The Spring 2008 World Class Crew

Israel is the cook, logistics man, local connection, Spanish coach and all-around good guy.


Josh Bechtel is the Head Coach and math teacher.


Dave Zinn is the Program Director this semester. He also teaches history and spanish classes.


Kristi Murrin teaches math and science, and she has an incredible tolerance for the "dudefest" at the school this semester.


Dan West teaches literature and spanish, and he is the Assistant Coach.


This is me. I had a chance to help out the school for a little while, and I didn´t have to teach any classes!

Baños Morales - Headwaters of the Rio Maipo

I just spent a week with World Class on the Rio Maipo. After we had explored several quality sections of whitewater, Israel, the school´s cook, took us to his family´s house upstream in the village of Baños Morales. The village has no power, by choice of its residents. It was incredible to be in such an isolated, gorgeous place just two hours from Chile´s largest center of population, Santiago. We had intended to do a trek to the glaciers that feed the headwaters of the Maipo, but a powerful storm forced the authorities to close the trail for the afternoon. As the weather cleared, we entertained ourselves by climbing the base of one of the surrounding mountains, and I couldn´t stop taking pictures...

Me gustan las fotos!

i thought it was about time to put some more kayaking photos on the blog. these photos and some others can be seen on the wavesport site soon - http//www.doubleyouess.com . i'll try to motivate and get some more, proper updates on here in the next week or so. life is busy, but life is good here in chile. rodrigo and ema are the best, so work is always fun and we are tearing up the liucura and trancura rivers with our ducky and raft trips.

world class is coming to chile in a few days. i am excited to meet up and help with the crew again! they have a pretty amazing paddling itinerary set for chile and argentina this year. those kids are too lucky.

hasta luego!