the race very difficult. I ended up pulling a back muscle early in the race, and pulled out. The failure of this race is the reason I started hand making paddles.
In May of 2013, I decided I wanted to hand make a paddle out of wood having no clue how to woodwork. Thankfully, Google and YouTube were able to help me get my start. I simply searched what the easiest paddle to hand make and learned about the Greenland paddle. After watching several videos and taking notes, I went to the hardware store and bought a basic set of hand tools and lumber to get me started. For the next year I hand carved a my first paddle with using around $100.00 worth of hand tools, time and sweat. Once my first paddle was finished, I did not feel satisfied, and wanted to do more and decided I wanted to wood-burn the map of the Missouri River 340 race on the paddle. This idea was the ultimate ideas that has now manifested into the business TS Paddles.
