The first piece of excitement came in an unusual way when a couple of 11 year old girls dropped a hat by accident in the an eddy.  The thing flowed round and round for the hour before the event… all of us watching, well over a thousand spectators simply watching this freakin hat float around as these three little girls tried reaching it.  Finally, just before the event started an enterprising dude with a stick rescued the unfortunate hat… after watching these girls try for an hour, most of the audience was getting that little impatient eeeerrrrgggg in their stomach… when dude pulled that hat out… standing ovation! 

The run constituted 4 drops, all were quite easy but all were very narrow and with only one really quick line through.  If you were second or worse, you simply dropped more time.  Key was the start.  If you were not in front you needed to be creative.  It was almost best to line up behind the forrunner and pass in the flats.  The end result of this layout was push and shove… push your fellow boater off his line, and you just might make it through first.  This was an agro event my friends. 

The prelims started with the Juniors, the same kids who cliniced us yesterday, Dane, the two Jasons, Shales and others… but the highlight was a first heat that saw these kids go head to head with 7 year old Sage.  Sage was quickly adopted as the darling of the Reno event.  This tiny bundle of energy paddled her Sidekick just a bit behind Dane and Jason.  I gotta tell ya, this event is nasty when it comes to paddles in faces etc.  Dane openned my eyes to the potential carnage wearing a full face guard when competing… it was well used later on… stay tuned on that.  The JR boys prelims saw three really solid front runners, Dane, Jason Craig and Johnathan Shales.  These three pretty much pulled away from their respective heats.  The top two from each of the three JR heats moved on to the semis.

The women were next and again hear there were a few stand outs in Emily Jackson, Tanya Faux and Diane Gaydos.  Ruth Gordon spent much of her time in this heat trying to push Tanya Faux off of her course, but the power of Ms Faux outweighed the efforts of her Canadian counterpart.  Ruth got scrubbed from the finals… but this battle royal and the aggressive knudging in close proximaty started a trend.  Pretty much every heat from here on in had some fightin’.  Yeah baby…

The mens heats were characterized by, typically, a front runner and a battle.  The front runners were the ones who simply took off leaving the field behind in their dust.  First heat it was Dave Fusilli in his Pyranah who simply outstarted and out muscled his field.  The next heat featured an EJ burst as he easily won.  Nick Troutman took that section by storm as he lead by a country mile with Andrew Holcomb in his heat and Tao kicked butt from start to finish…. a grand finale of epic proportions was in the making. 

Back came the Juniors for their semi finals.  This time gloves were dropped.  Those who were the front runners in the first heats were litterally targets in these semis.  Case in point was the battle between Jason and Dane with immediate pushing of Dane off line on the first drop and Dane coming back with a paddle to the chest over the second drop.  Both made it to the finals with Jason C. and Johnathan Shales.  The top four were as expected.

The women’s final was already set so on we went to the mens semi’s.  In the first heat, Dave Fusili proved unmatched in his boat as he powered his way via a great start and shere will to the finish line unscathed.  In that very same heat, Tao Berman and Andrew Holcomb exchanged unpleasantries in the form of paddles to the chest, hand pushes, clips and other nasties… the real victom was Judd Kaiser (last year’s champ) who ended up flipped in the second drop eddy… it was FUN to watch.   The second heat had EJ matched with son-in-law Nick Troutman and Lane Jacobs as co-favorites.  The carnage and start caused EJ to decend off his mark resulting in a win for Nick and Lane… both going on to the finals vs Tao and Dave.  

The finals for juniors was mayhem.  Dane and Jason took each other out of the running with an epic battle… Dane ended up on rocks and benefiting from his full face helmet while a battle for the win ensued between Jason Craig and Johnathan Shales.  Jonathan passed Jason for the win. 

The womens saw Tanya Faux get off to a great start that would prove insurmountable.  But, the real action was between the trio of Emily Jackson, Diane Gaydon and Devon Baker.  Diane took off a good bit of skin from Emily’s nose then Devon Baker entered the fray with a push and shove match all the way down the river.  Tanya came home with the win, Diane Gaydon took silver with Devon taking third.

The men’s final saw a surprise great start by Dave Fusili, again one that was insurmountable but again the real battle was for the last three positions.  Nick Troutman, who was simply killing all competitors in each of his heats, ended up with a poor start and on the rocks as Tao and Lane battled down the river.  Tao ended in third, Lane Jacobs ended up second and Dave took the 2008 title.

