Dear internet, I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while. Sometimes, you just get too busy actually working to write about the work later on – but you didn’t come hear to read my excuses…

FLAGSTAFF, AZ – It’s 0300, 21 degrees out, and stupidly windy – another wonderful day in Flagstaff. Yet thankfully the coffee is hot and the warm smiles of friends meeting up quickly puts the weather from our minds. We’re all meeting up at zero dark thirty so that we can pile into a haul truck that rides about as well as a 2×4 and bounce down diamond creek road to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. There, we’ll hop on the Colorado River with a bunch of guys from the US Mens Rowing Team who are fixing to take their shot at history.

SUNRISE – We’re at the bottom of diamond creek rigging to get wet. Next to our familiar snout boat and sport boat is a very interesting contraption that seems completely out of place in the Grand Canyon. It’s like a crew rowing boat fell out of it’s mounts in the boat garage and crashed into a whitewater gear locker for a night of mix and match – the result is a purpose built machine with one objective: To break the speed record through the heart of the Grand Canyon.

We’re running Diamond down so that the guys from Gnarly Bay Films – the same guys who made The Important Places – can get on water footage of the team. During their actual speed run attempt, commercial boats are not allowed in the Grand Canyon.

Diamond Down in a day takes us more time than the sun spends in the sky, but that give the team a chance to check out the lighting system that they’ll be trusting their lives to in order to safely navigate the river at night. Our one day adventure ends with an somewhat complicated boat extraction at Pearce ferry, and a long ride home, but for the team the adventure is just beginning. I’ll quit putting words in your way now, so you can feast your senses on some awesome.