Inside TRAK

TRAK Pilot Summit - Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Ready to dive in? Get on the InsideTRAK for access to stories & beta from the field, upcoming camps & tours, test paddle opportunities and our online skills training program. We also...

We met Maeghan at the Green Street parking area, a familiar place to all of us. Located on the mouth of the Saranac River, it’s the take out for the whitewater run that passes through campus and also a convenient launch point to start touring on Lake Champlain. Maeghan had graduated from the same Expeditionary Studies program as us a few years back, was now working in the paddlesports industry, and had come back to campus to give a TRAK demo as a TRAK Pilot. It was early May and the semester was just wrapping up with finals a week away. Garrett and I were excited to see the boat live and in person. We had recently watched the older “TRAK Files” videos and the clip with Jamie Sharpe surfing a TRAK on Skookumchuck. The TRAK seemed like the perfect boat to a couple of Expeditionary Studies majors, though we had never actually seen one in person.  

I’ve been excited to explore Alaska for as long as I can remember, and I finally had the opportunity to do so during our recent Facing Waves shoot in the Juneau, Alaska area.  I had high hopes and expectations from this trip, and I can say unequivocally that it exceeded all my expectations. 

The twenty-person-strong team, cryptically entitled the TRAK 20/20 Team, consists of a handpicked selection of TRAK Pilot/Ambassadors and ACA instructors. Vetted according to their experience, expertise, enthusiasm, and personalities, and brought onboard to provide feedback at a critical time, we assembled (most) of the team in Tofino, BC, to accomplish the critical mission of testing and feedback on TRAK 2.0. This West Coast venue was selected as the perfect theatre in which to tackle the difficult task of articulating the required feedback for a number of reasons: it is a verified paddling mecca with varyingly intense conditions, getting there required the team to travel with their TRAK via plane – an important aspect of TRAK ownership, and for the secluded and remote environment that would allow for a focused experience that was free of distractions. A better choice could not have been made.

Heeding the call of action, duty and adventure; our would-be heroes set out from across the continent. Their convergence upon the supernatural island of Vancouver was merely the beginning of a greater story.

Large swells were rolling at me from my right, having crossed a 200 mile reach of the Mediterranean Sea between Lybia and the southern coast of Crete. Choppy reflection waves came at me from the left, rebounding off multi-hewed, jagged cliffs. And a quartering tail wind pushed a third set of wind waves diagonally across my course, continually pushing my bow to the right. My husband Ray and I were paddling with all our might towards the tiny town of Scafion on the southern coast of Crete, even as wave peak heights increased and we temporarily disappeared from each-other’s view in the deep troughs.