Boatercross is an exciting event… period.  The battles were mano a mano and entertaining as all get out.  Dave, Johnathan and Tanya were definitely the class of the field and many thanks go out to those who took one for the gipper.  Lots of bent noses, bruised egos and “wait till the next year’s”. 

Reno ended on a high note for me.  Many thanks to Jim and the other organizers for this event!  Many thanks to vendors like Kokatat, Rockstar and others who made this event come to fruition and many thanks to Reno for hosting our sport’s biggest spectator event!  Bravo all… and thanks again to Colin and Hope for putting me up all weekend!  Now… I wanna go home and sleep.

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Hosts Dan Gavere and Hobie (hope I spelt it right) were truely the heart of this event with their color commentary.  I’ll have video up shortly and I’ll leave the sound on… wow… imagine sittin and jabbering for 8 solid hours (they did before and after stuff too)… they filled our day with banter about everything from weird dudes in tight speedos, cool bikes on the waterfront, kids kayaking, encouraging paddlesports, thanking sponsors and much more.  Reno and our festival owes a ton to these two legends, as do all of us.  They are truely ambassadors and took all occasions to explain, educate and encourage locals, the thousands, watching this event with idle curiousity.  Well done guys, you definitely made my day!

OK.  The scene.  Saturday morning, sun is up, 80+ degrees (25C), well over 10,000 people wandering about, hundreds of vendors, music everwhere, beer tents (key) and non stop activity.  It was like one of those fairs, not the little ones that take a day, but the Disney worlds that take two or three days to take it all in… Reno was up and at’m for this, one of there biggest events in downtown. 

Competition started off with the Juniors.  Wow.  These kids are really the cream of the crop and, like the Open class juniors yesterday, began the day with a clinic of moves.  Jason Shales, Dane Jackson and Jason Craig led their class with an extremely tight competition.  Dane and Jason Craig (a local Reno boy) are long rivals, good friends who have litterally grown up on the river together, their flurries of McNastys, loops, air loops got the crowd oooing and awwing.  Not a lot of folks have seen kids givin’ er in a hole like this.  In the end it was down to the best friends for the ultimate showdown.  Jason dropped into the hole and delivered a 118 point ride (keeping in mind the mens best was 196).  With the crowd cheering as Jason rolled up into the eddy after the ride, he looked straight at Dane and gave that chin up “yeah, take that you son of a %$%&”.  The taunt kinda backfired as Dane dropped in to continuous moves starting with a Flip into the hole from above for a full points entry move.  The onslaught was on.  Dane ended up with 130-something (sorry) with the ride of a lifetime for that hole.  Crowd went nuts.

The women’s semi final field was a field cropped to 5 with Ruth Gordon (Canada), Tanya Faux (Australia), Emily Jackson, Devon Baker and Diane Gaydos in what was one of the heaviest women’s comps I’ve seen in a while.  They were all on their game and all came to win.  The semis saw probably the best rides from Tanya and Ruth with Emily.  The girls were throwing the heat with McNasty’s, loops and a rare blunt by Tanya.  Tanya and Emily especially looked poised as their routines were without hesitation at all.  After the semi’s Emily, Tanya and Ruth went on.

Next were the men’s quarters.  This was the biggest field, and the top 6 went to the fsemi-finals.  This was a pretty powerful pro class.  EJ, Steven Wright, Judd Keiser, Brian Kirk, Nick Troutman, Andrew Holcomb and our own KB (had to group him here man) were all on hand for the bling prize and bragging rights in this first big pro event of the season.  The scores were as high as they can be in this hole.  Many of these guys had entry moves that migrated right into a McNasty, loop or air loop. Space Godzillas were of particular entertainment value since some had the guys hitting upwards of 2 feet out of the hole.  The Trickywhu’s were out as well and the bigger scores came when guys like EJ and Andrew H. mixed things up doing the moves on both left and right sides… usually in one fluid motion.  Amazing.  The semi’s final standings saw our beloved KB drop as well as yesterday’s open class hero’s Scott Sadey and Dave Fisulli.  Also dropping out were Ben G., Judd Keiser, Johnathon Meyers, and a couple others I missed (sorry).  The six finalists were therefore (in order) Brian Kirk (6th), Manny Burnam, Nick Troutman, Steven Wright, Andrew Holcomb and EJ.  Ohhhh baby.

