Denali Barron
June 22, 2005
The view from the top of the trailer could only be described as epic. The sun was high overhead, and away over South Park’s golden expanse, snow glistened on the shoulders of the Collegiate Range. I grinned. That snow, I knew, was the pristine source of the Arkansas River – with whose headwaters, I reminded myself, you are about to become intimately acquainted.
I was standing on top of one of the strangest phenomena ever to roll into a Coloradoan river town. For those of you who have experience with the FRPA trailer, you know that phenomenon is the only word that can possibly describe it. Stacked with no less than twenty boats of every shape, size, and discipline, the bed bulging with twelve people’s extensive camping and boating gear, the trailer stood fully twice as high as the Suburban that pulled it. The spectacle was impressive, and it left no doubt in my mind that this was going to be a kickass weekend – equally so for those of us pursuing favorable college applications, a true calling, or simply a penchant for organized adventure.
Miraculously, we arrived in Salida with hours of daylight to spare. Dismantling the monstrous trailer proved a surprisingly expeditious task, and before Nate Lord could say “O reason not the need,” the FRPA was on the water. As the light turned soft and golden over the valley of the Arkansas, Chris set several short courses, timing each of our runs. Although the main objective of the evening was to warm us up – and wake us up – for the five days of intensive boating to follow, each short course touched gently on some of slalom’s integral details. Eddies, S-turns, sprints; precision, grace, speed. It was good to be on the water.
After a particularly atrocious run, I attained back up to the starting eddy to find Nic gazing out over the course with a familiar look in his eyes. He was poised and content, radiating a sort of competent grace as only one who has touched the high levels of their sport can do. I couldn’t help but smile as he glanced my way, preparing to scorch us all again in this small test of skill.
“In your element?”
By way of reply, I think he must have grinned – and then he set off down the course, with Fuzzy close behind.
DAY 2
Brown’s Canyon – a fun, leisurely river run that was a perfect introduction to the Arkansas, not simply as a place to put a slalom course, but as an entity unto itself. The drops were infrequent but exciting. Tad, Ian and Fuzzy proved especially intrepid, sacrificing hull speed for their playboats’ wicked versatility. They took full advantage of the class III features, often emerging from a hole or curling wave upside down, slightly disorienting, and smiling. Chris and Tom also played fearlessly in the holes, and Jeremy received huge props for his combat swims.
AdamNewYorkAdam, an FRPA summer guest from Rochester, NY, was very much impressed by the river’s unfettered beauty. I suppose, in Colorado, it is fairly easy to take wild rivers like the Ark for granted – but truly, they are a gift. We were playing on some of the best whitewater in Colorado, in the West, and indeed, in the entire country. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Near the end of our morning run, we somehow ended up paddling a fleet of slalom boats into the dead end of an irrigation ditch. Although the playboaters could easily escape through a small gate where the water poured over a four-foot waterfall and back into the main current, those of us in longer crafts were forced to portage. Tom, however, didn’t feel like getting out of his boat, and devised a different solution…
I was just about to take my sprayskirt off when I saw him, and it took me a minute to realize that it was actually happening: Tom was crawling, on his elbows and his face, with his boat extending over his head like the shell of some incredibly odd snail. He was still in his boat! It took him all of five minutes to get all the way down to the main river, and in that time the rest of us nearly died of laughter. But the epic attempt paid off, and Tom’s twisted grin and bloody elbows only made the episode more hilarious. We were only 24 hours into the trip, and the stories were already priceless!
That night, after another slalom session and a fairly chaotic assault on the grocery store, the team gathered around the campfire. Conversation ranged from sports to linguistics to the ever-scintillating subject of Dodge’s sister; we also explored the finer points of the camping culinary arts, concluding that cactus is best eaten charred and then peeled, on a garden salad, with just a pinch of salt. After a while, I retired to my hammock, content to gaze for a while at the billions of stars. Night had descended on the river, and moonlight glinted off of whitecaps and broken glass. Fuzzy was talking about eggs again. The water was rising.
DAY 3
It was an exquisitely clear, hot day, and I felt as if I had rolled straight out of my hammock and into my downriver boat, running from our campsite down to Rincon. It was a fairly uneventful preview of the twenty-six mile FIBArk race, the looming shadow that was at the back of all of our minds. Actually, uneventful is a bit of an understatement – about three miles in, Tad made his first time in a Fastwave memorable by flipping, almost rolling, almost T-rescuing, and breaking his paddle cleanly in half. I doubt if even his well-earned “kudos” from the Australian cooler bag could make up for an hour of sitting by the side of the road with a gigantic blue boat and the wreckage of his brand new paddle for company, but in any case, Tad bore his misfortune extraordinarily well. He was back in the Fastwave the very next day.
“Glass boats, on The Numbers? Oh, that’s always fun.”
The ranger was incredulous, but we were undeterred – and our afternoon run was truly spectacular. This was high-quality class IV river running, and led by Chris, we plunged over huge drops, swept across boiling eddies, and braced breathlessly in churning whitewater. As Ian gleefully told us on the drive up, five people have died here – one in each of the Numbers, poetically enough. Once we got to the bottom of Number Four, a technical rock garden, we paused for half an hour or so to practice some class V attaining. Of our group of ten, more than half of us attained the entire rapid – an awesome feat that required not only strength, but intelligence, to a degree that boating down the river does not demand. This, Fuzzy maintained, is why Dodge didn’t make it all the way. But no hard feelings, Dodge – I couldn’t even get up the first drop.
All personal incapabilities aside, however, the Numbers run was one of the highlights of my trip. While I may be a long way from being able to lead a line through Number 5, I found the adrenaline, quick thinking, and sense of adventure inherent in a serious river run to be wonderfully clarifying. There is true exhilaration in fear transformed to strength. It is moments like these that I’m really, really glad I didn’t end up playing soccer.
