Over past few weeks Irene has been working on putting together a picture/audio presentation of the Cheat River Race.  Many of you have participated in this annual spring paddling program and many of you have wondered what it is all about.  Take a look at this great slide presentation from Irene Owsley.  You can also view some of her other great work at her website featuring incredible albums of various works and panoramas of the Potomac River.

Cheat River Race 2009

Add your comments on this entry about all the fun and stories you have had at the Cheat River Fest and Race or Cheat Training.  Don’t forget to check out the Friends of the Cheat River festival page!

Hélène Scalliet

Hélène (pronounced Ay-len with a silent H) began her whitewater career in spring 2005 after moving to Washington DC from beautiful southern California.  She was desperate to find a water sport that would fulfill her need for both fitness and spiritual contentment – and boy, is she glad she had the sense to Google “whitewater Washington DC”!

It wasn’t obvious at first that whitewater kayaking was a good fit for her, as she spent much of her first class alternating between feeling frustrated at her lack of control and terrified of being upside down in her boat.  But there is something so magical about floating on water that she continued to come to the river (that, and she had paid for a bundle of classes in advance).  Soon, she was hooked!  Her favorite paddling experiences involve discovering new rivers with good friends, but summer evenings on the Potomac have their own charm that surpasses even her favorite ice cream flavor (ultimate moose tracks, or anything chocolate-based with chunks of goodness in it).  So you could say that Google changed her life.

In 2009 she became an instructor with LAKS.   Her favorite part of teaching is witnessing the spontaneous apparition of a gigantic grin on a student’s face after running their first rapid.  Here second favorite is when a student brings her homebaked chocolate peanut butter chip cookies – ok, this has never happened, but it’s worth a try.  Be the first!  Hélène has taken part in LAKS Cheat Training four out of the last five years and thinks this is the best spring paddling program around, and a great way to make close river friends too.  Go Team LAKS!

I hope you all have enjoyed meeting Helene.  She is a wonderfully positive person and fun to be on the river with.  We are glad to have her with us for a great season of paddling.

They walked briskly towards the international arrivals gate and soon found their targets standing around waiting to be kidnapped. And they did exactly that. But first they straightened up their backs, put on their sunglasses, and proceeded to listen to their favorite pump up song,  “Eye of the Tiger”. Then they mustered up their best cronie voices and, in unison, said to Pablo and Dr. Peter, “You guys. vamanos.”So with pablo and Dr. Peter in tow, the two cronies returned to Tom the tumultuous just as the sun slipped below the horizon.”Excellent work” Tom congratulated his cronies. “Dan, you get to sleep in a bed tonight.”  And a smart grin spread across Dan’s face as his eyes began to droop a little and a dream bubble could be seen to form above his head. And thus they proceeded to sleep in Tom’s top secret headquarters in room 118 and 119 in Hotel Santa Rosa in Plaza San Pedro in the town of Cholula-but don’t tell anybody.

The crowing of roosters woke them in the early morning, or rather, in the middle of the night. As they walked out to Tom’s shenana-van with dual rear wheels and a beefy roof rack, a little moment Tom likes to call a “Señor moment” suddenly came over him. He could no longer remember why he had kidnapped Dr. P and Pablo.
“Hey cronies why did we snatch these guys from the airport?” Tom asked.
“No idea boss.” said Dan and Señor Jose Loise in their best cronie voices.
“Ok, well as long as they’re here we might as well show them a good time and take them kayaking. You guys want to do that?” Tom asked the previously kidnapped Dr. Peter Pan and Pablo. And the two heads could be seen to bob in unison as a twinkle came to their eyes and a bubble filled with rapids and river lunches began to form above their heads.

It was a couple of hours drive to the put-in of the first river, Santiago Quiotopec, also known as the “incredibly windy city in the desert that with blow sand into your ears”. On arriving, Tom the Tumultuous set out to make peace with the local town leaders in the least tumultuous way possible. Though there was much yelling, it was only because everyone’s ears were filled with sand, and the peace talks really went quite smoothly. The next several hours were filled with yelps, punches, and a few tears as the crew desperately tried to fit all their gear into their kayaks for a 3 day expedition down the rio Santo Domingo, or as the locals call it, the Rio Grande. Bitterly worn and nearly defeated, the crew ate dinner at dear old Olga’s house before retiring for the night.

