Paddling the world's waterways is certainly no new phenom. Native Americans fashioned watercraft from the materials that surrounded them, creating everything from covered sealskin kayaks to sturdy birchbark canoes; Pacific Ocean islanders hopscotched from as far as Tonga to Hawaii on swift outrigger canoes. However, today's stronger, lighter materials—from fiberglass to high-tech plastics—have made boats a recreational delight.

Kayaks and canoes have the same general design goal in mind—get the paddlers from one place to the other across the water. But specializations in both classes of boats let paddlers experience the water at their own speed, as well as allow tricksters to tarry a while and pull some showboating stunts. Long, stable sea kayaks and outrigger canoes allow for extensive ocean trips. On the rivers, boats have been getting shorter and shorter. In the 1970s, whitewater canoes charged through churning rapids; starting in the 1990s, short, flat-bottomed whitewater kayaks let kayakers become water gymnasts, turning cartwheels, flips, and spins in river features like holes and waves. Surf boats, similar in size to whitewater kayaks, can be used to catch waves. In all its forms, paddling has really come into its own within the last decade—in 2003, 19.6 million Americans paddled canoes, while 9.6 million cruised in kayaks.

For sheer safety in numbers, nothing surpasses whitewater rafting, a close paddling cousin to kayaking and canoeing. Boatloads of screaming rafters bounce down pretty much any navigable waterway across the land, from West Virginia's hardcore Gauley River to Tennesse's Ocoee River to the Grand Canyon's Colorado. You may not have the same control as in your own lightweight, maneuverable kayak, but there's no getting round the thrill of speeding toward the mouth of a big Class IV rapid, no matter your choice of vessel.

In the past couple of years urban-planning honchos around the country have also begun investing some serious green into developing up to a dozen downtown whitewater parks and waterways, making working on those whitewater tricks as easy as parking your car. Centers in Reno, Golden, Fort Worth, and Vail's Gore Creek are already putting paddlers through their paces, while parks in Charlotte and Oroville, California, are in the works.

Meanwhile, the biggest paddling trend right now is in recreational kayaks, used to cruise flat water. These stable, easily maneuverable boats are light enough for a single person to load up and put in, says Wyatt Boughter, spokesperson for the Virginia-based American Canoe Association. Such low-hassle boats can cause problems, however, because people can forget about safety, he adds.

Serious kayakers are exploring previously unpaddled rivers, shooting steep, narrow creeks, and hucking themselves over previously unconquerable waterfalls—kayaker Ed Lucero holds the current world record, who made a bold 105.6-foot plummet over Canada's Alexandra Falls in summer 2003. [Watch the video of Ed's loony huck here.]

But, short of shooting rinse-cycle rapids and monstrous cataracts, paddling can be as tranquil as navigating a canoe to the perfect fishing hole. "People who love to paddle paddle everything," says Boughter.
Pioneer: Brad Ludden

If a kayak had an odometer, Brad Ludden's boat would be registering off the charts. The exact mileage is unknown, but at 23, he's clocked more than 75 first descents of rivers in more than 40 countries, including places like Central Africa's Luapula, stretches of the Indonesian river Asahan, and China's Sichuan Province, where he ran six never-before-kayaked rivers in a single trip. "My heart is and always has been in traveling and exploring," says Ludden, who's been cruising around the world since he was 12.

He's also gotten serious screen-time—wild, watery shots in paddler-porn movies Nurpu and Valhalla, and even as a boater among powder hounds in last winter's Warren Miller film Journey.

But Ludden is also known for sharing the adventure with others—his First Descents camp, started in 2001, gives kids with cancer a weeklong, all-expenses-paid chance to run rivers with the Vail, Colorado-based Ludden. "We've got a message board on our website, where one parent wrote, 'Thanks for giving me my daughter back'," says Ludden. "We hope to forever impact the lives of those who attend as much as they impact us."

A three-time gold medalist at the Teva Mountain Games, in 2004 Ludden won the Games' Full Throttle Award—for both his athleticism and his super-active heart. After finishing off five first descents in Madagascar in 2004, including the world-class Ikapo, which contained a crazy drop Ludden's crew named 'Heaven and Hell'," Ludden may be heading to the White Nile or the Blue Nile for another watery adventure. "You're writing the history books and all the while learning about yourself and others," Ludden says of his tireless quest to paddle whatever water the world has to offer.