<strong>The</strong>PADDLER 126 We saw one woman take Minus One on the right, to find herself with her boat snatched away from underneath her as though sucked to the centre of the earth
Very nervous Grades are hard for paddlers to agree on, but think mostly G3/4, with a G5 section (TNT) and some big, technical but relatively consequencefree G4 (Minus One and Champions). It was big enough to make most there to feel very nervous but went nowhere near some of the deranged things we’d read about it and we were seeing it at one of the highest levels the Sickline has been run on. At peak snow melt in summer, the glacier-fed run must be monstrous. We watched as the world’s best paddlers did laps, and the nervous, those who’d come to this arena and found themselves wanting, wandered pale-faced, palms sweating, bile rising in the throat. We saw one woman take Minus One on the right, to find herself with her boat snatched away from underneath her as though sucked to the centre of the earth. It reappeared a full five seconds later. It was hardly confidence-inspiring, but most seemed to be getting through it alive. As a mediocre playboater and occasional riverrunner I found the qualification course (Minus One, Champions Exit Slot and a couple of hundred metres of the G3 slalom course below), a good, fun challenge, failing every time to hit a great line and flipping in half my runs, but not taking any beatings. After seeing more than a few paddlers swim from their boats while safely out of the feature and even one slapper (one who slaps the surface with the blade before rolling up – beginners’ stuff), I have a new theory about whitewater paddlers in general, and it is this: slalom paddlers and river runners/creekers don’t always capsize enough to have bulletproof rolls. <strong>The</strong> former category are busy perfecting their speed and turns on easier water, while the latter, in very challenging water, must avoid situations that will make them swim. Plan ‘A’ and Plan ‘B’ paddlers Of course, the good paddlers in any discipline will have their roll well sorted, but at an amateur level, slalomists and creekers are ‘Plan A’ paddlers, who read the river well and take a good line but are simply too unaccustomed to being upside down to be comfortable rolling in all conditions, every time. Playboaters and surf kayakers, even mediocre ones, spend half their time on the water upside down, and their rolls become developed beyond the level of the rest of their paddling. <strong>The</strong>se paddlers might be less adept at getting down a river or seeing the best line, but they are great ‘Plan B’ people; when the shit hits the fan, the playboater will roll up, somehow. <strong>The</strong> drill for the qualies is to line your boats up in bib order, then to take them down some steep steps to the launching platform, the feeling of nerves quite palpable as you wait for your turn. You hear a race coordinator say into his mic, “40 on the course, 41 in the eddy” then he says, “you’re good” and it’s on. It’s an easy ferry to river left, then almost immediately Minus One, a short, turbulent stopper where you fight to stay left so you don’t get pushed into the rocks just under the surface on right, where many paddlers took a submerged thumping before rolling up or swimming, then into Champions’, where you hope you boof properly, or you can get endered out vertically (most likely), back looped or worked in the hole. One thing to bear in mind, when you watch Sickline on YouTube is that the boof on Champions is harder than it looks! <strong>The</strong> paddlers keeping their boats perfectly flat are likely the best paddlers in the world, and even they occasionally got it wrong. Having said that, we didn’t see anyone take a real beating in there. After that it’s left through the awkward, boily, narrow exit slot (again, trickier than it looks) then 200m or so of read-and-run G3 to the takeout. <strong>The</strong>PADDLER 127
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