Banner
Upping the Ante Print E-mail
Written by   
Tuesday, 24 June 2008 13:21
Editor's note: In October and November of 1998, two well-known kayakers died paddling Class V--Doug Gordon on the Tsangpo (see First Descents) and Scott Bristow on the Potomac. As Charlie Walbridge, former chairman of the American Canoe Association's safety committee, puts it, "There have been a lot of Class V deaths is the last couple of years. These two most recent ones certainly reinforce that it's dangerous business." The following is not meant to glamorize or encourage such exploits. Rather it is meant as a report on what's happening on the cutting edge of the sport. Please be careful out there.

Like it or not, people are running harder and harder rapids--and there's nothing we, nor anyone else, can do about it. It's as natural as climbers scaling more difficult peaks and skiers flocking to steeper slopes. And just like the extreme side of many sports, when the envelope gets pushed the stakes get raised.

The phenomenon is nothing new--paddlers have one-upped one another ever since John Wesley Powell first ran the Grand Canyon. But now, with technology and skills at an all-time high, the ante has been upped. Paddlers are trudging farther upstream to steeper, more obscure tributaries; they're running conventional Class V at higher flows; and they are freeing virgin runs of wood to make paddling "somewhat" possible.

Dangerous as these runs may seem, they represent the cutting edge of kayaking. And because of this, we've decided to bring a few of last year's hair-raising highlights to your attention. We're by no means condoning or glamorizing them, but we also can't ignore them. And they'll continue to happen whether we write about them or not. With that in mind, following are a few examples of paddlers upping the ante in 1998.

West
Upper North Fork, Fish Creek, Steamboat Springs, Colo.

There's only one person to credit for venturing up the obscure upper north fork of Fish Creek in Steamboat Springs, Colo.: 17-year-old Charlie Beavers. "I had been thinking about it since the year before," says the prodigal hairboater. "Then, when I got back from boating in California last May, I decided to walk up and check it out. The next day we ran the whole thing."

Following Beavers down the Class V-VI run were elder statesmen Waylon Rife, Craig Frithsen and Joel McBride of Steamboat Springs. The foursome ran pretty much everything, says Beavers, except for the last drop, which has still yet to be run. Beavers estimates the one-and-a-half mile section to drop at least 400 feet per mile. "The whole thing's a rapid," says Beavers, who ran it six times in '98. "The major Class Vs are definitely distinct, and the in-between stuff is all Class IV." In an odd way of paying homage to Beavers' pioneering descent, the run's rapids stick to a Leave it to Beaver theme, from the first drop named Wally to the last drop named Eddie Haskell ("But I had nothing to do with naming them," maintains Beavers). Others quickly found out about the run, with as many as 20 different people running it in '98 when flows were right. "It was one of the hardest things we ran all year," says Daniel De La Vergne, an eastern boater who went on a coast-to-coast boating rampage in 1998. "It was a little higher than Charlie thought, and the whole thing was one giant rapid." Just like the Beav in Leave it to Beaver, the ever-humble Beavers shrugs-off the accomplishment. "It's definitely a real Northwest Colorado-style classic," he says. "It's well worth doing. There's a lot of whitewater packed in there." --edb

Upper North Fork of the Crystal River, Colorado

As if Meatgrinder and the Crystal Gorge weren't enough, last July a group of paddlers spearheaded by New Mexico's Ed Lucero ventured higher upstream to the Upper North Fork of the Crystal near Marble. What they found, according to Crested Butte's James Lozeau, who photographed the run, "was way more rad than the Crystal Gorge--everything was pretty hairy with lots of wood and undercuts." Lucero, who made the first descent with Boone, N.C.'s Raymond "Bubba" Cotton, Bo Wallace and Daniel De La Vergne, is quick to agree. "It's definitely a classic park and pray kind of run," he says.

You won't find the run in Colorado Rivers and Creeks, the tell-all guidebook to Colorado boating. Not because the authors didn't know about it, but because it was a little too obscure. "We had the option of putting it in there, but decided not to," says author Gordon Banks. "It's too dependent on flow. They just linked a bunch of its drops together."