The roosters woke them up, again, at some ridiculous hour in the morning/night. Pablo and Dr. P, with their new-found freedom, demanded that they receive a caffeine fix on the way to the river. An hour later, the crew set off down the river with a last wave goodbye to Señor Jose Loise. As they snaked their way through the desert, beautiful vistas, cliffs and caves came and went in frequent procession.

Then, they heard some rumblin cuz the water was a tumblin.
“Hold on!” exclaimed Pablo, “I didn’t drink nearly enough coffee for this kind of excitement!” But it was no use. Tom’s ears were stuffed with sand and already a sly grin had formed on his face. He led the crew down several rapids and when he thought they had had enough, it was time to set up camp. It was a cozy camp with a ferocious fire and alota alliteration along all the banks. And it wasn’t long before they crawled into their sleeping bags, except for Tom who took a nap leaned against a rock by the fire, and fell asleep.

There were no roosters that morning, and clearly, that was cause for celebration. The band was called in, pinatas were hung up, and Señoritas came from far and wide to dance with the smelly, unshaven, though well rested, crew of kayakers. Eventually the festivities subsided and it was time to paddle. That day was filled with rapids like the boats were filled with gear- to the brim. It was a super fun day as the crew descended the river from the crusty desert to the ever increasingly jungly jungle. Even their ears began to empty of sand and the day passed with many smiles (and one swim!).

The usual campsite was severely overgrown and looked like something out of Jumanji. Where once there was nothing but sand, now there grew a thick forest of bamboos, grasses, and vines. Stupid nature, that was an incredible campsite before you came along.  Dan the Delirious learned an important lesson that night. If you’re afraid of snakes, scorpions, spiders and other words that begin with ‘S’, then unless you want to have a fitful, paranoid sleep, SLEEP IN YOUR TENT. Equally as important: Don’t sleep where you spilled food because ANTS WILL EAT YOU. Both good life lessons. Socrates would certainly concur.

The last day had some great rapids, followed by some great flat water.  Tom became particularly tumultuous that day so, to everyone’s horror, he made Dan lead the group down parts of the river. The take-out was at the town of Santo Domingo where Tom is buddy buddy with one of the families there and arranged for them to feed five hungry kayakers. They were also so kind as to entertain the group with a Christian music video starring “The Texan girl from Guatemala”, who changed her outfit in every scene and was probably one of the worst singers you will ever hear. That wonderful meal and spectacular singing performance was followed by a long drive to Valle Nacional, home of the Rio Valle Nacional. And there they enjoyed their first night in real beds.

The next morning they enjoyed their first breakfast that was not oatmeal before driving up to the put-in. The river began with some scary boofs. So scary that Pablo did not even bother to scout and just charged ahead. Luckily, charging far enough ahead to avoid the sticky hole. Memolito was not so lucky. After a good working he came out of his boat and went for a short swim down the next rapid. A second scary boof followed the first one. It was not as difficult as the first but definitely higher up on the scariness scale. Everyone ran this drop cleanly and the crew proceeded down the rest of the river without incident. As they floated towards the take-out, passing through a small town, the banks of the river began to be lined with more and more half-naked girls. Of course, Dan the Delirious thought they had come to see his sexy kayaking moves, while Tom the Tumultuous thought they had come to see him, and the rest of the crew had similar ideas. Nobody seemed to notice they were actually just washing clothes.

That night was new years eve and Tom treated everyone to a dinner of a caliber never before seen on a Tom trip. Rivershrimp soup was followed by a fish fillet and a cheese cake topped it all off. The crew went to bed well before midnight but everyone else in the town that night was up playing disco music and burning tires into the wee hours of the morning.

The next day was the last day of the trip, so obviously it was cold and raining. Everyone had been waiting for a chance to put on cold, wet gear and finally it seemed the river gods had granted their wish. There was much manly grunting, and one high pitched yelp (Tom), as the gear flew on at terrific speed. Today was Rio valle Nacional, round two. This time both Pablo and Memolito decided to swim at the rapid later named “Memo’s mortification” because, I guess, they weren’t cold enough. They cruised down the rest of the river, eager to reach the take-out town again. But to their complete and utter and vastly devastating disappointment there was not even one half-naked girl in sight. Perhaps they weren’t as sexy as they had thought.
The trip ended with a comfy night in the Hotel Colonial for Pablo and Dr. Peter Pan, a snore-filled night in the van for Dan, Jose Loise, and Tom, and a bum-like night on the floor of the bus station for Memolito. But it was exactly what each person wanted.

If you would like to see all the photos from the Mexico Advanced Trip follow this link.  The videos can be seen by double clicking on the photo.

