by: Bobby Miller
“3, 2, 1, Go!” yelled King of New York series organizer Kenny Unser, as I slid off the bank into the raging current of the Racquette River, charging downstream as hard as I could. I headed down the first slide, then cut right to line up for the biggest rapid of the run, Colton Falls, a tough way to start the run, much less a race! This series of ledges and slides drops 50 feet into a massive hydraulic, that threatened to beat me like a dirty rug with a broom handle! You don’t have time to worry about the hole, because first you must negotiate the angled slide/boof in the approach and its piton wall in the landing, with accompanying whirlpool pocket. You can’t go dream’in about gorgonzola cheese when it’s clearly brie time baby! I cruised down the approach slide, nailed the boof off the ledge at the end, then cascaded down the right side of the slide, skipping cleanly over the hole and rocketing downstream. This hole would be the site of several pummelings during the race, but not for me on this day! Stoked with my great start, I hammered downstream, fighting tooth and nail to get to the finish line as fast as I could!
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The King of New York is THE premier race series in the Northeast, and kicks off every year on Labor Day weekend on the Racquette and Beaver Rivers in New York. Some of the best paddlers, ranging from the Southeast US to Quebec, travel as far as 17 hours for this weekend of top shelf whitewater. In my opinion, it is quite possibly the best paddling weekend of the year, boasting multiple sections of whitewater with challenging drops and slides sure to excite even the most narcoleptic of paddlers. If you are a Class 5 boater and you’ve never been to upstate New York on Labor Day weekend, well, you’re just letting the best in life pass you by. The specter of skipping this trip is far too shocking and unimaginable, and I ruefully shake my head at such profligatory!
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The Racquette Race is short but sweet, with 7 major rapids dropping 200 feet in its mile long course. 7’s the key number here. Think about it; 7-Elevens, 7 dwarves, 7 man, that’s the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin’ on a branch, eatin’ lots of sunflowers on my uncle’s ranch. What does that even mean? Heading downstream from Colton Falls, I was immediately faced with the Tannery Ledges and Mushroom Ledge, two Class 4 drops with complex routes to keeps speed through. A short stretch of boogie water carried me to the crux of the run, three stout Class 5 drops stacked fairly close to one another. The first is the Narrows and is a tight slot leading to a nice boof on the right. I came in hot and was on tenterhooks anticipating a huge boof off the 6 foot ledge. However, I caught too much rock and flopped bow down off the ledge. The water was shallow and my bow penetrated only a little before slamming a rock and bringing me to an abrupt stop, that nearly knocked my Stinger off my ventral sternite (no pun intended)! I broke one of the cardinal rules of racing, go for the fast line not the beautiful line. In this case, I achieved neither, but such is the unforgiving nature of racing, The clock keeps ticking, indifferent to both my triumphs and my struggles. After rolling, the next 100 feet or so involved me getting my butt situated back on my seat and my sore ankles back into position on the bulkhead. Luckily, I was able to get myself back in order right before the Tub, a burly double drop with a powerful boil at the bottom that could suck the color out of a marble! I sailed too hard over the first drop and went over the second ledge too far right, worried that the boil would mess with me. On this day, my luck was good and I punched through the hole with minimal loss of speed. One more rapid lay between me and the finish line, Particle Accelerator. I started down the slide, getting lined up to go right to left off the 10 foot drop and skip around the rock shelf at the bottom. I held my line true and came shooting out with my hair on fire and lined up perfectly to hit the banner that marks the finish in the eddy. After 6 minutes and 14 seconds of hard fought paddling, it was time to chill with my friends and cheer on the other racers as they tried their hand at some of the best whitewater the Empire state has to offer!
The second race in the series is down a short but ferocious section of slides on the Beaver River called the Eagle Section. Three tricky slides, some boogie water and a small waterfall makeup the entirety of this 1/4 mile course. With such a short section, you can’t afford to make any errors or miss any strokes if you want to finish well. No places to relax and catch your breath, you gotta skin that smoke wagon and see what happens! Luckily, the format allows you to take two runs and keep the best one as your time. The smooth rock banks add an arena-like atmosphere that is found at few other race venues! The crowd, hungry for clean lines and big crashes alike, cheer each racer and give one a boost of encouragement to put forth that extra effort to race hard! Before I knew it, I was in the starting position for my first run. I charged out of the gate and sped into the first slide, which went smoothly as I rode the pillow off the right wall. I punched the hole at the top of the second slide and sped through the narrow notch. My bow dove into the hole at the bottom, which killed all of my momentum. Luckily, gravity, my old friend, and a few hard strokes got me back up to speed, and I headed toward the toughest part of the race, the third drop. This drop is another slide, but the bottom is chaotic with a piton wall on the left and a pesky set of rocks backing up a whirlpool eddy on the right. Getting through this drop cleanly is very difficult, and this rapid can cause your race run to go up in flames faster than a prom night with a scorned date! It is a veritable boulevard of broken dreams! What! Who says stuff like that? I drug my left blade to try to counteract the current pushing right and was able to slide through fairly cleanly. From here, there is nothing left to do but paddle as hard as you can through a long rock garden and off a 6-8 foot waterfall to the finish. There are many inconveniently placed rocks in this section, but luckily I was able to avoid them and keep moving to the rock at the finish, ending with a time of 1:33. I decided to take advantage of my new technology, as I used the playback screen on my new Go Pro Hero 4 to watch my run and see where I could improve. It truly is an age of wonder, reader. An age of wonder! I was amazed that, at a few spots, I subconsciously slowed down to line up for a move. My goal for the second run was to eliminate the slow downs and keep rocketing forward full tilt the whole way. This plan worked well early as I powered through the first two slides, and was several seconds faster than my first run. However, I bobbled in the third drop and needed to throw a brace which caused me to spin out and get pushed into the eddy on the right. I was obviously cheesed off at having fallen into this rabbit hole, but I peeled out and finished strong out of principle. I continued to lap the section as the other racers made their race runs. It was great to see so many going hard and acing some tricky and challenging lines!
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The rest of the weekend played out in spectacular fashion as only an upstate New York dam release could provide.The parties at the campground were a lot of fun, the whitewater was top notch as always, the weather was sunny and warm and I got to hang out with lots of good friends. This will always be a special place to me, one that I want to come back and visit time and time again. The King of New York race series has added a whole new dimension of excitement to what is already a spectacular release year after year. If you have aspirations of becoming King of New York, you better buckle down and put in the work. It’s a long row to hoe, racing’s not all beer and skittles! You gotta put in a little elbow grease, a little blood, sweat and tears! Special thanks to Kenny Unser for organizing such a cool event! Congrats to all of the racers, especially Emrick Blanchette for winning the Racquette Race and Pat Keller for winning the Eagle Section Race! If you have never been here, you need to pencil this in on your calendar for next year. If you have been here, you know just what an epic weekend this is and I will see you there in 2016!
You might also enjoy Bobby’s report from the 2013 event:
The Big Brown Beaver