After surviving "an intense Class V 4WD road" to get to the put-in, Lucero and company put in at the top of a 20-foot cascade with the river running at the perfect level of about 200 cfs. From there it was on to a second 20-foot cascade, separated from the first only by an eddy, then on to a 15-foot waterfall and a weird drop Lucero describes as "a waterfall with a 90-degree bend." Then the river entered a deep gorge requiring a move unique even to Lucero. "You had to boof off this rock going in one direction," he says, "but then you had to change your direction in mid air to avoid getting stuffed under this log at the bottom." The 1.5-mile section ended with another 15-foot waterfall right at the take-out. "It's definitely Class V from the put-in to the take-out," says the mild-mannered Lucero, who ran the run while trying out a new boat for the first time. "It never eases up. There's a lot of wood, but it's not really super, super gnarly. I had heard it was a first descent, but I'm not sure." --edb

North Fork Slate River
Crested Butte, Colorado

As if this was the year for north fork first descents in Colorado, the Falling Down Productions gang from Lansing, W.V., discovered this run while hanging out in Crested Butte last July and running the local classics: Oh-Be-Joyful, East and Slate Rivers and, this year, Daisy Creek. "As with most things in CB, this run was found in a bar," says B.J. Johnson. "Our first glimpse of the falls left all the kayakers weak in the knees and the vultures drooling." Access to this little-known creek is down Slate River Road, and luckily the run is only four miles out of town, considering the whole thing is just three-quarters of a mile long. That three-quarters, however, packs a wallop, dropping 250 feet in a gorge with 100-foot-high scree slopes.

Slate Falls is a series of seven teacup-type drops ranging from four to 24 feet in height. "Although the main drops looked surprisingly clean, our scouting position revealed an entrance slot no more than a boat width wide; and this was at the lip of five continuous vertical drops," explains Johnson. After scouting it, the next morning BJ and company decided to give it a go and set up safety and cameras, a difficult task in the steep gorge. Johnson ran the creek first without incident, followed by Shannon Carroll, who almost lost her paddle at the kayak-wide entrance slot and rolled up just before the second drop. "There is definitely no room for paddles there," says Johnson. Look for both runs in Falling Down Production's new video, Over the Edge! --ahb

Upper Middle Fork of the Popo Agie
Wyoming

Don't even think about pronouncing the Popo Agie River near Lander, Wyo., as it sounds. If you do, your cover as a hairboater will be blown. It's pronounced "Poposia." More importantly, don't think about paddling its upper reaches unless you're ready for a hair-raising, rock-'em-sock-'em ride. "The Upper section is definitely Class V plus, plus," says Jackson, Wyo.'s Aaron Pruzan, who has run it three times. "It's incredibly steep and is pretty out-on-control. It's one of the most continuous pieces of whitewater I've seen and is right on the limits of what's runable."

The run, located a throw bag's toss from the climbing Mecca of Wild Iris and Sinks Canyon, was first done at low water in 1996 by Olaf "Olie" Koehler, Jim Curzon and Pete Jenkins. In 1997 in was done at a slightly higher flow by Olie, Pruzan, Pat Libi, Greg Goodyear and Mike Berris. Last summer, the ante was upped when Pruzan, Ward Blanch, Mike Werner, Andy England and a boater known only as Crazy Nate ran it at nearly twice its earlier level. "Last year was a much more outrageous flow," continues Pruzan. "In the past, whenever there has been enough water for the main section, everyone thought the Upper was too high. This time we did it anyway."

What makes the run so outrageous, adds Pruzan, is its gradient. The mile-and-a-half-long section doesn't have any real waterfalls, yet it drops more than 600 feet per mile. And the action starts right away, requiring you to peel out into "Class V plus" as soon as you put-in at the base of a large waterfall. In keeping with the Jackson tradition of never naming drops, none of the rapids have been named. But Crack in the Head might work for the second drop, which Pruzan says is one of the run's cruxes; last year the rapid cracked Crazy Nate's head open above the eye and forced him to walk the sidelines the rest of the trip.
If you have any adrenaline left after the Upper section, you can paddle two hours down the Middle Fork to the take-out at Sinks Canyon State Park, where the river disappears underground. But don't pat yourself on the back too early after finishing the Upper section. "The Upper section is a very intricate piece of whitewater," says Pruzan. "You have to bite off one little chunk of it at a time. But even the main Middle Fork is still Class V." --edb