It is Wednesday night; FIBArk has officially begun.
DAY 4
Shoutout to Mr. Lord: “It was a good day for the Front Range…”
Today was our first day of competition, and the results can only be described as brilliant. Despite the fact that the timing system was absolutely archaic, despite the heat and the delays, despite the fact that the kids from the East had prerun and scouted the sprint course at least a million times, the FRPA cleaned up at the sprint Downriver Nationals. Alex Dodge and Lisa Adams were both Junior National Champions in kayak; Tom took second in the Senior C1 class, beating his self-declared “arch nemesis” John Pinyard; AdamNewYorkAdam, in his second time ever in a Wavehopper, came in one second behind Dodge; and last, but certainly not least, Nic and Chris beat out a former World Champion C2 team to take the National Championship by a huge margin.
The heat was becoming almost unbearable. At our slalom session that afternoon, I began to feel the sapping effects of the brutal sun. Others, however, were as psyched as ever for the tough competition tomorrow promised to bring. It was going to be a big day – slalom in the morning, and the Downriver Classic in the afternoon. Michael Turvey, certainly, was skimming over the rising water with his customary magical ease. Splashing my face and arms, I tried again to make the difficult Gate 2-3 combination, wondering if I should forget slalom altogether and try to get an honorable mention in the Hooligan Race.
DAY 5
When we arrived at the slalom course on Saturday morning, we found that the water had risen a full foot above the level we had first practiced on. The water was pushy, and the eddies tougher to catch; even worse, from the sub-confident slalom boater’s point of view, some crazy sadist – Zuzanna Vanha, I believe, which in fact makes her a crazy masochist – had arranged to put an upstream flush gate right in the middle of the monstrous playhole. Actually, I’m exaggerating. The flush gate was a fun and interesting move, and increased the course’s carnage factor by at least 60%. But it was all I could do to scrutinize the course, watch Scott Shipley tear it up, and think smooth, deep strokes, don’t panic.
Nic, Fuzzy, and Turvey were utterly unimpressed by Salida’s intimidating features. They had all recently survived Senior Team Trials, which were held on the Animus at flood level – and compared to that, FIBArk was a piece of cake. Nic had two beautiful C1 runs, and Michael was nearly clean. Fuzzy and Tad actually pirouetted the C2, although they swam just ten feet before the finish; Ian had two fast runs, and Dodge, New York Adam, and Adam Estroff put up strong showings as well. The competition in slalom was fierce, and the results gave the FRPA a taste of what we might improve on. The day, however, was far from done – we still had Downriver Nationals to attend to.
The Classic was just three miles long, and served as a sort of preview for the 26-mile race to come. Chris and Nic had an excellent race, passing two boats and fighting Michael Turvey to the finish. Dodge and Lisa had an epic battle of their own, which Dodge won by a single second, and everyone got a taste of the competition. Bear Creek had transformed from its relatively demure size during the sprint race to a section to be reckoned with – and the water was still rising.
During dinner and at the carnival, tomorrow’s river marathon was on everybody’s mind. Most of the team had been to FIBArk before, but I was a rookie, and so a plethora of advice poured forth on every aspect of the race.
“For the first few miles, don’t even paddle – just glide, and you’ll keep pace with the top kayaks.”
“Once you get to the bridge at mile 20, start sprinting.”
“Tin Cup takes you completely by surprise. The canyon narrows without warning, Mile 16 or 17, and the whole river funnels over a huge drop. But don’t worry, it’s not that bad.”
“Cottonwood. Go right, then center. Two bus-eating holes, a monstrous pour over… Just remember, keep to the right. It’s at Mile 22, and it’ll kick the shit out of you…”
“Stay with someone, it’s a lot easier if you’ve got a boat to chase. And besides, paddling 26 miles on your own, you start to go insane.”
DAY 6
Whether I over or underestimated it, I couldn’t say, but the 26 mile race was not at all what I’d expected. In fairness, New York Adam and I did miss the start, and I spent twenty miles just catching up to people – although Adam passed me at Bear Creek, and was well out of sight when we reached the place that Tad broke his paddle. I caught Emily Stein in Cottonwood, but swam in Little Cottonwood, and learned a valuable lesson in patience. But the primary feeling upon crossing into the shadow of the Cotopaxi bridge was accomplishment – we had faced the river’s challenge, and emerged ever so slightly more insane.
Of course, a 26-mile race is as epic as any trailer, and crazy stories abounded. Fuzzy tore a crack the size of a watermelon in the stern of his Fastwave – which, assumedly, is why they call them Trash Cans. New York Adam recovered from his missed start to top out the Junior Men’s K1 class. Adam Estroff pushed hard in his leaky wavehopper, taking second in the Junior Men. Tom beat Pinyard once again, taking a very respectable second in Senior C1; and Nic and Chris braved a marathon’s worth of C2 pain, with the ambulance trailing them discreetly on shore.
Under the scalding sun, we broke camp and had the trailer loaded in record time. The boats were stacked tightly, nestled together in an eloquent display of efficient versatility – on one rack, an orange creek boat was oddly mated with Jeremy’s green C1. and three wildwater boats formed the mountain’s unlikely pinnacle. Everything about the trailer bespoke a weekend full of everything that boating should be – the graceful precision of slalom, the rhythmic awareness of Downriver, the refreshing whirlwind of creeking, and the ever-present, ever-precious element of unpredictable that makes every aspect of this sport a grand adventure. Our propane tank swung wildly from the stern of a slalom C2. It was time to go home.