"Poorly Planned... Badly Executed"

Monday, 21 April 2008

Little White Race

Coming in hot!! Chris K going big at Spirit (photo Keel Brightman)

Here are a couple of photos from the weekends Little White Race action. The race starts at the top of Getting Busy (the start of the run) and finishes after Wishbone Falls, only three hard rapids before the end of the run. The river is solid class 5 and racing down it solo is a little intimidating. A good time is sub 16 minutes but for me survival was the key because if you can imagine that paddling one class five rapid is hard enough then think about paddling that same rapid exhausted!!

Look it's me not behind the camera for once at Wishbone Falls and final drop of the down river race (photo Bo Wallace)

The waterfall, Spirit, was not included in the race but we all ran it anyway just because the sun was out. The race was sweet times too… maybe a little to long for me and as I still can’t remember all the lines there was a few times that I approached horizon lines still unsure where I should be headed. Fortunately I (and everybody else) made it down in one piece so no real dramas, just tired kayakers to fly off Spirit.

The finish line and one very happy to be done kayaker (photo Bo Wallace)

Lots of people boofed Spirit but landing flat off a 30 foot drop is not for me so I rocked the plug-it line. The only problem with the plug-it line is that I was rolling the dice with the boil at the base of the falls… and I lost. The boil stool my paddle and sent me into the cave behind the falls. Not a bad place to hangout but I would rather be still holding onto my paddle. Determined not to swim for the second time in a week I hand rolled, found my paddle (which was circulating laps of the pool I was in) and reappeared from the curtain to the side of the falls – hurray.

Me paddling Spirit (photo Keel Brightman)

On Sunday they had a slalom down a super fun class five rapid Bolder Sluice with one very hard to make gate (not helped my all the partying the night before). I had the first run of the day and completely missed it however kept everything clean on my second run to move into a middle of the field 10th place overall. Not bad considering I only entered for the fun of it. All that was left to do was paddle out form the slalom course – down almost the entire length of the Little White (and drink some more beer).

LJ and Chris K at Chaos just after Spirit (photo Bo Wallace)