Middle Fork San Joaquin
Devil's Postpile, California

When Royal Robbins, Reg Lake and Doug Tompkins made the first descent of California's Class V+ Middle Fork San Joaquin in 1980, they described more than 50 portages, some of them a mile long, coupled with intense rock climbing. Since then, only two other groups have summoned the courage to follow their wake: an expedition in 1996 by Hayden Glatte, Mark Kocina, Mark Hayden and Scott Lindgren; and another last summer by Willie and Johnny Kern, Brandon and Dustin Knapp, Mark Hayden, Tim Keggerman, Clay Wright and Lindgren.

There's more than one reason for the run's limited popularity. It's 32.5 miles long, meaning anyone who attempts it has to paddle a loaded boat, and its average gradient of 165 feet per mile soars to 480, 360, 340 and 310 in the more difficult sections. Then, of course, there's the Crucible, a 200-yard-long crux with several Class Vs you have to run blind and at least two rope-involved portages that take up to five hours to pass. "It's one of the most demanding trips around," says Lindgren. "It takes four days of paddling with 80-lb. boats, and has endless vertical wall gorges with big portages, big whitewater and big exposure." Gauging the run's flow beforehand and committing yourself to the Crucible, he adds, is the first obstacle you have to overcome before even putting on.

The 1998 expedition managed to whittle the portage fest to 35, and broke them down into small single-rapid sections so the group could stay near the river bed. Still, it tested the mettle of the nation's best, and will continue to do so for anyone who attempts it. "It requires all the key elements of expedition boating," says Lindgren, one of two paddlers psycho enough to have run it twice. "It's a balancing act between your brain, your body, your stamina and your willingness to expose yourself in a place that allows no exit." --edb

Northwest
North Fork Bremner River
Alaska

When Dean Cummings, 1995 World Extreme Skiing Champion and owner of Alaska's H20 Heli Adventures, first flew over an unrun, 12-mile section on the North Fork of Alaska's Bremner River in 1997, he couldn't help but let out a whistle. "We were 7,000 feet above it and it was still frothy and white," he says. "Anytime you can see white from that high up, you know it's serious water."

Last summer he decided to do something about it. Taking advantage of one of the coldest summers on record--causing the glacier-fed river to drop to a manageable level--Cummings rounded up Brennan Guth, Dustin Knapp and Scott Lindgren and hired a bushplane to drop them off on a gravel bar four miles upstream of the canyon deep in the heart of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the largest national park in the country. "We were all still pretty freaked out when we flew over it," he says. "We didn't even decide we would do it until we got down to the river."

Compared to runs the group had been paddling earlier in the year, the run proved easier than expected, though still hair-raising. And they ran everything except for a 50-foot section where the river dropped 15 feet into a huge river-wide hydraulic. "That hole wasn't happening for any of us," says Cummings. "I don't know if you could have gotten out of it." Their successful descent owes itself largely to Mother Nature and her benevolent flows. "It's still hairball Class V, no question," says Cummings. "It was just low flows, probably the lowest that anyone's ever seen it. And the low flows were good because it meant we could do it. Another thousand cfs in there and we would have ended up carrying a lot of it."

If anyone can appreciate the descent, it's Alaskan guidebook author and doctor Andy Embick, 48, who scouted the run by air in 1987 and ran portions of the Bremner's middle and south forks. "It's definitely a tough one," says Embick, who spent thousands of dollars taking flights over the canyon to scout and photograph the gorge. "It was a step beyond anything I or my compadres could do. Even when we were in our prime and feeling extremely capable we didn't think it was feasible. It's probably the last great Alaskan problem." You can't put your finger on any one thing that makes it so tough, he adds. "We call it the river of the 10 B's," he says. "It has big, brown water, bears, bugs, bushes, bad weather, big boulders and big walls--and it's in the boondocks and takes big bucks. Everything is against you. Dean-o deserves a lot of credit for going in there. He's a brave boy." --edb