I include below some candid impressions of my week in Mexico.  Please forgive my poor writing style.

I have been back for a week, but have had not time on email at all.  Mexico was wonderful, I will send out pictures later.  We had the coldest rainiest week in 20 years.  We even had a small ice storm, the day of the Alseseca race.  _Tom has some great friends down there.  They call him “el viejito”, the old man.  He is admired, and seen as a great teacher.

This was not my first time in Mexico, but was the first time paddling with Tom, in the state of Veracruz.  It was a “magical” experience.  I only met good to great Mexicans.  We had one minor rip-off from a taxi driver from Puebla to Cholula the first night, where he charged $20 instead of the customary $10, but it was near midnight, and we were tired.  We had one scary stop by the “federales” in the middle of nowhere near Perote the last night on the way to the Airport.  Tom was masterful, impersonating a gentle but clueless gringo, and we were set free without any damage to property.

My experience with the Aventurec folks was excellent.  The owners, Sofy, and Antonio, their kids, dogs, and all the people that work at Aventurec provided a welcoming and warm environment.  My only complaint is that they forgot to turn the heat on, BURRR!!!  We had great food, hot showers, warm wool blankets, and a steady diet of cold rain and fog.  I did paddle 4 out of 6 days.  I was beat up for the practice run the day before the Alsaseca race and passed on the race.  I did have a great time running parts of the Alseseca during of three days of paddling.  My favorite run was the Filobobos with the Class II/III “El Encanto” part, and a Class III+ part near Zapotitlan.  I did not bring all my winter paddling gear, and this was a big mistake.  I also discovered the need for elbow pads, since my right elbow is still tender.  I did learn a lot about creeking from Tom, in my first creeking trip ever.  I found out that creeking is hard on the body, as well as on the mind, when you have this horizon lines and split seconds to make your strokes and boofs.  Overall it was a very positive paddling experience, and I was very lucky to escape with minor bruises and cuts.  I did flip at the top of one hairy three-part drop of which I miraculously escaped without anything broken.  Thank God for the extra rain and the extra water padding the rocks.  The day of the race no one was hurt, though the previous days, we had several broken paddles and boats, as well as many swims (this includes the extended group of Mexican paddlers).

I really enjoyed the lush tropical fields of Veracruz.  It appears to be Mexico’s most productive agricultural state.  I saw tons of bananas, plantains, coffee, oranges (and all citrus fruits), guava, and a lot of other tropical fruits grown in large quantities, and even rotting on the ground.  The people of Veracruz(and other parts of Mexico) appear to be very generous and warm.  We had several incidents that bear this out.  Like the incident with the water pipe hanging down above the Alseseca River near the Truchas restaurant, and the backing of the truck by Jose Luis to get over the bridge in Zapotitlan.

I also enjoyed watching many tropical birds with my bare eyes.  I am still trying to identify them from memory, like the huge green/blue bird with an iridescent tail that resembled the fabled Quetzal.  I digress when I noticed many migrant bird species that go between Mexico and the US without any need for visas.

I did practice my Spanish a lot in this trip and made many Mexican friends.  I had a great time with Tom, Dan Mehrez, Paul Harrison, Sandrine Deglin, Gene H., and Irene Owsley.  They were fun and wonderful trip companions.  We had a memorable guajolote (turkey) calling contest that warmed us up on the way to paddling the frigid Alsaseca.  I learned many “nahualt” words from our driver/guide Jose Luis.  The “nahualt” language was originally spoken by the Aztecs of central Mexico, and the Totonacas of Veracruz.  It is still kept alive through many dialects presently spoken by Mexican Indians and Mestizos (mixed people).  It is even apparently taught in school. Overall this was a great cultural experience as well as great paddling in spectacular and challenging rivers.

Congratulations to Tom, Paul and Sandrine for completing the race.  Tom won the long race and Sandrine won the short race.  Sandrine was the only female, and francophone participant in the race.  Irene, you took some memorable pictures.  Gene, you could have been a winner too!

Thanks, Carlos

P.S.  I apologize for not mentioning the two mornings of Zumba.  Good way to warm up the old bones, but I was almost ready for a nap afterwards.

• Find a couple of household object that are a little bigger than your wrists and neck
• Apply 303 to the gaskets
• Gently work the gaskets over the objects you found (sugar tub and water bottle for me)
• Let sit for 24 hrs or more
• Remove carefully by rolling down, mind your sharp fingernails

Try out your top for a couple of short paddles to see how things workout.  If things are still too tight, then you can consider trimming the troublesome gasket.  I recommend trimming a line or two, see how it goes.  Trimming is permanent and not always necessary, most gaskets stretch where they need to on their own.

