- Most Popular
- Beginner Level Beginner
- 14+ Ages 14+
- 1-5 days Duration 1-5 days
During this beginner kayak clinic, our river time focuses on fundamental river skills such as leans, setting angles, and performing eddy turns and peel outs.
Quick Details
This price includes all equipment, instruction, catered, picnic-style lunch and transportation from our base to and from the paddling sites.
Trip Leader Skills and ACA Skills Assessment
Zoar Outdoor has long recognized that a partnership with clubs creates a healthy paddling community. We offer professional, top-notch instruction and rely on clubs to keep paddlers hooked all season long!
Join paddling club trip leaders from all over the region to share knowledge and best practices from each locale. This training has the option to be recognized by the American Canoe Association as a Trip Leader Assessment course. Those that would like this option to be recognized by the ACA will need to be ACA members which can be included in the course cost. Having trip leaders with an ACA assessment provides the club with a nationally recognized performance standard. An ACA trip leader assessment provides proof of a trip leader’s ability. It helps add strength to the validity of a trip leader’s expertise. Participants are also able to join without becoming ACA members and will receive the same training, but without registering their participation with the ACA.
This course is intended to provide the minimum skills and training necessary for an adult leader with basic paddling skills, to safely lead a trip for participants with adequate paddling skills, on a day trip, on moving water up to and including Class I-II rapids.
Further, we are excited to lead a thoughtful conversation among various paddling clubs. We’ll exam some real situations club leaders have faced and create some scenarios for practicing leadership skills both on and off the water. We will blend a mix of classroom time and river time for excellent education opportunities. The curriculum is flexible to the goals of those enrolled in the course.
This is a two day assessment style course, where we’ll assess a trip leaders current skills and build upon them. It’s a great opportunity to see what other trip leaders have set for their standards and to share information among paddling clubs.
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To take this clinic, participants must be able to perform eddy turns, peel outs and ferries in Class II water, roll (50%) on Class II water, and perform self-rescues. Additionally, participants need to be able to cross challenging eddylines confidently.
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What should I wear?
While some of the flatwater areas we use are quite warm in June, July, and August, the Deerfield River is always cool, regardless of the time of year or air temperature. When packing your paddling clothes, please plan accordingly, especially if you are coming early or late in the season (April, May, September, and October). Our clinics will run rain or shine.
Wear items such as:
- Synthetic long underwear, garments made of polypropylene, capilene, or some polyester/spandex blend.
- Fleece or wool socks
- Bathing suit
- Fleece or wool jacket/sweater (early/late season or if you tend to chill easily)
Other items to bring:
- Sunscreen
- Sunglasses
- Retaining strap for glasses
- Nose plugs
- Towel
- Required medications
- Extra money for snacks, t-shirts, or coin-operated showers.
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Zoar Outdoor will provide:
- boat
- wetsuit
- paddle jacket
- booties
- life jacket
- helmet
- paddle
- sprayskirt
- We provide a catered picnic-style lunch on all our clinics. Typical lunches include homemade rolls, sliced turkey, ham or other meats, sliced cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, chips, salsa, hummus, pasta or other salad, cookies or other dessert and hot and cold drinks.
The following statement is required by state law: “Before placing your order, please inform your server if a person in your party has a food allergy.”
We do not use nuts in our food, but can not guarantee that the ingredients in our meals do not contain nuts or other food allergens. If you have food allergies or other special dietary needs, we strongly suggest you bring your own bag lunch in non-glass containers and we will pack it with the other lunches on your trip. Please inform our office at 800 532-7483 or [email protected] if you intend to do this.
(If you own your own equipment, we suggest you use it in the clinic to get used to its quirks.)