We did it! The Last Descent is finally finished.  The Last Descent premiered on January 10th at the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival in Nevada City, CA.  We had two screenings throughout the weekend and the theaters were packed for both events, as a matter of fact there was a line out the door both days! 

The Wild and Scenic Film Festival, which is the largest environmental film festival in the country, was the perfect venue for us to premier the film because of all of the adventurers and environmentally conscious people in the audience. 
http://www.wildandscenicfilmfestival.org/

The premier made headlines in Newspapers, Radio, TV and across the internet.

News 10 TV story
350.org article

Throughout the weekend we saw many amazing films that were inspirational, educational and entertaining and we were amazed when at the end of the weekend The Last Descent was honored with the People’s Choice Award.  Out of 180 films, The Last Descent was voted as the favorite film of the festival by the viewers.

We are so glad that The Last Descent was so well received, and how inspiring it is that so many people do care about our rivers. Although The Last Descent film is finished the mission still continues. All sales from The Last Descent will be donated to organizations that are working hard to protect our wonderful rivers. We are finishing up the last minute touches on the box cover, and we should have DVD’s ready for sale within a month. We will be screening it at several different locations in the next 6 months. Check the blog for an updated schedule. Right now, all three of us our back in college and when it rains we head to the river for some more of California’s classic runs.


--Katie

Check out the interview article in AOL Sports on The Last Descent.

http://outdoors.fanhouse.com/2008/10/27/pro-paddlers-fight-dams-in-the-last-descent/

--Scott

Katie and I took some time away from editing last week to paddle a stretch of the Yuba River north of Sacramento that has not seen water in over 7 years.  The Yuba River is one of California's most dammed rivers and in combination with the neighboring Bear River is called the "Yuba-Bear Project."  The complex Yuba-Bear Project consists of nearly 50 dams, and many pipes, diversions and reservoirs.  Most of the Yuba-Bear Project is up for a 50 year relicensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 2013. 

The relicensing process involves many studies in order to evaluate the effects of these projects.  The studies include effects on wildlife, environment, other water users and recreation.  Because whitewater boating and recreation on these rivers was not that big 50 years ago when the projects were given the license many stretches of river very rarely see water for recreational purposes.  But now through the relicensing process organizations of boaters such as American Whitewater (www.americanwhitewater.org) are fighting to assure recreational flow releases on some classic stretches of river. 


The huge Bullards Bar dam on the North Yuba.  Photo by Jared Noceti

The North Fork of the Yuba River below Bullards Bar Reservoir is diverted through a giant (you could drive a car through it) pipe for 8 miles or so down to Colgate Powerhouse where it is returned to the natural river bed.  One mile or so below the powerhouse the river is again backed up by another dam, Englebright.  Yuba County is the owner and operator of the Bullards Bar Dam and Colgate Power House.  Currently the penstock returning the water to the river at Colgate is going through maintenance so until December the river is once again flowing in it's natural river bed for the first time in years.

Lizzy, Grant, Scott and Katie -- Photo by Jared Noceti


Yahoo for late fall kayaking!  Jared Noceti, Grant Korgan, Lizzy English Katie Scott and Myself set out to re-explore what this canyon had in store.  The run took us more than 7 hours of scouting, paddling and portaging. 


Lizzy English making a tight move above a sieve.  Photo by Jared Noceti


The run contained many classic steep bouldery rapids.  Many sieves were also encountered keeping us on our toes and making us portage many times. 


North Yuba River.  Photo by Jared Noceti

As the light faded and the stars came out we considered spending the night out but pushed on to find the brightly lit powerhouse that marked our take out around a corner.


Katie Scott.  Photo by Jared Noceti

We were amazed that such a great run exists just over an hour away from our home in Sacramento.  This is one of many runs that we look forward to being able to paddle every fall once the relicensing happens.  Thank you to Dave Stiendorf and all of the other people at American Whitewater for helping put water back in our rivers.

---Scott Ligare

It probably seems like nothing has been going on with The Last Descent for a while because of the lack of blog updates.  We are sorry for not keeping you all up to date out there but we have actually been quite busy.  We moved the editing studio and home down to Sacramento where where we have been editing away.  We have also been working closely with American Whitewater out here in California helping develop a plan for recreational releases in California.  All profits from sales of the film will be donated to organizations such as American Whitewater.

We have pushed the premier date forward in order to premier the film at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, CA.  We are very excited to be a part of the festival and it will be the perfect place and audience to premier the film.  Check out their website at www.wildandscenicfilmfestival.org  Get your tickets soon folks I look forward to seeing you all there.

---Scott and Katie

The new website is up!  www.thelastdescent.com  There is a lot more information on each of the regions that we visited with photos.  There is also a new 5:30 min trailer for the film.  Enjoy.

---Scott

 

We will be showing slides featuring the rivers of India that are threatened by large scale hydroelectric projects in Lotus, CA on Saturday June 21st at The River Store.  www.theriverstore.com 

There will be free ice cream at 5:30 and slideshow at 7:00 PM

There will be equipment displays and many of the athletes involved in the project will be there to answer questions.

Be there.