Sahalie Falls on the McKenzie River,
Eugene, Oregon

If there was one three-second period when the ante was upped in 1998, it could well have come on July 31 when Shannon Carroll of Hico, W.V., ran 78-foot Sahalie Falls, a popular tourist attraction on Oregon's McKenzie River 40 miles outside Eugene on Hwy 126. With the waterfall's height recently confirmed by Dustin and Brandon Knapp, Carroll, a member of Team Pyranha, bested the United Kingdom's Shaun Baker and his former World Freefall Waterfall Kayak record at Greenland's 64-foot Aldeyjarfoss. "We were on our way to California and stopped in Eugene to break up the trip and surf at Red Sides," says the 20-year-old Carroll. "We read in the Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest about this waterfall just up the road. The book said it was 60 to 100 feet, so we had no idea how high it really was."

Carroll was the only one who ran the section, which she estimates was flowing at approximately 400-500 cfs. "It really wasn't that big of a deal, or as crazy as that sounds," she says. "But it was phenomenal. It looked perfect with a rolling tongue at the edge of the drop." To get to the lip Carroll had to run a rapid about 50 yards long dropping 25 feet over several ledges. From there it was fast current to the rolling lip and 78 feet of air into the punchbowl below. And unlike Baker's previous record, this one was only caught by a single 35mm exposure, the rights to which were quickly purchased by Teva. "It's the sickest photo I've ever seen," says Driftwood Production's Scott Lindgren, who has filmed and run his fair share of big drops. "It's probably the biggest thing that's ever been run." --ahb

Southeast
Upper Fork of the Catawba

As of press time, the Upper North Fork of the Catawba near Linville Caverns, N.C., had only been run five times, most of the descents taking place in spring 1998. And for good reason. The section, which starts two miles from Linville Falls, occupies the extreme upper reaches of the Catawba and rages towards sea level at a whopping 450 feet per mile. With the entire Catawba watershed beginning only a mile upstream, the section runs maybe twice a year, requiring at least seven or eight inches of rain.

The run was pioneered in the fall of '97 by Banner Elk, N.C., locals Doug Helms, Brent Meadows, Franklin Smith, Jim Little, Quinn Slocumb, Chris Sumrell and Sherwood Horine. The group put in below the first falls, a 50-foot slide into an undercut wall and large hole, which was run last spring by Daniel De La Vergne, Brad Kee, Eamonn McCullough, B.J. Johnson and Katie Nietert. The main gorge below the 50-footer includes four series of falls. The first is called Shotgun Willie, consisting of a four-foot entrance drop into a six-foot slide into an eight-foot slide into a 12-foot vertical drop into a 20-foot stairstep drop. As if it needs more, the river then courses through a log-strewn boulder garden before entering the next rapid, Elephant Ear, a 15-foot drop into a must-make eddy. Colt 45 comes next, the section's only unrun rapid, which local Spencer Cooke describes as "a big meat cleaver with a bony entrance and a recirculating hole at the bottom in a four-foot-wide area in a cave." The section's final waterfall is THC, featuring a six-foot-wide entrance into a 25-foot drop. --edb

Gulf Creek, Alabama

Although Gulf Creek near Steel, Ala., was first run in 1996 by Richard Vest and his sons Matt and Rich, it wasn't until last year that interest in the run picked up among Alabama hairboaters. In the first place, it takes a good four to five inches of rain to bring it up to a runable level. Secondly, its access isn't necessarily boater friendly. Lastly comes its gradient: dropping nearly 800 feet per mile, the section only appeals to a certain ilk of paddler.

Personifying that ilk as well as anyone is Alabama's Brad Hinds, 27, a wireless communications consultant by workday and hairboater of highest persuasion by weekend. "I've probably been down it 10 times," says Hinds. "But it's definitely cutting edge. Anything with that much drop is pretty consistent."

