saint louis, the river

Today was a fun, invigorating, and humbling day.

I ran the upper St. Louis River with three friends in my sleek. It is that north shore, ice-tea colored water. Several big class II wave trains (200 feet of 4 foot waves). Fun to punch through. I played, flipped, and rolled comfortably and consistently. I finally feel like I have the skill base in a kayak to really push myself & have fun (instead of using 90% of my brain to worry about staying right-side up). If only I was at this point in a C1. In someways, I feel like I am starting from the beginning again.

After we took out, Ryan and I hiked down to the put-in for the lower (below the dam) to run the race course. The release was only 600 cfs today; the race will be run at 850-950 cfs. I wonder how much that will change the river features.

I did fine. I leaned forward, paddled hard and blasted cleanly through the hydraulic... and, of course, right by most of the gates. This water is fast and getting to these gates will be a challenge for me in a kayak, much less in my C1. I still don't have my C1 roll, by the way.


Video of the first drop:



I've been watching a lot of C1 slalom video recently. It excites me and I am learning from it -- I can identify good moves and bad moves and explain why some line choices work better than others. Watching these guys (some video here) move through the course with precision and strength almost makes it seem easy. I can visualize myself making those same moves.

And then I get on the lower St. Louis - fast current, deep holes, big waves - and suddenly I am amazed that anyone can do a clean run through these gates. I feel uncoordinated, weak, and overwhelmed. I have so much work to do.

But I know what is possible, even if I am a long way off from it. I may not make all of the gates in my C1 this week, but I have four days to try hard. And I will leave this race as a better paddler. One more step towards where I want to be.

No internet access over the weekend, I'll post race reports on tuesday!