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North America's Top 10 Beginner SUP Spots

SUP-ing Lake Tahoe's hot springs    Photographer: Courtesy of Tahoe Paddle & Oar

The best bays, breaks, lakes, and rivers for learning the world’s fastest growing paddle sport

By: PATTY HODAPP

 From a stand-up paddleboard in Mexico’s Banderas Bay, a hundred yards to shore can look like miles, especially when you don't have any idea what you're doing. But that's why I was there with Jeri Grant, a SUP instructor based in Puerto Vallarta. “Just stand up and paddle,” she told me, as three-foot waves rolled under my board. Right. Simple, except that I felt about as coordinated as the pelicans lumbering overhead. Still, there has to be something beyond the beginner awkwardness—stand up paddleboarding is America’s fastest growing water sport.

Paddleboarding, like surfing, has its roots in Polynesia. It stayed there, more or less, until 2008, when celebrity surfer Laird Hamilton hyped stand up paddleboarding to Good Morning America’s four million weekly viewers. More than a million people have started stand up paddling boarding since last year. Despite its unwieldy acronym, the sport is gaining traction in surprising ways. Shops now cater to whitewater junkies in central Colorado and fishermen on Lake Michigan's southern shore. I thought I'd SUP in a place that made the most sense to me: the 86-degree water of Mexico’s Banderas Bay.

Per Grant’s instructions, I stroked from my knees to gain momentum, popped up on the board, and promptly face planted. Two hours later—I couldn’t believe it—I was up and wobbling my way around the bay. By afternoon’s end, I surfed a beach break to shore and fell backward into knee-deep water before a family of six. No matter. I still wanted more.

Want to SUP? Here are the top ten beginner-friendly places to paddle in North America.

Top 10 Beginner SUP Spots in North America | North America | OutsideOnline.com

Paddleboarding moves east, inland, to whitewater

AP PHOTO/MIKE GROLL

By: MICHAEL VIRTANEN |

Whitewater guide Jaime Iadicicco ran rapids in the lower Adirondacks last week, only it wasn't in a raft or a kayak. She was actually standing up, most of the time at least, on a paddleboard, becoming one of the first to bring water sports' latest craze to New York's northern whitewater.

In the decade since paddleboarding re-emerged from the Hawaiian surf, heading east to California and across the U.S. mainland, it has moved onto lakes and rivers as an alternative to canoes and kayaks, giving another option to surfers who like fast-moving water and can't easily reach the ocean.

Iadicicco enjoyed the challenge of trying to stay up and balanced on a paddleboard instead of going over waves and churning water in a raft or a kayak.

"It's a lot more exciting, I think, just part of it because it's something new," she said.

At 10½ feet long and 2½ feet wide, the 29-pound inflatable NRS Big Earl that Iadicicco rode is a little bigger than the usual longboard used in ocean surfing. It also is made of heavy-duty rubber, instead of fiberglass, so it will survive collisions with rocks. Though Iadicicco said she didn't touch a rock with the board or the paddle, she wore a helmet and life vest, and had the board leashed to her ankle.

The lower Sacandaga's whitewater is considered relatively easy. Besides rafts and kayaks, it sometimes draws people on inner tubes and other floats, and occasionally swimmers. Iadicicco thought the nearby Hudson River Gorge, with more rocks and steeper drops, would have her lying down.

In Colorado, some enthusiasts have attached footstraps, similar to those used on windsurfers, enabling them to ride rougher rapids. A few makers of standup paddleboards, or SUPs, have begun producing whitewater boards. Races held the last three years at Glenwood Springs Whitewater Park to coincide with the spring runoff have evolved into an annual festival with an inland surf contest as well.

"Obviously things are changing rapidly," said Paul Tefft, who recently produced a DVD on whitewater paddleboarding. With so many landlocked ocean surfers he predicted it will get more popular. "The thing is it's an endless wave. You can stand on there for an hour and just rip."

In the Adirondacks, Lake George Kayak Co. first got paddleboards three years ago and now rents them daily during the summer. Paddlers first learn in a quiet bay. Last week, a couple got up immediately, coached to start on their knees at the board's center, then lay the paddle across the deck, stand with feet parallel and evenly apart and use the long paddles by turning their torsos.

One of the novices followed instructor Harry Caldwell across the bay, under a bridge and into the wind a half-mile out onto the lake, where a small chop and occasional boat wakes rocked the boards lightly. Caldwell recalled returning once when the wind simply blew him back to the boathouse.

"This is the year that it really kind of hit the East. And as it is moving east it's changing. The designs are changing," said Ike Wolgin, owner of Lake George Kayak Co. Many boards retail for about $1,000. Longer and narrower boards, some are up to 14 feet long and just inches over 2 feet wide, are built for speed and use in the flat-water races popping up around the country. Paddles, about 10 inches taller than paddlers, can weigh little over a pound. Many retail for more than $200.

The Outdoor Foundation's latest survey showed more than a million paddleboarders in the U.S. last year, the first year it measured them, compared with nearly 2.8 million surfers, up 15 percent from 2009, and 1.8 million whitewater kayakers, up 35 percent.

According to Rob Casey's 2011 book "Stand Up Paddling," Peruvian fisherman propelled small unstable craft with a long bamboo shaft shaped like a kayak paddle for 3,000 years and surfed back to shore afterward. Captain James Cook, one of the first Europeans to see Hawaiians surf in 1778, saw many paddle out and onto waves. In the 1900s, Hawaiian waterman Duke Kahanamoku sometimes used paddles to help him stand on boards and keep better track of waves and other surfers.

In 1995, big-wave surfers Dave Kalama and Laird Hamilton began using paddles. The current U.S. trend took off from there.

Wolgin recalled windsurfing's boom and decline to a smaller core of enthusiasts, citing the difficulty of learning to stand, balance and sail all at once.

Paddleboarding is more accessible, and whitewater is a small part of the emerging sport, he said, noting, "In the East, there's a lot of great flat water."

Wolgin also said it's a crossover sport, with athletes of many persuasions adding it to their routines.

"We've dropped a lot of boards in the water the past few years. All ages. All body types," he said. "It's an 'and' sport. Most people in our neighborhood are not giving up kayaks and sport canoes. Last year we sold a bunch to triathletes."

His partner, Michelle Pollock, said it's a workout, and they have a trainer developing a modified yoga program and possibly classes.

"Beyond the normal challenges of balance you have to stabilize the board as well," she said. "You just realize how many smaller muscles there are in your legs and your feet when you just try to stabilize yourself."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/sports/2011/08/paddleboarding-moves-east-inland-whitewater#ixzz1VsLhXpjp