Although the section is solid Class V to V+, what causes the most consternation on the mile-and-a-half run is a four-part rapid called Terminator, complete with trees, undercuts and hydraulics (often all at the same time), and a 200-foot section known as Godzilla, a mandatory portage capped by a 22-foot waterfall cascading into a three-foot-deep pool. Last summer the falls were run for the first time by Gulf Creek guru Scott Byler, followed by Hinds. Both admit there is not much room for error. "You have to boof it hard, or you pay the price," says Hinds. "It's definitely balls-to-the-wall boating." --edb

The Upper Upper Elk River
Banner Elk, N.C.

Employees at Banner Elk, N.C.'s Edge of the World paddling shop have long known about the Upper Upper Elk River. After all, the put-in at the dam outflow of a local duck pond is only 100 yards from its doors. For the most part, however, they, and others of the hairball fraternity, have been content with the "mellower" Class V- run downstream on the Upper Elk. "From what I've heard, the Upper, Upper is pretty intense Class V+," says Clem Newbold, whitewater manager for Edge of the World. "No one's really ever ventured in there."

Until now. Last April a group of three decided to see what all the fuss was about for themselves. "The run only took about 30 minutes of total paddling," says Boone, N.C.'s Spencer Cooke, who ran the 300-vertical-foot, mile-long section with locals Daniel De La Vergne and B.J. Johnson. "We scouted each rapid thoroughly, but it was still very chaotic, unpredictable and butt-clenching." The threesome found 250 cfs coursing through a 10- to 30-foot-wide streambed with three major rapids. The first rapid, says Cooke, which they christened Beyond Hope, is a 15-foot-wide, 40-foot-long stairstep slide littered with sideways-breaking holes that flipped two of them. The next rapid has two stair-stepping drops with a tight entrance and a triple drop move around an undercut. The final rapid features a sticky hole flanked by undercuts and branches. "We all took different lines," says Cooke, "and we all came out pretty clean. But it was a hairy run. There were lots of boulders, undercuts, trees, sieves and overhanging branches to deal with." The trio didn't name any of the drops, but Undercut, Tree-Clogged, Sieve Fest seems to have a nice ring. --edb

Gulf Creek
Alabama

Although Gulf Creek near Steel, Ala., was first run in 1996 by Richard Vest and his sons Matt and Rich, it wasn't until last year that interest in the run picked up among Alabama hairboaters. In the first place, it takes a good four to five inches of rain to bring it up to a runable level. Secondly, its access isn't necessarily boater friendly. Lastly comes its gradient: dropping nearly 800 feet per mile, the section only appeals to a certain ilk of paddler.

Personifying that ilk as well as anyone is Alabama's Brad Hinds, 27, a wireless communications consultant by workday and hairboater of highest persuasion by weekend. "I've probably been down it 10 times," says Hinds. "But it's definitely cutting edge. Anything with that much drop is pretty consistent."

Although the section is solid Class V to V+, what causes the most consternation on the mile-and-a-half run is a four-part rapid called Terminator, complete with trees, undercuts and hydraulics (often all at the same time), and a 200-foot section known as Godzilla, a mandatory portage capped by a 22-foot waterfall cascading into a three-foot-deep pool. Last summer the falls were run for the first time by Gulf Creek guru Scott Byler, followed by Hinds. Both admit there is not much room for error. "You have to boof it hard, or you pay the price," says Hinds. "It's definitely balls-to-the-wall boating." --edb



Northeast
Big Niagara
Nesowandehunk Stream, Maine

The Gillman Falls Rodeo in Old Town, Maine, was the perfect excuse for several cutting-edge kayakers to notch a few first descents in a state known for the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers-not their tributaries. "We'd heard that Maine was good to the whitewater fiend," says Katie Nietert of Lansing, W.V. "And we had seen some interesting geography in Wayne Gentry's video Creekin' USA."

After warming up on Class V Gulf Hagas Creek, Nietert, B.J. Johnson, Shannon Carroll and Brent Toepper, guided by a couple of locals, headed north out of Millinocket to Baxter State Park and Mt. Katahdin. Little and Big Niagara falls on Nesowandehunk Stream were first, the latter a first descent and the former run once before by Scott Underhill. Carroll was the first to tackle Big Niagara, which featured 100 yards of twisting, exploding water before the lip of a three-tiered 40-footer. Toepper and Johnson then followed suit, with the rest of the crew joining them for the remaining Class IV creeking to the Penobscot. The firsts in the Penobscot watershed weren't over; the following day the group did an exploratory run of log-choked Katahdin Stream featuring many grueling portages followed by a half-mile rock slide and a 20-foot cascade. Then it was off to the Kennebec side of Maine.

