Northern Alabama Whitewater Festival a huge hit!

March 14, 2005

Photos

What do you think of when you think of Alabama? Football,
Forest Gump, Sweet Home Alabama, Whitewater? If you aren’t from
the Southeast USA you probably don’t think of whitewater. Well,
it is March and not only should you think of whitewater in Alabama but
also 70 degree weather, creeks, play, and great paddlers.

There was once a kid in Alabama, 8 years old when he
started and a ripper from the beginning, his name is Jeremy Adkins. Jeremy
had a dream of having an event on his home river the Locus Fork for years
and finally it came true. The key organizers were David, the owner of
Surface Dynamics, Jeremy (local kid done good), Nathan of Alabama Small
Boats, and Keith Yell (another local pro boater). I am sorry if I don’t
know the behind the scenes helpers.

The event started off on Short Creek- A class 4 and
easy 5 creek, depending on the water with a sweet 20 foot waterfall on
it. The waterfall event was first. 90 minutes of hucking yourself off
the waterfall in every way you can think of. It was judged by the party
crowd that night while being shown the big screen at the camp ground.
There were tons of really cool moves including Pistol Flips, Pan Ams,
Freewheels front and back, rockspins to freewheels, etc. Of course there
were tons of GREAT crashes too. Andrew Holcomb gets my vote for trying
the most committing, least likely to succeed trick of a straight over
backflip, landing on his head three times before deciding the pain of
his last one was more than the upside potential. I was also trying to
do something that nobody was doing from the start, to go up on a narrow
rock at the lip that was really hard to get on, spin on it to a freewheel.
I did it 5 times with varying degrees of success, falling on my head into
the eddy below on my first one. Since the event was judged at the party,
a winner was crowned, Charlie, who went for the rock spin, fell off the
shelf onto the shelf below upside down and then doing an aerial back deck
roll off the shelf into the drop, very cool. I am afraid that I don’t
know who was second third or fourth. Emily did her first ever freewheel
at this event and was quite stoked!

The next event was a head to head race over the waterfall,
behind the curtain below it and out the other side of the curtain. It
started off as three at a time and the finals was five at a time. Emily
and Dane went first head to head, with the organizers not wanting to send
the kids to the lions. Good idea. Emily took Dane at the start and Dane
gave Emily a little space at the lip and then tried to catch her. Emily
is quite fast and held him off but when emerging from underneath the falls
she got pushed low leaving Dane an opening. Dane pushed hard and the finish
was side by side with Emily beating him by about 1 foot!

Men’s Pro:

Andrew Holcomb blew his head away nailing the landing
off the waterfall just right so the bubble pushed him straight to the
safety kayaker (buoy) that you had to paddle around and then taking it
home. Brad Hines didn’t have as much luck getting stuck upside down
in the hole as he tried to punch through the curtain and was tooled in
it briefly but also tried to roll up against the falls coming on his head,
swallowed water and swam. This is the guy who held the record for the
most runs down the “Hair of the Bear” in one day (five runs).
Marc Lyle now has the record at seven runs. I was there that day and got
1.1 runs in.

Clay Wright took his heat easily also nailing the whole
thing and getting out in front early. Steven Wright fought hard to gain
his lead but never let it go to the end. The ugliest thing we saw was
Joe Stumpfel, who is a C1er, had the idea to use a kayak paddle in his
C1 and race. A C1er rarely is skilled with two blades and in this case
he flipped over before the lip of the waterfall and went over upside down!
The next boater almost landed on him, but all was OK. Sounds dangerous,
and it is to some degree, but no nearly as much as watching some runs
through Terminal Eddy on the Little River Canyon the next day. Nobody
has been seriously hurt in any head to head or extreme race in the USA
or the world that I know of.

Robert Pearson took his heat of the prelims with ease
and never had to look back, leading from the lip of the falls to the end.

I won my prelims heat, with some scrapping, starting
in between two boaters that converged on me at the start, but luckily
I was fast enough that then were on my stern, not my body.

At the end there were five winners left and the original
plan was to do a heat of three and a heat of two, but the athletes decided
it would be way more fun to go all five at once and get it over with.
This time the safety boater/buoy would be closer to the falls and positioned
so that we would have to go through a much heavier part of the curtain
if we wanted to take the fastest line. The start was crazy with everybody
pointed upstream and the starter going, “OK guys, go on three….
THREE!” talk about messing with your head. Everybody did their fastest
turn, mostly banging boats and paddles since we were in tight quarters,
and doing our fastest get away. I was up against the bank with Clay forcing
me into it but I had a two foot lead, just enough to get my paddle out
of the water before tangling with his paddle. Andrew had the far side
and was racing along like a bat out of hell but squeezing out Robert,
with Stephen holding on hard. I made the cut from the wall to the lip
in front of everybody trying to get to the inside of the turn that we
would do on the landing off of the falls so I wouldn’t get squeezed
out by Andrew who had the inside line already. I didn’t see much
after that because I had the lead off the lip and made the turn and got
through the curtain with no problem. When I emerged from the curtain to
the finish line, Andrew was behind me, then Clay for third place. Stephen
and Robert were still trying to punch the curtain and were getting rejected
at least three times each. Finally Robert went around the curtain, which
is the long way, and Stephen couldn’t catch him that way so gave
it one more try out of desperation and made it through just in front of
Robert and came out to the finish line in 4th, with Robert in 5th. They
were burning from lactic acid at the finish and it showed in their faces.
What a cool race. I was very proud of the job team Jackson Kayak did at
that race taking three of the top 5 positions! 1st, 3rd, and 4th.

