Pine Barrens Functional Freestyle 2026 - Things I saw and did

[themadindian]

If you have the means to attend this event, I strongly recommend it, this was my 5th year attending and it's amazing what you'll keep learning and refining just being around these instructors and students alike. I had another 5th year ask me if I was holding the blade neutral at the stern and every time I remembered I stopped drifting to my onside, all because I made comment on how I was having a hard time using my standard forward stroke with the wildfire compared to everything else I owned.

Anyway...
Ran into Russ on the way in so I didn't have to enter the code for the gate


Swift sits alone?




Time to make sure we still know what we're doing


Jim helping us refine our forward stroke


Nancy



Up early on Saturday to get some steam fog and dew shots




Someone got up and moving before me





Heading in for our cross reverse lessons


The usual suspects...


Time for the instructor demos, I never get enough time with this guy at these events


Marc doing Marc stuff


Robyn in cross reverse



I didn't take any pics Sunday but I did get video
This is before the heavy rain started

This is the heavy rain and the uh fun struggles. By the end you can see in the cross reverses how much more of the stern is visible

Not bad for my 3rd time in the wildfire, I had a goal of learning it and I think I did pretty well in that goal.

 

[stevet]

Thanks for the vids…wildfire is the perfect hull for that.

 

[tketcham]

Fun in the Pine Barrens!

Some good puzzles to solve on a rainy day...

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Thanks for those great photos and terrific videos, Keith. I feel good that the Wildfire is back in its element, and It almost felt like I was paddling it again.

For the info of others, that looked like Bruce's (@85dragonfly) class with him in his Curtis Dragonfly, Tom (@tketcham) in his Northstar Firebird, Russ (@NikonF5user) in his Swift Wildfire, and you in the Bell Wildfire. I've never paddled that part of the Barrens. Is that the Mullica River and Goshen Pond above Atsion Lake? You certainly had good water levels as we did the prior week of recreational paddling.

 

[themadindian]

Thanks for those great photos and terrific videos, Keith. I feel good that the Wildfire is back in its element, and It almost felt like I was paddling it again.

For the info of others, that looked like Bruce's (@85dragonfly) class with him in his Curtis Dragonfly, Tom (@tketcham) in his Nonstarter Firebird, Russ (@NikonF5user) in his Swift Wildfire, and you in the Bell Wildfire. I've never paddled that part of the Barrens. Is that the Mullica River and Goshen Pond above Atsion Lake? You certainly had good water levels as we did the prior week of recreational paddling.

That was in fact Goshen pond, pretty neat place with a few active beaver lodges