Back came the women for their final round, a head to head round.  Ruth unfortunately hit a rock on her first move and thudded out an uncharacteristic 28.  This openned the door to Tanya and Emily, and both delivered with their best round ever.  Leaving them to do the head to head final run.  Tanya wowed the crowd with another big blunt, loops and a few very powerful moves, but didn’t have the ride she had a moment or two before… Emily on the other hand, had an even better ride than her last… starting it by dancin to the Bee Gees that Hobie and Dan put on from the DJ booth.  Emily nailed all her moves and came out the 2008 Reno River Fest champ.

The men’s final 6 then hit the river.  All were pumped, all were old buddies and rivalry was thick in the Reno air.  Andrew Holcomb, I gotta say was the stand out in that first ride.  His continual air, solid and clean moves put the bar, seemingly too high.  Manny, a long time competitor from Reno, showed off his familiarity in the hole but didn’t quite catch Andrew… Neither did Brian Kirk or Nick Troutman, though both had stellar runs… pretty much a ‘what the heck is it gonna take’ kinda scenerio… they all did their max.  Andrew was just that good on his first run.  Then came EJ and Steven.  Steven’s story is a great one as he started out here as an open class competitor, a few years later he’s litterally the most perfect freestyler out there.  He simply does every move text book!  His ride didn’t dissappoint these high expectations, he did the text book loop, phonix monkey, airwheel, trickywhu and others… just a technically perfect ride… but he took his time.  His ride beat Andrews, but didn’t beat the old mans… EJ came in with a first ride that pushed the threshold of the points you could score in this hole for a minute… there was simply no second wasted.  His second ride was hands free… to, of course the thousands of spectator’s delight. 

The finals therefore saw Andrew, Steven and EJ going head to head … one ride only, best 2 go to the final head to head.  Andrew lead the way, but like Ruth before her was bit by the rock and thumped out into the green water, killing off valuable seconds and loosing too many points.  Steven and EJ lined it up and went off delivering runs that had the fans on their feet.  They were now head to head.  In the grand finale I gotta say it was hard to pick a winner and no one knew till the awards ceremony.  Steven and EJ seemed to hit a stride together in competition and Steven picked up the pace delivering more moves than he did previously. EJ delivered a run full of moves… delivering the left then the right of each move in a routine that showed him up clearly as the reining world champ… the dancin’ girls handing out bling at the end of the day got to put the prize around EJ’s neck as the 2008 Reno River Fest champ.

This is the first time the jacksons appeared on the top rung together in competition… probably not the last!

And oh yeah… bragging rights for the best air… check out KB’s air loop… Its the main photo… KB… you da man today.

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The JRs were up first. Reno and neighbouring states, especially Boise. The end result was an amazing new breed of local boaters from all over the west coast… all these kids officially branded the “look out for these kids” kids. The heats were highlighted by a good many ongoing scenarios… sibling between the McCloud brothers, with both Ethan and Alex joining the exciting heat with Tanner Griffen, Asheen McCloud, Trevor Lemay, Kyle Holms, And Seth S… with the close battle that ensued between Asheen, Kyle and Seth all went through to the pro rounds tomorrow… brining the crowd the full glossary of moves… McNasty, Loops Airwheels, cartwheels and Airloops and much more. These kids rock…. the fun factor was even more enhanced for them as the entire town seemed to be there looking on.  The venue sits right in the core of a busy core and in the thousands were watching this weekday event.  All stayed in the hole for full rides… with very few flushes and all action. I came quickly to the conclusion that freestyle is NO LONGER about CARTWHEELS. With the combination of the higher pointed hole moves (Phonix Monkey, McNasty etc.) and the variety rules, this is no longer a dull stare at right side ends. Starting with the Juniors, the day began.

The Women had only two competitors in the Open division. Both moved on to the next day of competition. Both EC-squared’s made it automatically through to the pro rounds tomorrow, but put on a show anyways.  Nice job ladies!

The men’s Open competition featured 15 boaters from all over, many from Reno proper. KB and Luke chimed in as the Montuckey duo to be reconned with… sporting black and kickin butt!  With this park in place in the center of town, the potential for development in whitewater was immediately apparent in the performance of this group of lads. Local favorites Colin Kemp (GO World KAYAK!) and Scott Sadey lead the pack with some awesome flurries of continuous advanced moves to set the tone. But the story of the day was my new paddling pal, KB with his trademarked black getup and pipes of steel. KB threw for all its worth and landed himself in second place with his ambidextrous Phonix Monkeys, loops and airwheels. Team Piranha was on the move as well with a good showing at the hole with Jeremy Louse showing off his entry moves and ends. Dave Fusilli, again in a Piranha playboat, stole the day with his big point moves to put himself into first place on the day.

