The PRE (Payette River Experience) Day 1

(Note: if you want to read a well written account of the get together in Colorado that came before this trip, please ready Rochelle Parry's blog posts)


I began my journey in Idaho with some much needed rest and busy work after a grueling weekend of boarding in Colorado. Doing Extreme Down River and Boardercross on the same day, then racing one on one against Rochelle just one day later, and finally getting up at 3:15 am to drive to the airport had taken it's toll. I stayed with new friends that I met on Couch Surfers (.com) and throughly recommend it to anyone traveling to a new city. After two days of rest, light excercise, hardy food, and movies, I was ready to go back to the airport to meet Alex and Rochelle.

The next day we arrived in Banks to meet Josh and Peter. We had hoped to run the “lower 5” (miles) of the North Fork of the Payette river, but things looked a little low, so we went upstream to have a look at Jacob's Ladder. It still looked big at this flow and I'm told that it's gigantic at higher flows, though I can only imagine. What I saw was about 4 drops, lots of waves between each one, and a very straight-forward line with only a few maneuvers to make. We felt good about it, though someone thought that maybe it would be a good idea to first warm up on an easier rapid called Juicer. I was open to the idea, but was trying to avoid putting too much mileage on the Uhaul van that we had rented for the weekend. I also like to run a rapid pretty quickly after deciding to do so. Give me too much time, and I may over think things and talk myself out of it. Me and Alex suited up and the anticipation was killing me while waiting for Docta P to get suited up.

We were going to have a lot of safety and photo support on shore with Josh, Rochelle, Ariel, and Liz holding cameras and throw ropes. We got in upstream and when even Docta P reminded us of the seriousness of this rapid, it hit home how huge this was going to be. Any of the drops on their own would be a IV+, and putting them all together makes for a 5.0 to 5.1 (American Whitewater rates it a 5.3, I call it a V +, and Peter and the local kayakers call it a IV+. Regardless of what your experience and familiarity allow you to rate it, it's big and a swim would be a scary prospect.).

Since a riverboarder without their board would only be in slightly less trouble than a kayaker without their kayak (due to a boarder at least having pads and fins), we all leashed to our boards. Even with my fins and pads, I wouldn't want to swim these rapids without the buoyancy my board provides. After a pre-run prayer to thank God for the privilege of being on the river and asking for a safe run, we put our fins on and got started.

(from the foreground to background: Docta P, Alex Koutzoukis, me (Kevin) )

After a short lead in rapid, there is an erie stretch of calm water just before Jacob's Well, and then the bottom drops out and you're in it until the end. I had only put my visor halfway down because I wasn't expecting any rocks and didn't want it to fog up. When I hit the second drop, the hole felt like a brick wall and stopped my board momentarily, just enough for me to hit my nose on the carabiner for my leash. I didn't know I had broken my nose, but I figured that I had blooded it (and thankfully it was a straight shot that only cracked it, so it wouldn't need to be set). It hurt until the next drop, and then the sensory explosion of whitewater made me forget about my nose. We made it through Jacob's Ladder and immediately after was the Golf Course (named because it has plenty of holes). We hadn't scouted all of the Golf Course, but figured that we wouldn't get a chance to eddy out above it. I saw Docta P get stuck in a hole with just enough time to avoid it myself, and then me and Alex grabbed eddies while he fought his way out and got back on his board. We were at a good stopping point, and having run Jacob's Ladder and half of the Golf Course, but not scouted the rest, we decided to get out and leave the “back nine” alone. Docta P told me that I had quite a lot of blood on my face, so I pulled out my camera to capture the moment of having a bloody nose and bloody mucus temporarily coloring my bleached soul patch red. It was time to celebrate a good run and go do Juicer, which felt like a breeze after Jacob's Ladder.

(getting buried at the bottom)

I have run rapids that are bigger, have more defined drops, or require more technical maneuvering, but Jacob's Well takes the cake on speed and turbulence. You go under in a hole, then come up and immediately get slapped by diagonal waves. The jagged road blast rocks in the riverbed create some chaotic waves and holes. It really is disorienting and you have to keep your eyes peeled for visual clues to know where you are in the rapid. My biggest challenge was keeping my legs behind me and avoiding them getting sucked under me and back flipping when some of the holes jacked me straight up.


Keep reading for my account of the competitions on the following days.