In the Expert men’s class:

Nick Troutman (he is living with us until July) from
Canada, member of team Jackson Kayak and only 16 years old, took first
place in both elimination rounds and the finals! His finals round was
awesome. He was in second after the lip, and went to third at the turn,
but then made a dash to an easier part of the curtain while the other
two went for the hard part of the curtain and got rejected, so Nick just
paddled right by them for the win!

The boats of choice for the race and waterfall freestyle
event for us were the Funs. Nick and Stephen paddled the Fun, Clay and
I paddled the 4 Fun and Dane paddled the Fun 1. Emily paddled her Star.
Emily was the only female in the NAWF.

Party night was at the Campground and it was awesome.
Big fires, big screen TV with LVM #15 premier, waterfall event footage
and judging, and a Sweetwater Beer sponsor, meaning free Sweetwater 420
beer all night long!!! Awesome!

The next day was the freestyle events, both a “Big
Air” and a “Throwdown” competition. The events were
combined for a winner of the day.

This was the first freestyle event of 2005 in the USA.
The juniors went first with Emily having to paddle against the junior
boys because she was the only girl there. That didn’t slow here
down as she launched her Star in the air big time in both the Big Air
and Throwdown heats. Dane went for the Tricky Woo on every ride, getting
rejected and flushed most of the time, but also nailing it at least once.
I convinced him to throw a loop and some cartwheels on one ride to have
at least one ride that showed he can do more than Tricky Woo. Nick Troutman
went for broke on each ride getting some big moves and then some flushes,
also going for big moves only. There were 10 juniors in all. At the end
of the day, the results were:

Top Three

Emily Jackson, Jackson Kayak – Star
Nick Troutman, Jackson Kayak, All-Star
Dane Jackson , Jackson Kayak, Fun 1

In the men’s Expert class, there was lots of
great paddling with at least two guys getting huge loops and Space Godzillas.
I am going off of memory so I don’t have the finish results for
that class, sorry!!!

In the Men’s Pro Class:

In the Big Air competition there was lots of Big Air!
Stephen Wright and Clay Wright were making their boats Fly! Clay was paddling
the Super Star, with Stephen in his All-Star. Andrew Holcomb had some
sweet space godzillas and air loops. Clay was nailing Big backloops and
linking them together (front loops too!) I tried to do one move and then
move on to a different move. I did a front loop, space Godzilla, back
loop, lunar orbit and stuck all of them. I didn’t know what the
judges were looking for exactly so that seemed like a good plan.

In the Throwdown, we each got two rides and both counted.
Stephen and Clay went huge again. Andrew did just about everything but
flushed too early on his second ride twice missing his big move once.
If it weren’t for his flushes, his rides were sweet! I went for
the same moves as in the Big Air, but with all in one ride and added the
cartwheel moves and a blunt.

They gave out the results at the party that night (Saturday
night), also sponsored by Sweetwater 420 beer.

1st- EJ, Jackson Kayak, All-Star

2nd- Stephen Wright, Jackson Kayak, All-Star

3rd- Clay Wright, Jackson Kayak, Super Star

4th- Andrew Holcomb- Dagger, Crazy 88

Wow- our first event of the year and I can’t
tell you how proud I am of Team JK!!!! We won the head to head races,
and swept the freestyle events in Junior’s and men’s classes.

Stephen and Clay are always awesome and a big asset
to Jackson Kayak, and this weekend, all weekend, they kicked butt! I am
very proud to call them Team Jackson Kayak!

Nick, Emily, and Dane represented well and had a great
time to sweeping the junior class, with the overall winner being a girl-
You go girl!!

So, the weekend was not all competition. We ran two
creeks as well, Short Creek after the race on Friday, and yesterday we
ran the Little River Canyon.

Both creeks were sweet, but the Little River Canyon
is a true Alabama classic creek. Tall vertical cliffs, huge boulders,
sweet drops, and warm sunny weather made for a great Sunday paddle.

Clay has run this section many times and was our guide
down the river. We took our time scouting every major drop with the kids.
Emily and Dane were in kayak heaven, as was I, the proud parent, always
watching my kids do every drop ready to help if they got into trouble.
However, they nailed their lines, as usual, making it way more fun for
me to have them on the trip without worries.

Dane paddled the Fun 1.5 for the first time. This is
his new creekboat. He is now 65 pounds and just tall enough to paddle
it. We had to add a second Happy Feet Footbag to the boat for his feet,
add a second seat pad to raise him up 1” but that was it. What a
great boat for him. Finally big enough to paddle it easily. I highly recommend
the Fun 1.5 for any kid that is growing fast and is over 65 pounds and
mostly going to be running little creeks and won’t have access to
much playboating. Dane would not be impressed if he couldn’t paddle
his Fun 1 though because it is a playboat for him now too.

Emily paddled the Fun yesterday since I forgot to bring
a 2 Fun for her. She did really well in that too.

Enjoy the photos of the contests. Kristine took the
shots. We didn’t bring a camera on the creek runs.

🙂 EJ