A couple friends and I had an awesome day kayaking at the whitewater park in Charlotte on Labor Day 2007! Stuart Everett and I met up with my good buddy Andrew Bentley at the park bright and early to have a big day of fun!
Andrew arrived at the park about 30 minutes before Stuart and I rolled up. While he was waiting on us he got to go walk around the channels to check out what they look like when they don’t have any water in them. Andrew was quite astonished that there were so few objects in the bottom of the channels to make the features. He also got to see the pumps come on and the water come up in the channels. He said it was quite a site to see.
This was Stuart’s first visit to the park, so when we arrived I gave him a quick walk around tour of the facility. Stuart told me earlier in the week that he would run the Competition Channel with me for my personal first descent (PFD) of that channel. It was quite funny seeing his reaction to the actual size of Tourist Trap on the Comp. channel, as we were walking around for him to scout the channels. Stuart told me that seeing this section of the Comp. Channel in person gave a whole new level of testosterone required to back up his statement earlier in the week. His proclamation gave me a good laugh to say the least! However, to Stuart’s credit Carnage Corner and Tourist Trap are quite gnarly looking at first glance.
We geared up and purchased our day pass after the tour. We decided that we would do a couple of runs on the Wilderness Channel to warm up, before we embarked on our PFD of the Comp. Channel. Andrew started the day out in the JAW’s Demo All Star, because he asked me to bring it for him to try out. I paddled my Super Star and Stuart was in his 4 Fun. The first two laps were both good clean runs for me, but I was not interested in playing. I was focusing my energies on running the Comp. Channel. Andrew and Stuart played it up on both laps in some of the features. Stuart quickly came accustomed to the churning eddies and Andrew was falling in love with the All Star.
After our two warm up runs, we all decided it was time to fire up the Comp. Channel! Andrew and I jumped into our trusty Super Heroes for the journey. We paddled over to the channel and Stuart got behind Andrew and me because he knew if he was in front of us in his 4 Fun, our torpedo Super Hero’s would spear him halfway down the channel.
Andrew lead out our first run and we all had a great line down to Kodak Wave. Andrew and I eddied out below Kodak wave to make sure all was well with Stuart. He came ripping down Kodak wave and headed on down the channel to finish out the run. Andrew was next out of the eddy. Then I got suck waiting on a raft. After the raft passed, Andrew was already out of sight and through Carnage Corner. I peeled out into the current and headed down the channel to catch the eddy between Carnage Corner and Tourist Trap.
I eddied out with no problem and caught my breath for the big drop at Tourist Trap. I looked down the rapid to spot my line and by this time Andrew and Stuart were out of my sight. They had already made it through this rapid and the last two drops of the channel. I quickly said a short and sweet prayer to God to help guide me through this drop and not get hurt; Because at that time it felt like he was the only one there, even though there were about 20-30 spectators on the bank watching the action. Once I had a clear picture of my line from up in the eddy, I pealed out to attempt my chosen line. I started the 7 foot drop out where I thought I needed to be, but I quickly learned that I was getting blown off my line to far left into the seam of the reactionary wave that leads into the ‘V’ of the hole. I knew this was not the ideal place to be. I slammed into the hole and got power flipped. Needless to say, being upside down in the hole was not part of my master plan. The hole was powerful to say the least. It almost pulled my paddle right out of my hands. I remained calm and the hole flushed me after a few seconds of felling like I just received the ultimate swirly! I rolled up with out a scratch and paddled on down the last two drop without incident.
As I was coming down the last two drops of the Comp. Channel, I spotted Andrew and Stuart. We all gathered together in the bottom pool to celebrate our safe and successful runs. Both Andrew and Stuart made it down the entire Channel without ever flipping. Way to go guys!
We jumped on the conveyer belt back to the top to try another run at the channel. The second run was a whole lot less stressful since we knew what we were up against. I lead out the run followed by Andrew and Stuart bringing up the rear. I blasted down to Kodak wave and eddied out for Andrew and Stuart to catch up. Andrew caught an eddy above me and Stuart went on down again. Andrew peeled out and I jumped in behind him.
This lap I decided not to catch the eddy between Carnage Corner and Tourist Trap. I stayed in the main current and came around the bend on-line for the drop. I squared up and paddled hard down the face, but I still found myself a little to far left… the line was not as bad as the first lap, but I still needed to be a about 2 more feet to the right. I punched into the hole with a clean paddle stroke, but I still got slowed down enough to get squirted up and over. I rolled up and saw that Andrew had got surfed over into the river right eddy of death. He got out after about 15 seconds and we all celebrated again in the lower pond about our good laps.
Despite getting flipped on both laps at Tourist Trap, I was quite pleased with my runs for a PFD. The best way to describe the Comp Channel is FAST! I can’t wait till the next time we go back to the park, so I can try and improve on my lines through that channel. We decided not to press our luck and try our hand at a third lap.
We took a quick break and jumped back in our play boats to have some fun back over in the wilderness channel. We spent the next 3.5 hours playing it up. Stuart hand paddled and Andrew became a beast in the All Star. During our play session Andrew jumped in every feature to play, except Trash Can and ‘M’ wave. He completed some very nice flat spins and he even began to link a few cartwheels. The best surf of the day was when Andrew shredded Shutdown Hole. He completed a huge bouncy 720 flat spin, which was then reversed to a 540 flat spin. Then he got stern squirted out of the hole. It was a rather impressive move from an amateur playboater! By the end of the day Andrew was ready to steal the boat from the JAW Fleet. Check out his boat review on JK’s web site with the link below:
http://www.jacksonkayak.com/articles07/article.cfm?article=200709052
Stuart is just learning the fundamentals of playboating, because he has been a creek boater for most of his kayaking pastime. He seemed to have a great time during our play session.
I spent most of the play session surfing the waves and trying to throw some ends down in the smaller holes. I have never claimed to be a playboater, but I enjoy trying.
After wearing ourselves out, we packed up and headed home around 4:00 p.m. Stuart and I said our goodbye to Andrew and headed back to good old East TN. Once we got back home, we met up with Stuart’s wife (Tonya) and kids (Caleb, Josh and Abby) to eat some tasty Mexican Food from Salsarita’s to finish out our extraordinary day!
Have a nice day & I hope to see you on the Gauley!
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