Paddler Profile DaveReid
“DownRiver” Dave Reid is all about “recognizing fear and walking forward to face it.” He’s pioneered West Coast runs of South Creek, Trethaway and the Lower Cogburn, broken four boats, been jammed in undercuts, pushed under logs and over falls. His 15 years of injury-free hucking attest to his reputation as the coolest head on the river. He puts safety ahead of pride, once helping Corey Boux climb 2,000 feet out of South Creek with a dislocated shoulder, and walking away from a Rogers Creek photo shoot because the water level was too high.
Dave discovered expedition boating in 2001 on northern B.C.’s Dean River with Clay Wright, the Kern brothers and Scott Lindgren. Later that year he put onto the Homathko with Steve Skakle, Steve Whittal, Dietre Polk, Stuart Smith, Dave Persolja, Dustin Knapp and the Kern brothers. “With a team as strong as this,” he recalls, “the realization that it is actually going to happen sets in.” They ran the entire 150-kilometre river in only three days.
His goal for 2003 is to bag the first descent of Mosley Creek, an impossibly steep, high-volume creek that flows into the Homathko River gorge. It’s at the end of a 50-kilometre hike through dense rainforest, completely isolated and days from the nearest road. For Dave, the meaning of life is “To explore and grovel, to get muddy and sweat, to suffer so that later I can look back and say that I lived.”—Philip Kompass Age:
Hometown: Local playspot: Favourite river: Specialty: Boat:
Most spectacular non- paddling achievement:
School: Work:
Do you want to have kids? Music: Film:
Dental floss or Waterpick? 20
www.rapidmag.com
29. I’m a Taurus who likes long romantic walks on the beach. Whistler, B.C. Skookumchuck Upper Ryan, B.C.
Creeking expeditions and steep creeks Wave Sport Mutant
Climbing Ultimate Everything, a 25-pitch rock climb on the Stawamus Chief. Graduate of UBC in only 10 years. Whistler ski patroller and raft guide Did my girlfriend put you up to this? Neil Young, Bob Marley and Tool Easy Rider Milkbone
Dave Reid on Rogers Creek B.C. photo Ilja Herb
“To an idealistic youth, who believed in honesty and, if you will, chivalry, my first impressions of many of my early idols were disappointing. More often than not, these people came across a little too full of themselves, a little to competitive, and a little too quick to judge others while turning a blind eye to
their own shortcomings. This, however, was not the case with Dave. His character left a bigger impres- sion on me than the sum of his mind-boggling pad- dling accomplishments.”—Isaac Priestley, Priestley Brothers Productions
photo Ilja Herb
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