Here is the word on Dickerson. Open for now, weekends only, escort down to the course from the guards. For this first weekend we would like to go in there gradually, so if you are a LAKS paddler and BCE member, join me this Sunday at 130 -4pm at the course. Sign up online on our registration page to join or email me at the office to join the workout. Make sure you bring a Mirant Waiver with you to the course. We will enter together and leave together like we did before. We a couple smooth weekends we should be back to normal.

• Store indoors in a cool dry place
• Use 303 spray to protect and preserve your gaskets
• Remove rings and watches making sure they don’t tear your gaskets
• Preemptively replace your gaskets when you start to see small nicks and tears
• Hang to dry with a coat hanger and limit or eliminate drying in the sun
• If you have space, have a drying room with a fan or dehumidifier
• Reapply 303 spray often
• Do not use heat on gaskets
• Every season or so reapply a DWR to your garment, there are wash in and spray on treatments available, use hairdryer to activate, or use dryer if you are needing new gaskets anyway
• Replace your own gaskets or send things to IR or Amigos Drysuit Repair.
• When removing garment, do not pull the gaskets off, roll them off.
• Treat the Zippers on your Drysuit and store them unzipped

These tips will help to prevent damage to your gaskets and help increase their lifespan.

As for what to do with that new drytop or suit. Consider the following.

• Train your gaskets by applying 303 and then stretching them overnight with a cup for the wrists and bowl for the neck, a reinforced traffic cone works well
• After the overnight stretching and a couple of outings, if things are too tight, consider trimming gasket.

I often get questions about what to wear in the winter. This often leads to much debate, but you should try what I am saying, I am rarely wrong .

• You have heard it before, dress in layers and no cotton. Shoot for 3 layers, wicking, insulating, then your drysuit. This system helps push moisture away from your body and out of the garment.
• With a drysuit the fleece union suits are the way to go. They can be worn alone, but work better with a wicking polypro layer underneath. Ideally, go polypro, unionsuit, then drysuit. If you are still cold after this, consider not paddling.
• For drysuits, make sure you don’t neglect the feet, fleece socks are great.
• Other great layer combos are splash pants and a dry top. I try to stay away from the pants with latex on the calves. They trap water and decrease blood flow. A unionsuit is great here but you can do fleece pants and top and a poly bottom and top.
• Hydroskin pants are nice on the bottoms sometimes, but aren’t great when it is windy or for hiking about. Hydroskin and neoprene are not good underlayers. You want to trap warm air next to you with fleece under the drywear. Neoprene is designed to trap and warm a layer of water.
• Don’t forget the gloves, pogies and head beanie, these can make a huge difference.

Here are a couple of links to tips from other folks on the subject and a couple of brands to try out.

• Immersion Research – Gasket Replacing
• Amigos Drysuit Repair\
• NRS Gloves – Love these gloves
• Best Pogies Ever
• 303 Protectant – Use it, love it
• Revivex – Retreat your garments factory DWR
• Zipper Stuff

We made Watertown, NY, by about 5 pm to work out the road kinks at Hole Brothers, a park-and-play spot on the Black River. With a late afternoon glow on the water, a few locals graciously accepted ten boats from out of nowhere into the queue. In true Tom fashion, he made a game of it and began timing everyone’s stay on the wave, holding out a beer as the grand prize. Shane won with a 24-second surf, beating out Carrie in close second at 20 seconds and Alexina a distant third with only 12 seconds (but a successful spin).

After changing in the parking lot by Hole Brothers, we retired to the campsite to set up tents, which encouraged an immediate “fessing up” of those who snore and those who don’t – the snorers creeping off to a far corner of the campsite. Late dinner in Watertown at an Italian restaurant with about half of the world’s supply of fake plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling and quite vividly painted murals of Italian countryside on one side and an electronic keno board on the opposite wall (we got tips from the waitress on how to play, but we had all conveniently left our “gambling cash” at home). Tom promptly disappeared for the whole meal to go shopping, returning for the last five minutes to wolf down his salad before we paid the check.

