Eric Jackson Earns Second Everest Award

For the second time in the three-year history of the event, freestyle kayaking World Champion Eric “EJ” Jackson was honored for his achievements with an Everest Award presented during the Teva Mountain Games at Vail.

Known as the Oscars of the Outdoor Industry, the Everest Awards presented by Zest® are presented to the male and female adventure athletes with the most outstanding achievements of the past year. Jackson was also the inaugural recipient of the Everest Award for kayaking. In 2004, Everest criteria was different: candidates and winners were recognized as “pioneers, innovators, leaders, change agents and reflective of the soul of the sport.”

During the past year, Jackson continued his dominance of the sport by winning 10 events in freestyle, slalom and extreme creek racing. Most recently, this May on the Ottawa River’s world-renowned Bus Eater wave, Jackson, 43, upset a field of 70 of the world’s best, mostly 20-somethings, to claim his fourth freestyle kayaking World Championship (’93, ‘01, ‘05, ‘07.)

During 2006 he also had the following results: Kern River Festival, 1st Extreme Race, 1st slalom; American River Festival, 2nd Freestyle, 1st men’s expert class slalom; Reno River Festival, 1st freestyle; Teva Mountain Games at Vail, 1st freestyle, 1st boatercross, 2nd extreme race; Bremgarden Switzerland, 1st boatercross; Potomac Festival, 1st freestyle, 1st boatercross; US Team Trials, prequalified, but competed and finished 1st anyway; and World Cup, Men’s Champion.

Jackson’s career in kayaking dates back some 20 years. He has been a US Kayak Team member since 1989, first in slalom, a discipline in which he also is an Olympian, then beginning in 1993, as a freestyle boater. He has authored more than a dozen instructional books and videos about kayaking.

Everest Award candidates were nominated by the public via the Mountain Games web site. Finalists and winners were selected by a panel of outdoor writers and experts. Australian Tanya Faux was this year’s female kayaker recipient of the Everest Award. All other Everest Award nominees in the kayaking category were Jackson Kayak sponsored athletes including Jackson’s 17-year-old daughter, Emily, Ruth Gordon, Stephen Wright and Ben Stookesberry.

For further information about the company and family, visit JacksonKayak.com.