2013 Little White Race

LDuB Race - 2013

 

So, with a Cali mission looming, Scott and I decided that the best way to prepare for our impending bar-fight of a hike/boating excursion was to head down to the Little White Salmon and watch the race.



I heard about the Little White Race last year and I thought it was a pretty cool idea, even if it was a bit above my head. Racing Gettin' Busy sounded awesome, in theory. Then the idea of having to stick a boof at the bottom of Boulder Slouce (when I'm completely gassed) with a crowd screaming for blood crept into the back of my neck and I tucked my tail between my legs. I said maybe next year and cried into by sprayskirt.



Next year is here, and, the course is even tougher now with a giant slalom course below Spirit Falls. So once again, crying into my sprayskirt, I told myself "next year is your year man!" And raised my hand to help with safety.

The Little White race is long: from the top of Gettin' Busy down to the pool below Wishbone Falls. This is no slouch stretch of whitewater. The race organizers also decided to have the option of solo racers. Most creek races in the class V arena are team races with the obvious exception being the NF championship race on Jacob's Ladder.

 

Another glaring example of change in the modern boating community was the inclusion of a slalom course on the run, after the race. Slalom courses have been around for a long time, and there's entire tribes of Latvian youths that have never seen life outside of a slalom course and lashes from Gunther's whip, but I've never seen one like this:





Naturally, the best and questionably brightest showed up on race day to throw down on a slightly cooler but much brighter Sunday than we expected.









As my lines are pretty suspect on this run, I raised my hand to help with safety and was promptly stationed at Sacraledge. With multiple throwbags arranged for Human Fishing, I felt a little less guilty about bringing out the camera for the racers.













I was fortunate to see some of the worlds best kayakers blaze through the bottom of a rapid sequence, that normally leaves me breathless and wide-eyed, without even mouth breathing. Angles on these photos are limited, as I felt I was morally obligated to stay within throwbag range of the cave that was the real beatdown hazard at this river feature.

 
 

 






 Once we got the go ahead, that the last racer was through the course, it was time to head down to Spirit Falls and the Giant Slolom course that was waiting to take some names. As we (Team Safety) where pretty late to the party I opted to head down to my perch above the pool that creates the birthday eddy on river right of Chaos.

My thoughts on the 2013 Little White Salmon Race? That shit was amazing! My hat is off to all the racers and all the support crew members. Huge shout out to World Class, without which, none of this would have taken place.

LDuB Race Results

Down River Team

1. Niceto Yalan Quintana / Michael "Miguel" Shields              17 min
2. Orion Meredith and Niko Peha                                              17 min 7 sec
3. Chris Leach and Matt King                                                    17 min 52 sec
4. Kim Becker and Dave Hoffman                                             18 min 1 sec
5. Dylan McKinney and Clay Lucas                                          18 min 8 sec

Down River Men

1. Evan Garcia                                    15 min 2 sec
2. Gerd Sarrassolses                           15 min 11 sec
3. Louis Geltman                                15 min 12 sec
4. Todd Wells                                      15 min 25 sec
5. Darren Albright                               15 min 50 sec

Down River Women

1. Katrina Van Wijk                             17 min 3 sec
2. Sandra Hyslop                                 17 min 9 sec
3. Nouria Abou-Newman                    17 min 21 sec
4. Nicole Mansfield                             17 min 43 sec
5. Lu Urwin                                         18 min 9 sec

Men’s Slalom

1. Evan Garcia                                      50.59
2. Galen Volckhausen                           50.86
3. Kyle Hull                                          54.22
4. Erik Johnson                                    56.64
5. Rush Sturges                                    57.21

Women’s Slalom

1. Katrina Van Wijk                             1.31.60
2. Nouria Newman                               2.54.77
3. Sandra Hyslop                                  2.56.04

Stay Stoked. Stay Safe.

Silver Falls Huck and Tuck with J. Bisson

Silver Falls – Ohanepecosh River, WA

Matt Kurle and I were still stretching and cooling off with a couple of cold beers when Jeremy Bisson decided to drive up with his crew to nearby Silver Falls.

After a fun quick lap on the main section of the Ohane, I thought our day was over and we were resigned to another 3 hour car ride back to Seattle. Jeremy put a stop to that nonsense.

A quick drive from the Secret camp, at the put in to the Ohanepecosh river, and you’re inside the Rainier National Park boundaries and looking for a small trail sign on the North side of the highway. As Matt and I pull up, the boys are already there, whipping eachother into a frenzy over who is gonna carry Jeremy’s boat back up the trail if he doesn’t run the falls.

I had spoken with Jeremy earlier in the day about the water fall and his thoughts on whether or not this idea would fall into the good or bad category. Jeremy was of the opinion that it was a decent idea as he judged flows would allow him to hit his line easier than a more padded out level. I thought it a marginal idea, at best.

The trail down to the river is short and beautiful. You are immediately reminded that you are in the middle of a pristine Washington forest: the trail winds through dense Douglas firs, red cedars, and Western hemlock. The undergrowth of moss, maidenhair ferns, and Oregon grapes is so thick you can barely see the ground outside of the immediate trail.

You come around one more corner and BAM! Silver Falls

While Jeremy walked up to the top slide to scout the drop, we all kind of spread out. Connor and Robby walked up to the lip of the falls. Matt, Garrett and I started taking pictures of the scenery and exchanging raised eyebrows.

After a bit it was just Jeremy and I and the short conversation went something like this…:

Jeremy: I can see my line, just gotta stay left of that ledge.

Me: Can you make it? Can you hit it?

Jeremy: Yeah, I can. I can make it, I just don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to go right at the lip.

Me: What about the slide above the falls?

Jeremy: That’s good to go, Im not worried about that.

Me: You gonna run it?

Jeremy: I was, until you talked to me. Now I don’t think so.

Me: Oh… Sorry man.

Jeremy: F*$k it, I’m gonna get my boat.

Me: Wait... What?

Jeremy walked back over to the trail above the run out and started gearing up while we had a quick safety talk. We would have two people with lifejackets and throw bags down on a rock in the pool immediately below the falls. And, like any dangerous endeavour, we would have three cameras to catch the action. Matt decided he was going to shoot video so I opted for photos.

The sight of Jeremy shouldering his boat up the side of the river to the top of the falls was impressive to say the least. My stomach was in knots and I was wearing shorts and a ball cap, not a sprayskirt and helmet. I cannot imagine what kind of internal monologue was going on during that hike.

Silver Falls is every bit of 40ish feet. The truly terrifying part is the lead in. A 30(ish) foot cascading slide drops into a river-wide hole and then rolls over another 50 or so feet of steep slide before the lip of the falls proper. The drop is anything but straightforward. The tongue has two cross currents at the lip. One hard one coming in from river right and another softer one coming in from river left. Jermey wanted to be on river left with a little bit of right angle.

Jeremy smashed it though, hit his line and connected with the pool in good form.

He was ejected from his boat on impact and watching his empty boat launch from the pile back upstream a good 20 yards was something I had not thought I would ever see.

Good lines, good times.