After receiving much needed directions from locals, the Falling Down gang continued living up to its name by running Parlin Pond with its 60-foot rock slide and three-quarters of a mile of Class V. "The next stop was Pierce Pond with a known three miles of 200-foot-per-mile gradient and a rumored gorge with large waterfalls," says Nietert, adding that the rumors were justified as they found four drops from 10 to 30 feet dropping deep into a gorge. These steep, shale drops were a warm-up for Johnson's next act: an unrun 30-foot falls with a large shelf rock protruding three-quarters of the way down. Carroll followed, and the rest of the group joined them for two more miles of whitewater that dumped them into the Kennebec. Six days of paddling including several first descents, a rodeo and lots of steep creeks-not bad for a hairboating spring Maine getaway. --ahb

Hair Perspectives

Ed Lucero, 32, Arroyo Seco, N.M.

People are definitely upping the ante. Some of the most difficult stuff that's ever been run was run last year (1998). The gear has gotten better, which has allowed people to push themselves more and has spread out the area of where you can find runs. There are runs all over the country now in places people would never expect. A run that was your basic Class V a few years ago is now becoming a play run. People are also upping the ante by running familiar runs at higher and higher flows. Last year we paddled the Silver Creek of the American at 2,000 cfs into Golden Gate section, which was running 6,000 cfs. It was absolutely huge.

Scott Lindgren, 26, Auburn, Calif.

I think the sport has grown in two different ways. Boat design has enabled people to run harder stuff more safely; and the people out there boating have brought it to new levels. In the old days, only a handful of people were pushing it to the limits. Now there are a lot more people doing it. Also, people are now boating 300 days a year. I don't know too many old-school people who ever did that. And there's a whole entourage of young athletes boating 300 days a year who have learned the skills in a tenth the time in took the earlier paddlers. I've spent six years in a row putting in 250 to 300 days per year. A lot of people are conveying us as a group of young people out to kill ourselves, but that's not it at all. People don't understand because they're not out there doing it. We're not a bunch of psychos out there trying to kill ourselves.

Lars Holbek, 41, Coloma, Calif.

Paddlers, mostly lads in their 20s, are definitely running harder and more dangerous rapids nowadays, and lots of them are vying for recognition and sponsorship in an increasingly crowded pool. Some, it seems, are perhaps swayed by cameras to run big stuff, which is understandable given the competitive nature of the rodeo and Class V scenes. But I've paddled with the best of these guys and they are truly impressive. They will run stuff and take hits and risk spinal injury to a level I was never willing. And for the most part they pull it off perfectly, showing me, as always, that the difficulty line can be pushed a little further and still be executed flawlessly.

There are still wipeouts, and way more destroyed or lost gear, and more paddlers are dying, although I question if the relative death rate has changed. It seems, of late, that perhaps some of the older paddlers (40+) are charging like the youth, but missing the move and paying big. I say this only because I notice in myself a decline in paddling prowess; partly a shift in focus to areas other than paddling, part physical and mental slowing, and largely due to not paddling as much as I used to. Still I paddle just as hard as ever, and keep up with almost all the youngin's, although I'm not leading all the time like I once did. I can't help but wonder if some of the deaths of my peers is due in part to failing to stay in touch with the aging body, the slower response time, the slower boats and weaker arms. I can only assume the difficulty I have realizing I'm not as quick as when I was 20 is true for others experiencing the same changes. I might call it the "geezer syndrome."

Dan Gavere, 29, Salt Lake City, Utah

A lot of people have been paddling for so long and doing the same rivers year after year that they're starting to look for new runs, which is causing them to up the ante. Every year you're finding out about new runs, and last year especially. It's the natural evolution, especially with new boats and techniques--the better paddlers get, the more difficult water they want to paddle. Unfortunately, it's a sport where you can crash and burn so when you do push the envelope and get in a bad situation, you pay a big price--much moreso than in sports like snowboarding and mountain biking. But it's getting harder and harder to find new challenging runs that are within reason and have access.