Monday, August 17

Fresh melon slices and grilled chorizo for breakfast (along with the usual juice, bagels, and oatmeal, of course). The boys got peer-pressured into finishing off the copious amounts of chorizo – tough duty, but they managed. Tom kept the sleepy masses from revolting with a (not so) quick stop at Watertown’s best drive-though coffee joint – Brew-Ha-Ha – and everyone got sufficiently caffeinated. Shane claimed his “longest surf” prize in the form of a milkshake. Made the border crossing in the vicinity of the Thousand Islands with no incident, no undue questioning of Tom, this time, and his youthful exploits. Headed north through lovely rural farmland to Owl Rafting, an outfitter on the Ottawa River with great facilities and hand’s down the most scenic campsite of the trip. We pitched our tents on a wide expanse of manicured lawn dotted with picnic tables, facing the broad, calm Ottawa River. Behind us lay farmland and a newly mown, golden hayfield (complete with loud rumbling farm equipment running well into the night!). Not even Shane’s complaints about how far the campsite was from the parking lot (including a Facebook posting) could dampen our intrepid spirits! A stunning sunset the first evening with some humidity in the air, a crisper evening the next night with the sky awash in stars and the milky way. Spectacular.

We met up with Jake Weiss, our second instructor (and designated rescuer par-excellence) who had driven up separately from Pennsylvania, and quickly brought him into the fold. He immediately became an integral part of our extended paddling family.

By about 3 pm, we put on the river to do just the first rapid, McCoy’s. Was there a little anticipation in the air? Tom had us doing stroke drills and onside-offside rolls like mad as we approached the forested island where we could leave our boats to scout. As soon as we got to the rocky outcrop to view the rapid, the sky let loose with a pelting rain and gusts of wind which blew the rain sideways and lifted the foam off the top of Sattler’s and Phil’s Holes. The heavy rain set the perfect dramatic tone, as we stared wide-eyed at the gaping maws of two of the biggest holes most of us had ever seen … and then shuddered when told of the line squeezed in between the two! We looked at the rapid from the top…..from the bottom…..from the middle….with plenty of pointing and discussion and the beginning, for us, of a new feature-based vocabulary: “Threading the Needle” was only the first of many river identifications and lines that would be seared in our dreams each night.

Jake executed the move flawlessly for us, but Gene was our probe, and he promptly got EATEN. The idea was to line up, cut across the right corner of Sattler’s Hole, and paddle hard towards river left (thereby “threading the needle”) in order to avoid the left edge of Phil’s Hole just below. Well, we saw just how key it was to hit enough of the corner of the upper hole so as not to be swept into Phil’s, because that’s exactly where the force of the current took Gene. He swam for the first and ONLY time on the trip (none of the subsequent rapids ever seemed to trouble him!). By the end of the afternoon, though, most people did the rapid two or three times. It’s situated on a right dogleg in the river so that there are two surfing areas at the bottom, Babyface and Corner Hole. You can carry up and do the whole thing again and again and then paddle some flat water back to your car! It’s super-convenient for all the Ottawa river-rat play boaters, of which there are many – kind of like a super-sized version of paddling out to MD & VA chutes.

There’s another line at McCoy’s without trying to “thread the needle” – you drive straight through the center of Phil’s Hole lining up with a crowning wave above and then take an almost imperceptible small opening in the middle of the hole. Tom led Anne down into this “hero-line” but didn’t quite punch through, and as Anne dropped into the hole she found Tom in mid-surf looking back at her. Now anyone who knows Tom knows he’s a gentleman’s gentleman, so it was no surprise that when he slid over to give Anne the gentler side of the hole, while he got heavily cartwheeled and chomped by Mr. Phil. Anne flipped, flushed and rolled, while Tom “fought the good fight” …. he gave Phil a few good uppercuts, but then his helmet was ripped off by the force (a faulty strap) and afraid of loosing his glasses, he put his hand on his head with one hand and pulled his skirt with the other. We were just happy to see him again, regardless. His helmet was gone, a relic from his Tibet trip, but we rescued the foam liner. When your fearless leader swims the first rapid of the first day, is that a bad omen?

A lesser event of the afternoon was a successful combat roll by Irene after being pulled into the edge of Phil’s – not noteworthy at the time but it would become so later in the week after seeing her roll disappear in the big water. April never quite figured out the line until the next day, shooting through Phil’s two of her three attempts of the rapid and losing everything in her PFD (including camera and sunscreen). But she made her roll every time!

Steak dinner and a complimentary beer (“Steam Whistle” beer – brewed with love from Canada’s crystal clear – if somewhat bug-infested – springwater) at a picnic table alongside the river at Owl Rafting with rhubarb pie a la mode for dessert. Golden light on the water, towering cumulous clouds in the distant sky. A perfect day. (read the whole rest of trip report)