Walt blackadar wikipedia

In , Walt Blackadar opened the pages of Alaska magazine and stared wide-eyed at a photo of a massive, glaciated mountain towering over the Alsek River, a silt-filled maelstrom of icebergs and whitewater. Less than 15 years later, that mountain would bear his name and the small town doctor and legendary whitewater kayaker would be dead.

Blackadar first kayaked in He was in his mid-forties, and over the next decade he pushed the boundaries of whitewater kayaking more than any of his contemporaries. Blackadar eschewed the typical slalom races that represented the professional and publicly understood state of kayaking. And for Blackadar, bigger was better. His brash, at times arrogant, attitude defined his life and his impact on the nascent sport.

Beloved by many, treated suspiciously by some, Blackadar was a force in the whitewater kayaking community.

Walt blackadar wikipedia: Walter Lloyd Blackadar Jr. (August

The Grand Canyon, the Middle Fork of the Salmon, the South Fork of the Flathead, the South Fork of the Payette, the Bruneau and the Jarbridge, Blackadar ran them all many for the first time in his fragile fiberglass kayaks, torpedoing from rapid to rapid, roll to roll. His trips often included long, dramatic swims and harrowing near-death experiences.

But time after time, he slipped past the brink and returned home to his medical practice in Salmon, Idaho.