Brennan Guth, 32, Missoula, Mont.

Kayaking's different than other sports. On a difficult climb, you have to be at a certain level to even get on it. Kayaking's not like that--you can try to run things even when you're not really ready. People can get at the top of a rapid, decide to run it, screw up and still end up at the bottom okay. This gives a lot of people a false sense of security. And the number of people doing runs like this is growing rapidly. People can run hard stuff real quickly now because skill levels are rising so fast. You used to be able to name on one hand how many people did a certain difficult run. Now you don't even know who everyone is. And it might start catching up with people. I think some people's invincible attitude got a reality check when Chuck Kern died because he was the best there was.

Brad Hinds, 27, Birmingham, Ala.

A lot of boaters are pushing the envelope on a regular basis, running drops they never thought they would run. A lot of it is equipment--even down to improved PFD designs--and a lot is increased skill. But bigger drops have bigger consequences. And a lot of people are boating stuff they shouldn't be on. A lot of up-and-coming boaters watch videos and see people make stuff look easy. They have big balls but their paddling skills aren't up to their bravery level. They haven't paid their dues and oftentimes don't respect whitewater. I learn a lot every time I go boating with people like Dan Gavere, Clay Wright and the Kerns. If they can't run something with style, they'll walk. And it's okay to portage...they often even respect you more when you do. Everyone has on days and off days, and you have to realize this and act accordingly. Some of the younger crowd, it seems, is just out trying to make a name for themselves.

Dean Cummings, 32, Valdez, Alaska

People are definitely running harder stuff now, but it's no more radical than what people have been paddling all along. It's a lot like skiing. People are out there finding new lines in places that were considered death zones. But it's getting to that point faster now. People are learning more quickly. In three years, someone can be running some pretty hard stuff. And this can have a downside. A lot of Class Vs are now being run without scouting and things, and that's what's getting dangerous. We need to get back to good, Class V river running safety ethics. But the sport's on fire right now and people are starting to realize that there are runs everywhere.

Aaron Pruzan, 30, Jackson, Wyo.

People are absolutely upping the ante. We were in South America last year on the Rio Manzo, and there was this waterfall that had never been run, even though people had been running the river for years. All of a sudden it was run 10 times in one week. Things like that show what is happening in the sport. You can also see the trend by looking at runs that used to be considered somewhat fringe, like the Clark's Fork, and now they're getting done all the time. All of a sudden people are looking at stuff and starting to find lines that are doable. People look at things differently, and a lot of times all it just takes is just one person who sees a way through, and then everyone else will follow suit. What's helped fuel it is technology. Creek boat technology lagged behind playboat technology until just recently, and now it's caught up. It's come a long ways in a short time.

Magical Mystery Tour?

While some people are content to up the ante locally, at least one group last year made a road trip out of it. And they did so in style by converting a white, 1981 Thomas-built, full-sized school bus into a shuttle rig fit for a king. After buying it for $1,200 from a school auction in North Carolina, Team Riot paddlers Daniel De La Vergne, Bo Wallace, Spencer Cooke and Raymond "Bubba" Cotton took the seats out, replaced the driver's seat with a red corduroy armchair, welded a dog house on the back for team dog Disco, gave it an industrial-sized kayak rack, and rigged a hair-raising stereo system through an isolator borrowed from the phone company. When all was said and done, the front half boasted carpet, couches, closets, TVs and a VCR, and the back half housed two motorcycles for running shuttle, assorted paddling gear and a bunk bed. The core four first took it to the Watauga Gorge Race, then backfired their way to Big Fork, Mont., Calgary, Alberta, Wyoming and Colorado before returning three months and 14,000 miles later to North Carolina. Along the way, they notched several first descents and gave cross-state rides to more than 20 paddlers. And the only major repair team technician Bubba had to deal with was replacing the brakes in Kingfish, S.D. --edb

Originally Published, Paddler March-April 1999
 

Share This Page!

Add to: Facebook Add to: Digg Add to: Del.icoi.us Add to: StumbleUpon Add to: Yahoo Add to: Google