TEAM CANYONS + HUPPYBAR

March 30, 2020 5:11 pm

Partners in Adventure

Team Canyons has a history of going deep into the heart of adventure. In the 1980s, Canyons Founders and avid river runners Les Bechdel and his wife Susan became national leaders and educators in on-river safety. Current owner Greg McFadden and Canyons Manager Ariana Lowe are skilled kayakers who have kayaked many rivers the world over. They aspire to keep the tradition alive at Canyons by encouraging guides to increase their proficiency and hone in their skills in all kinds of boats, on all classes of rivers. Canyons guides bring their experience and high level of stoke on every trip.

Greg and several other guides at Canyons also guide commercially with Arizona Rafting Adventures in Grand Canyon where they run through the muddy, towering waves of the Colorado River. There among the high canyon walls, they have run into a fellow adventurer, Lyndsay Hupp, aka Huppy. In a canyon full of characters, this gregarious gal has made a name for herself. She has rowed, motored and kayaked through Grand Canyons over a hundred times. She has hiked hundreds of miles across the terrain and canyoneered through its most isolated gorges. Most recently, she was part of an elite team of athletes who attempted to break the downriver speed record in Grand Canyon by rowing all 277 miles in under 34 hours. Needless to say, her adventures in Grand Canyon make her hungry. After over a decade of eating GORP (good ole’ raisins and peanuts), Huppy decided she desperately needed a new snack to keep her fueled and created the Huppybar, an organic, nutritious and delicious alternative to the bland snack bars and handfuls of GORP.

After hanging out with Huppy, Canyons felt there was an obvious connection that had to be taken advantage of! We have teamed up with her to offer Huppybars on our river trips for the 2020 season. We cracked a beer and sat down with Huppy to discuss our partnership. Here are excerpts of our conversation.

With all the varied adventures you do, what is it about multi-day river trips that keep you coming back for more?

The more time you can allow yourself to be immersed in a place and an experience, the more you will reap the benefits it has to offer. Multi-day river trips are one of the best ways to tap into the pulse of a place and draw a real connection to the outside, natural world. Not to mention the connection you will form with the people around you; living day in and day out with each other on the river allows people a certain amount of surrender to just be and let be and it can really bring out the best in us. Life is pretty simple on the river and I think we can all agree that the more you can get of that, the better!

Your favorite river experience recently and why?

I was recently on a river trip (with 7 teammates, on a 40’ cataraft with 6 oar stations– that made an attempt at breaking the river speed record through Grand Canyon of less than 34 hours and 2 minutes. It was a trip unlike any other in a place I had been well over 100 times before. Because we were moving non-stop downstream for well over 30 hours, night and day, it–among many other things–allowed me to sort of see the Grand Canyon again for the first time, making it a truly remarkable, epically challenging, and one of the most impactful trips I have ever done.

Have you run the Middle Fork, Main Salmon, or other rivers in ID?

I’ve never set foot in Idaho! Which is terrible!! I need to fix that!!

What’s the reason you’d like to see your Huppybars get on Canyons trips? What attracts you to doing business with us?

Huppybars were born on the river. Although they were born in the Grand Canyon, they do not discriminate against what river they are on. In fact, they love going down ALL rivers! So, as owner and creator of Huppybar, it is part of my duty to see that Huppybars get to experience as many rivers, trails, mountains, deserts, oceans, and lakes as they possibly can! As a huge bonus, the people on those journeys get to enjoy delicious Huppybars. It’s a win-win! To carry the Huppybar-love on these journeys, I like to find the outfitters that are doing it right and having the most fun. Canyons is exactly that and Huppybar is so excited to be going downriver with them this season!