MIKKEL ST. JEAN-DUNCAN
JOHN RATHWELL
NICK TROUTMAN
DOOLEY TOMBRAS
MIKKEL ST. JEAN-DUNCAN A former competitive slalom and freestyle kayaker, St. Jean-Duncan now studies computer engineering at the University of Calgary and spends his summers creeking and exploring new runs in Alberta, British Columbia and beyond. Often paddling with camera in hand, his image of a group below Takakkaw Falls in Yoho National Park appears on page 24. “You slide into the Yoho River beneath the falls amongst hundreds of tourists,” says St. Jean-Duncan, “Then you’re surrounded by 500-foot granite canyon walls where you don’t see a soul.”
NICK TROUTMAN When Troutman isn’t on the road between rivers in his RV, the former World Freestyle Champion is creeking in Cali, surfing on the Ottawa, competing in Colorado and scouring the jungles of Mexico for some of the best whitewater in Latin America. For a photo shoot on the Rio Alseseca’s S-Turn Rapid (Kayak Technique, page 16), he honed his line on 14 laps down the twister…but it was the local fauna that caused the most trouble. “Rafa [Ortiz] walked into a hornet’s nest while hiking up,” recalls Troutman, “The bees were everywhere.”
JOHN RATHWELL
Between running his own adventure sport photography company (www.
johnrathwellphotography.com), teaching photo clinics and working as Level Six Apparel’s director of Internet marketing, Rathwell keeps the creative fires burning by shooting personal work on his iPhone. “The iPhone allows me a creative outlet that no other device allows,” he says. But it’s not without its challenges. For his photo on page 11 (“iPhotog- rapher,” Standing Waves), Rathwell says, “Billy [Harris] spent more time making funny faces into the camera phone than he did shooting photos with it like he was supposed to.”
DOOLEY TOMBRAS Hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, creek boater and North American Open Canoe Slalom Champion Tombras says the open canoe tech- niques he shares on page 17 have saved his hide many times. “One of the scariest moments I’ve ever had paddling was putting on the West Prong—the most continuous class V boulder garden run in the Smok- ies—when the water was too high,” he recalls. “I filled up gunwale to gunwale and kept missing eddies and flushing into class V rapids back- wards. I used upper body momentum to avoid getting pinned and to eventually catch the eddy that got me to safety.”
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PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE) COURTESY: MIKKEL ST. JEAN-DUNCAN, NICK TROUTMAN, COLIN MONEYPENNY, JOHN RATHWELL
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