LVMTV::Little White Giant Slalom Race goes off
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LVM Giant Slalom went off.
We want to thank Wind River Cellars! for their support with the prizes and the party. The winery is always such a rad place to be. While relaxing on the deck we may have captured the best timelapse in the history of LVM. Picture Mt Hood, sunset, spring clouds all in one.
So this is how it all went down.
We arrived in Portland around 2AM Wednesday and from there we made our way to Eric Boomer's house. Boomer has had a pulled muscle in his back for the last few months and has been kayaking zero times in 2008. We spoke over the phone a few times before our arrival and he said he was fine and fired up to go paddle. We woke up the next morning and Boomer suggested we go look at The Money Drop. This is an impressive 60 foot tall waterfall, but is overshadowed by the unstable geology of the area. The locales told us how this drop has changed from a 70 footer to a 20 footer to a 40 footer and is now a 60 footer. We thought yeah right and went for a look.
Sure enough we arrived to a small landslide and you could see the forces of nature happening all around. The best way to describe it is a landslide in suspended animation. The whole place gave us the creeps!
Boomer fired it up and boofed the hell out of it to avoid possible debris lurking under the surface. We thought how odd it was that we just witnessed Boomer's first strokes of 2008 here in this place.
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We got out of there before the whole place caved in and once in the car we got a call from Evan Garcia that he and LJ Groth were going to run the Metlako Falls. Pioneered by huckmaster Dave Grove this waterfall is clean and nasty big. We rappelled down to the lip of the drop for a really unique, from the lip shot none of us had ever seen before. Evan went first and stuck it followed only moments later by LJ who also stuck it. We all screamed! It was awesome.
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It was now time to hit up the Little White. Several of us put on the river and had a great run at 3.4 - 3.5. The river had been upwards of 4 feet only a few days earlier and had the potential to go through the roof with 300% snow pack in the surrounding mountains. The river was at a perfect level and we all bombed the whole way down stopping only to scout the possibility of putting the LVM Giant Slalom course at Boulder Sluice. We had a good vision of the course there and headed down to Spirit. We pretty much all got spiritual.
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After getting back to the car it dawned on us that everything above happened on Day 1.
Friday April 18th 2008
Practice on the Little White during the day and then we had our first competitor meeting that afternoon at Jack's. Jack's is a smoky Chinese Restaurant that was the perfect setting for the first official competitor meeting of the LVM Giant Slalom Championship.
At first we were met with some local frustration an entry fee. We totally understood and explained that everyone who entered got free cold beverages, free food, a chance to win hundreds of dollars of wine from Wind River Cellars, a timed race run on Saturday and a Giant Slalom course set up and timed on Sunday and of course the chance to compete for $4000. Soon everyone began to envision the possibilities of the slalom course and all present were stoked.
Saturday April 19th 2008
It was time to start the first half of the LVM Giant Slalom Championship. Saturday would consist of a point A to point B race from the top of Getting Busy to the bottom of Wishbone. We ended up with 19 racers with one female. The Little White is a tough course and the weather was not warm. Needless to say the list of racers below represents some of the most core individuals in whitewater.
The race was tight with Hood River locals Tao Berman claiming first and Todd Anderson claiming second. Coming in third from Idaho was Ryan Casey.
WOMEN
1. Lana Young 23:18
MEN
1. Tao Berman 15:36
2. Todd Anderson 15:52
3. Ryan Casey 16:12
4. Geoff Calhoun 16:18
5. Ryan Scott 16:41
6. LJ Groth 17:12
7. Austin Rathman 17:15
8. Matt Gaudette 17:32
9. Keel Brightman 17:36
10. Chris Korbulic 17:46
11. Joey Stumpfel 18:06
12. Bo Wallace 18:08
13. Mikkel St.Jean Duncan 18:31
14. Dan Rubado 18:47
15. Mark Cecchini 19:03
16. Ben Hawthorne 19:29
17. Glen Dagerstein 19:35
18. Jono Ramsey 20:03
Saturday 4 20
The racers all arrived at Boulder Sluice a little afternoon to get their first peek of the course. Everyone was charged to see the setup. Geoff Calhoun came up to us and expressed how long he had been waiting to see something like this. It was good to see everyone contemplating the moves and planning their runs.
We started in reverse finish order from the day before and no one was given a chance to get a practice run. It became evident early on that a crux was the move from Gate 2 to Gate 3. It was a difficult right to left move that required a stout combination of technique and power. After run #1 it was Ryan Casey in first followed by Tao Berman then Todd Anderson. Top 5 from heat #1 times in seconds below.
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1. Ryan Casey 1:20
2. Tao Berman 1:24
3: Todd Anderson 1:30
4. Mikkel St. Jean Duncan 1:41
5. Keel Brightman 1:42
Heat 2 was rowdy with Tao Berman missing the #3 Gate and Ryan Casey boofing so far at the main drop of Boulder Sluice he flew past Gates #5 and #6. Several racers cleaned the course and the results turned out as:
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1. Geoff Calhoun 1:21
2. Todd Anderson 1:25
3. Mikkel St. Jean Duncan 1:28
4. LJ Groth 1:30
5: Matt Gaudette 1:33
After all the results were tallied Todd Anderson walked away with the trophy and the Wind River Cellars giant bottle of wine donated by Wind River Cellars.
OVERALL RESULTS
Women
1. Lana Young
Men
1. Todd Anderson
2. Geoff Calhoun
3. Tao Berman
4. Mikkel St. Jean Duncan
5. LJ Groth
6. Keel Brightman
7. Glen Dagelstein
8. Matt Gaudette
9. Ryan Scott
10. Jono Ramsey
11. Ryan Casey
12. Chris Korbulic
13. Austin Rathman
14. Joey Stumpfel
The race was a huge success and everyone had a great time bombing down the Little White. Our next stop is the North Fork of the Payette on May 30th so if you are a west coaster your last chance to qualify will be then.
Stay tuned we will have complete scoring info, more photos and a video update coming over the next few days. Peace.
yo john,
nice shot at metlako!! i was bummed on missing the race but i got my shoulder checked, and all is well. If you get this give me a shout and well see about that idaho trip. ev_gar@hotmail.com
later man evan
Posted by: evan garcia | April 22, 2008 at 01:06 PM