What an interesting US Team Trials coming
up!!! First off- two major weather fronts came in on the account
of Charlie and brought with them tons of rain. The Black River’s
average flow in July and August has been at a 100 year high.
This means that the Route 3 wave has only been in for two
days in between the storms. The good news is that the Moose
River and local creeks have been running the past three days.
The City of Watertown has done a great job in getting the
dam on site at the Route 3 wave dialed in to provide a steady
flow for the wave. The bad news is that the next dam down
can’t dump the pool fast enough to prevent the wave
from backing up and flushing out until the river drops again.
My prediction is that the water will be low enough on Wednesday
afternoon, and that Thursday we can train. This is good news
for the many athletes who are coming in on Thursday. They
will have the same amount of training time as those people
who came early, cool. This is one great way to compete- see
a feature for the first time and compete on it! The rides
are never as good as if the feature has been trained on for
a long time, but the playing field is evened out for people
from all parts of the US.
Jay Kincaid is coming tomorrow- I am picking
him up from the airport in Syracuse. I had to shame him into
coming. He is pre-qualified for the US Team by winning the
last world championships, so hadn’t planned on making
the trip East, but he is a true competitor and can’t
resist a good one on one challenge. (I told him that he had
to come out so I can properly kick his butt, and send him
home with his tail between his legs. He bought a ticket the
next day, I think.) It is fun to have somebody strong enough
to be able to go head to head with any day, any time and not
worry about their self esteem. Seeing that Jay beats me often
enough (like the last worlds), I don’t have to worry
about his self esteem. Of course there are new players in
town for the team trials this year- Steven Wright- oh yea.
Paul “Hotrod” Armes from California, Dan Rubato
from Oregon, and several top juniors that are now seniors.
Is another changing of the guard forthcoming? I must say that
the team selected from Rock Island is a different team than
would be selected from the Route 3 wave. The Route 3 wave
requires a light touch- explosive moves, and great general
overall technique. Rock Island requires awareness of where
you are when you are swallowed up by a monster hole, willingness
to commit hard and vertical, and to the really big moves,
but not flush. This year, there will be some new team members,
I am convinced!
Did I tell you that I finally made a boat
that breaks rocks, instead of rocks breaking the boat? I kid
you not---
I was doing big Macho Moves at the Route
3 wave and did one about 3 feet further left than I normally
do. I went big over the first wave and initiated hard into
the trough when “CRUNCH”, I was totally vertical
and trying to plunge in deep in the trough and my boat never
went under more than my skirt when it hit bedrock. My neck
was arched back and I got whiplash and thought I broke it.
I rolled slowly and tried not to move my head and then slowly
tried out my neck and it was OK, but scary. I looked up at
my bow and there was a rock the size of a golfball sticking
out of it!! It was clearly just broken off of the river bottom
and was lodged in the front of my boat. I knocked it out with
my paddle and had Dane look at it to see if there was a hole-
no hole, just a deep cut. Check out the photo of the front
of my boat- the Cross linked kayak that breaks rocks! I always
used to kid people when they would try to loop or cartwheel
and hit a rock, I would say, let me go next and I will knock
it out of the way for you (back in the cross linked days)
but this is the first time I have proof that I was able to
break a rock (luckily not my neck!)