It is good to see that the issues of this remote area are starting to make big news.  These are the rivers of Arunachal Pradesh that The Last Descent team descended in our kayaks in December and January.  Check out the video:


http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/64572/northeast-activists-quest-to-save-forests-in-danger.html

--Scott

This message was sent to us by a concerned Canadian boater named John Blyth, thanks for the heads up John.

Seems like many of the big name rivers are under threat. Including the one just behind my house, The Slave River (see kayak session issue#1).

http://jobs.albertatradesmen.com/alberta-business-economic-financial-news/transcanada-eyes-5-billion-alberta-hydro-project.htm


It's been touted as a green, environmentally sound "run of the river," project. Its not a dam, its a "weir like structure that could be up to 33m in height and stretch the length of the river."  After being to a couple of the community information sessions in town, ATCO and TransCanada (the two companies involved) have said that they are looking into developing a hydro project on the Rapids of the Slave River. They have said publicly that the dam would be located in the rapids, and would flood out one or more of the 4 sets (depending on the results they obtain from the feasibility study).  The feasibility study is set to begin this year and will take a couple of years with construction starting around 2015 ish.

here's a couple pictures of the 3rd set of rapids Mountain Portage. (the close up rapid photo is (Molly's Nipple) located in the top right of the of the aerial photo) This is one of a dozen  or more huge drops on the Slave, not to mention the hundreds or thousands of smaller feature.






--John Blyth

On Thursday April 24 at the Exploration Works Museum in Helena Montana, Katie gave her home town crowd a great show.



More than 100 people showed up for the event which was more than the venue has ever seen.  Katie did an excellent job of entertaining, explaining the trip and educating the audience about what the project is about.



More slideshows and talks about the project will happen throughout the summer.  Info about these events will be posted here.  Thanks for everybody that attended the event and to the Exploration Works Museum.  

Things are just starting to getting going here in California.  The days are warming up and the snow is beginning its journey out of the mountains into the rivers.  Scott and Katie finally made it back from their 6th month journey through Southeast Asia and Africa and are ready to get some Cali Whitewater. 


Scott Ligare getting ready for A good day of Creeking

Reunited in our home territory, Scott, Charlie, myself and joined by our good friend Chris Zawacki, we decided to head down South for some good old California Creeking where we would ultimately end up in Kernville for the 4th annual Brush Creek Race.

Our first drainage to hit was the upper South Tule, which is right in the middle of the Tule Indian Reservation.  This reservation is one of the largest in California and the locals take pride in it.  This was evident in how pristine and unlittered the whole area was.  It also became apparent that they are quite possessive of the area and that we were not really welcome to be paddling up there.  Apparently a permit is required (referred to as a “trespasser pass” by the local Tribal Council) and if you leave a car on the reservation while paddling it will quickly be broken into and all of your stuff thrown off the cliff. 


Scott on the South Fork Middle Tule

Learning all of this we opted to save this run for another day.  So we packed our stuff up and headed to the South Fork of the Middle Tule on the other side of the ridge and off the reservation.  Here we found the flow low, but boatable with some fun drops and interesting mineral deposits.


Chris Zawaki ducking some stalagtites

Next we headed to the East Fork Kaweah, where we were also joined by Phil Boyer. Some say this is arguably the best one day class V run in the State.  Looking down from the road, the run looks quite intimidating, as it is in a vertical walled gorge and is extremely steep.  The entire run has exciting slides, and small falls with numerous technical portages.  We found our flow to be just about perfect making the run much more exciting and clean than at lower flows. 


Charlie on Triple Drop (East Kaweah)

The next day we packed up again and following some beta from a friend of Phil’s, headed out to check out the South Fork of the Kaweah.  None of us knew much about the South Fork, except for the rumor of some sweet waterfalls.  After paddling a mile or so of steep, manky rapids, the river suddenly turned to bedrock and we were rewarded with some really quality slides and falls.  The highlight was a clean and fun twenty foot falls.


Erick Conklin firing off the 20 footer  (South Kaweah)

Probably the biggest reason this river is seldom run is the access.  The section we ran is along private property, and it was difficult to find anywhere to hike out where we weren’t trespassing.  So much of the State’s whitewater has access issues, either with private property or governmental restrictions.  The American Whitewater Affiliation along with other non-profit organizations, continually lobby to obtain access to California’s waterways. 


Charlie's new friend

The last stop on our trip was the Kern River Festival.  The festival happens every year in April and includes a plethora of fun paddling events including: slalom, downriver races and the steep creeking Brush Creek Race.  This year about 40 contestants tried their hand at the race.  The result was a lot of entertainment as the paddlers, slid and bumped their way down this steep, fun little creek.



Kicking back in some Cali sunshine



Phil Boyer on the South Kaweah

As we traveled through the central valley and into these Sierra drainages, evidence was everywhere of artificial alterations to the rivers and ecosystems.  From the numerous powerhouses and water diversions to the massive canals channeling water through the valley for irrigation.  Right now is a key time for the future of America’s river drainages.  As dams come up for relicensing, better water management policies can be implemented to restore flows and river ecosystems as well as provide better recreation opportunities for future generations.


The future of California's rivers?

-Erick Conklin-