Gould remembered as outdoorsman, adventurist

By Erin Gallup-Main, Journal Staff WriterKenny Gould?s family says the local adventurist died where he felt the most at peace, in the American River Canyon.Kayakers from the all along the West Coast plan to gather at 4 p.m. today in Lotus-Henningsen Park near Coloma to honor the kayaker, Pacific Crest Trail hiker, snowboarder, skateboarder and road-tour biker who was last seen Sept. 27. The Placer County Sheriff?s Department reported finding the body Saturday 1,000 feet below Big Valley Bluff, near Emigrant Gap.?He worked to live,? said Isaiah Blackmun. ?If anybody lived a full life in 27 years it was him. Most people at 80 haven?t done as much as he has. The people who didn?t know him missed out.?Blackmun described the boy he met in third grade at Placer Hills School as a loyal, modest and trustworthy friend.?He never bragged,? he said. ?In fact, if you weren?t there and saw him do it, you would never know he did it.?Blackmun said his friend had many other adventures planned, including hiking the Mayan Mountain range. He said Kenny Gould would was not afraid of animals or the elements.Blackmun said Gould would sleep on top of his food in the bottom of his sleeping bag on hiking trips and it attracted a bear on at least one occasion.?He thought it was (a friend) trying to wake him but it was a bear?s nose,? Blackmun said. ?When he woke up, he told the bear to leave and threw stuff at him and the bear went away. Kenny had no fear.?Gould?s mother, Patti and father, George said their son?s life turned around after they took him on his first hiking trip at age 6.?He hated it at first, then all of a sudden a light bulb went on in his head and he loved it,? Patti Gould said.She said he often hiked with her on a trail starting at the fire station in Cool and ending on the rim of the American River Canyon.?He absolutely loved the canyon and worried about them putting in a dam,? she said.Although he worried about developments that would impede recreational activities in the American River Canyon, she said he was pleased with the new skate park in Auburn. She said her son utilized the recreational opportunities in the Auburn area but also took many adventures elsewhere. She said he took a boating trip near Baja California and hiked the Pacific Crest Trail three times. The last two times he attempted to hike the 2,650-mile trail from Mexico to Canada he turned around to travel back to Mexico. Patti Gould said a stress fracture in her son?s foot kept him from beating the World Record.Friend Joe Bousquin said it was hard to slow Kenny Gould down. He recently went on a kayaking trip with him on the North Fork of the American River. While most kayakers look up when water is being released from dams, Bousquin said his friend had a sixth sense about it.?Kenny had a special knack for knowing what was running when and then setting a mission to do it,? he said.Bousquin said he felt honored to kayak with Gould on the trip that took them over 60-foot drops down the river, but he said sometimes the boat was harder to control on smaller waterfalls. One smaller drop tossed Gould out of the Kayak and Bousquin said the boat got beat up floating down the river without a driver.?We?re in the middle of a deep canyon and he pulls out a bag of plastic sealant and sticks it on the holes, patches it up and takes off. Now there are four holes with this electric plastic sealant on it and he kept paddling the boat for another month and a half,? Bousquin said. ?He was the toughest guy I?ve ever known.?George Gould said his son showed his generosity after returning from the Baja kayaking trip, where he met many local fishermen.?During his trip, he met someone he appreciated, who lived in a cave along the coast,? George Gould said. ?It showed me (my son?s) personality when he made an arrangements to have his sea kayak delivered to him, so he could have one of his own.? The Placer County Sheriff?s Department is still investigating the death to conclusively identify the body, but Gould?s mother said she knows it is her son because his car was parked nearby the spot he sometimes traveled to.Eric Peach, conservation chairman for Protect American River Canyons, said Gould could still be a role model to other active people through the accomplishments he?d already made in his short life.An additional remembrance is planned Saturday at Iowa Hill Campground. Memorial gifts can be sent to Protect American River Canyon, P.O. Box 9312, Auburn CA 95604.