1 – Dave Fusilli
2 – KB
3 – Scott Sadey
4 – Colin Kemp
5 - Jeremy Louse
6 - Lane Jacobs

Night time closed the day off with the Reno premier of Hotel Charley – The Lost World. Jesse Combs and clan hosted a great evening of sports bar glory with all screens filled with one of the most adventure filled kayak film I’ve seen. The night was filled with great micro brew, lots of industry chatter and meeting folks I’ve always looked forwards to meeting.

The day ended with myself and Colin completing my southern skills with a couple of hours in the desert shooting tin cans. Colin, you da man…

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WK partner in crime, Colin picked me up and was ready to inform me of my intinerary, Day minus one… Thursday, we’re goin’ paddling! Thursday am we woke up to Nevada landscape at Colin’s new flat in the foothills… a windy road up to somewhere… awesome, I’m in another place… its been a while since my last trip. After a tete-a-tete with the WK gang, Colin, KB (WK Montana Ambassador) and KB’s good buddy Luke and I headed for the Middle Fork of the American… Chamberland Falls section. The last time I paddled a creek was… well… never. The closest I’ve been to a creek was doing the Azul in Patagonia… and the Magpie… neither of which I did any of the real moves.. Words like “boof” and the quick lines are not really part of my vocab on the Ottawa, but my life long focus on simple river running (mostly in protest of the lines on the Ottawa to play). In a nutshell, I was a bit sketched but Colin was all over my confidence and ensured me that there will be no big scary challenges for me on this run… cool.

Colin and gang were pumped, I was pumped and off we went. First moves showed up pretty much immediately, starting with slicing down a 5 foot drop by a ledge hole. I was in my first creek boat (Hero) and immediately found its stability an ability to meet the lines head on, I’m happy to say we all did awesome, making that and all other lines really clean. The day was highlited by a ton of boof rocks, great classic creek moves S-turning our way through some really fun whitewater. The only sticky spot of the day found the four of us bumpin’ around in a whirlpool eddy that Colin sat in as safety… er… we weren’t supposed to be in that eddy. We all stuck our lines great, but with the 4 of us in a small sketchy spot, things got fun. Thanks to my inability to control the craft, I ‘aided’ KG into the hole… he had fun there for sure taking a classic Californian beating. I’ll let him finish the story for ya’all… me, I got out the easy way… got up on a rock and climbed out;-)

The one great thing about Colin is his ability to guage what ails a paddler and help them deal with it. In my case it was the whole ‘new river’ thing, first paddle of the year, first creek, first creek boat… but he knew I could do every run, it was all head. He didn’t go into too much detail, if at all, about consequence. His brief line descriptions were… matter of fact, clear and with no “and oh… if you miss this line, your in a hole.” We all just listened, understood and did. KB and Luke were old pros on a creek and styled everything. Both spent most of our 3 hours with giant smiles as the skipped off anything that would give them air. ¾ of the way down, with a huge amount of confidence, I too started the rock thing… my first boof off a rock was a doooozy, landed to WOOO HOOOs from all the gang and a smile from ear to ear. I don’t know if any of you really watch a group of creekers on the easy sections of these rivers, its pure comedy to me watching us nutjobs wonkin’ into anything that sticks up a bit out of the water. Yeah! I cruised my first rocks! At the end of the day I did flip a few times, mostly due to weirdness in a boat with out a full planning hull, but all was good and after those first rolls, my season begins!

As with most classic rivers, the end had a fun grand finale involved a nifty couple of S-turns to an 8 foot boof over a nifty hole. The choice was either river left through the wave train or the boof. When Colin looked at me and asked his ‘what line are you running James’ I think I surprised all, including myself, with ‘I run the boof’. With Colin on the rocks with a camera, the three of us ran one after another, all three sticking the move… the photos capture it all… huge smiles … and better yet, an ol’ school ender hole right next to us. We didn’t last long there, but trying to get an ender after all these years was fun for me… save the paddle in the nose thing = ouch.

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Day 1 is tomorrow, gotta get rested up for a day on hard rocks with a camera and computer. Colin, thanks for the run! You are definitely the man… sorry Bruce!

With Chris Wing out due to his work schedule and such, looks like I’ve got a ball to pick up… covering the Reno Riuver Festival.  Many of you may not have remembered my first foree into event coverage.  I used to post as POLLO on Boatertalk and set up full coverage of the World’s (Ottawa, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Austria).  Funny that my Sort, Spain coverage web site still gets 10,000 visitors a month… weird… must be a log of retro boaters out there.  Well thanks to some well timed negotiations with the lovely wife and cheaptickets.com, I’m off to Reno. 

