Kayakers Complete Whitewater Triple Crown

While the horse-racing world was abuzz this spring with its Triple Crown, last fall a group of kayakers created a similar stir by completing a Triple Crown of whitewater. In a trip sponsored by Men's Journal, the team—including Gerry Moffatt, Charlie Munsey, Wink Jones and Reggie Crist—completed self-contained descents of Alaska and Northwest Canada's Susitna, Alsek and Stikine rivers in a single month-long push. "Very few people do any one of these," says Idaho's Rob Lesser, who joined the expedition for the Stikine. "All of them are in very remote locations with very challenging whitewater. Each one by itself is a major accomplishment...they are all of a similar nature and are all pretty testy."

The team's first run was Alaska's Devil's Canyon of the Susitna, dubbed the "Everest of Whitewater" by one Alaskan guidebook. The Triple Crown team flew in and filmed a descent of the canyon in just over two days. First run by Walt Blackadar in 1971, Turnback Canyon of the Alsek came next, with the team spending several days paddling to the canyon's brink before running the big-water, Class V gorge the final day. Next the group headed for the climax: the 60-mile Grand Canyon of the Stikine in northern British Columbia. "The Stikine is considered the pinnacle of big water rivers," says long-time expedition paddler Doug Ammons, who joined the group on the Alsek and Stikine. "Only 10 teams have done descents of it since the first attempt in 1981, and seven of those 10 teams were represented by people on this trip. It was the most experienced team you could have put together." Indeed, with Lesser and Ammons aboard, the team encompassed the entire history of the run, with four generations of expedition kayakers (Lesser, Ammons, Moffatt, Munsey, Jones and Crist). Like Secretariat in horse-racing's Triple Crown, Lesser was the first kayaker to paddle all three rivers, with successful descents of Devil's Canyon in 1977, Turnback in 1980 and the Stikine in 1985.

As well as packing experience, the expedition also packed technology, carrying digital video cameras into each canyon. Footage will be used to create two films: one on the Triple Crown; and a shorter one for network television on the Stikine. "We want to tell the story of these rivers because they sum up much of the history of expedition kayaking," says team member Gerry Moffatt of Scotland. "We also want to make the rivers the stars of the show, and tell the story of the pioneers who went before us. We had a great team, we got great footage, now it's up to us to tell the story."

—edb