Just to guage my personality (and reputation, I guess), when Ruth Gordon heard that I was going to Reno this week her reaction was “James, JAMES IN RENO???!!!  That’s not gonna be good”.  Notice there weren’t any smilies after that statement.   All I can say Ruth is… I’ve changed… OK… maybe not…  I’m in Reno to ensure that our fabulous paddling population gets some fun coverage.  It’s my first trip to Reno so I promise to make sure that I reflect my full visit in my words, photos and video… oh yeah… video.

First steps, outline the scene!  Well, last year’s Reno Festival was huge.  Thousands of visitors, a comp series full of the top names and a ton of activities bringing paddlers to all points Reno.  It also saw one of the very few times that Old Man River got beat… Jay beat EJ.  This year pretty much everyone is gunnin’ for the fella.  Normally I’d have sympathy, but … this is entertainment value at it’s best.  But that’s just a small part of the Fest.  I’m hoping that we can glimpse a good many other events (boatercross, down river, raft races, vendor fair, and events like Run Amuck… er… an “obstacle filled run through downtown”… sounds like my Friday nights in Montreal…). 

Speaking of nights out, there’ll be parties and, well, there’ll be Reno.  Reeeenooo… let me see if I can give you the real scoop on this town.  Don’t worry, where I suck on a wave, I am at a very high comfort level in the rapid city life.  I come from a long line of party stock… Mom’s a Newfy and Dad’s married to a Newfy, they both know how to give’r.  My personal experience lies heavily on my professional years in Montreal… bringing plane-loads of American business folk into Montreal .  This has … er… brought my stamina for late nights to a decent level. 

My theme … ‘wincing’… yup.  Would like to capture as many people wincing as possible.  From boaters crossing a finsh line to me in the buffet line at a casino at 4am… wincing.   I’ll be sure to get scores and such… so stay tuned at www.worldkayakblogs.com/throwdown … our WK event coverage place.

Right so here I go… go to my car, scrape off the frost and off to the airport.  Wish me luck.

 Join your regional ambassador for any or all of the events in your region… grand prize is rewarded at the end of the series in your region for the most participation.

Your event locations and dates are:

Portland, Oregon
North Santiam
May 24, 2008
June 28, 2008
July 26, 2008
August 23, 2008
September 27, 2008

Eugene, Oregon
Wilamette River
April 24, 2008
May 22, 2008
June 26, 2008
July 24, 2008
August 28, 2008

Boise, Idaho
Payette River
April 17, 2008
May 15, 2008
June 19, 2008
July 17, 2008
August 21, 2008

Denver Colorado
River TBD
Event #1 TBD
Event #2 TBD
Event #3 TBD
Event #4 TBD
Event #5 TBD

Reno, Nevada
Truckee River
March 12, 2008
April 9, 2008
May14, 2008
June 11, 2008
July 9, 2008

Nova Scotia
Medway River
March 1, 2008
April 5, 2008
May 3, 2008
June 7, 2008
July 5, 2008

New England
Connecticut River
May 25, 2008
June 29, 2008
July 27, 2008
August 31, 2008
September 28, 2008

Washington, DC
Potomac River
April 24, 2008
May 29, 2008
June 26, 2008
July 31, 2008
August 28, 2008
September 25, 2008

Charlotte, North Carolina
USNWC
April 5, 2008
May 3, 2008
June 7, 2008
July 5, 2008
August 2, 2008

Richmond, West Virginia
James River
April 16, 2008
May 21, 2008
June 18, 2008
July 16, 2008
August 27, 2008

Atlanta, Georgia
Chattahoochee River
April 3, 2008
May 1, 2008
June 5, 2008
July 3, 2008
August 7, 2008

All festivals covered on our blogs will automatically feed here to our Event coverage blogspot/web site…

Please send us news of your events… james @ worldkayak.com

Stay tuned for more!

Events we will be covering will include:

NAWF - March 7-9
Reno - May 9-11
TEVA - June 4-9
FIBark - June 12-15
Potomac - July 11-13
Ottawa - Sept 6-7
Blackwater - Sept 13-14

Many thanks go to Chris for his dedication to bringing quality media to our midst and his offer to partner with us on bringing you all this amazing coverage… the likes we’ve not seen before in our sport!