If someone 15 years ago told me you could do this in a whitewater kayak, I would have laughed:
Dane follows up with this trip report:
The Whitewater Grand Prix
The grand prix was the most intense and epic event i have ever done. 2 weeks traveling around Quebec with 25 of the best paddlers competing in some of the scariest whitewater. The first event was a big trick competition on Gladiator wave on the Ottawa river. It was a little low so it had a huge foampile. And for those who don’t know about 500 feet downstream of the wave is a river wide pourover that you never want to go in. It was a long and tiring day but no one went in the pourover and lots of people got big tricks. Ben Marr took 1st, i got 2nd and Rush Sturges got 3rd.
It was a great day and then the next morning we loaded up in the vans and headed out. The first stop was a “rest” day on the Ruins wave in Ottawa city. It is proabably my favorite wave, it is super smooth and steep and super fast. It was perfect for going big and trying combos. It was hard to catch but once you got on it it was epic. We had a long and sweet day, then we headed to the Rouge river in Quebec for the boatercross.
The boatercross was held on this super long rapid with lots of big holes and crashing waves. The rapid is called the Gauntlet. The first round was a 21 person mass start where the bottom 6 get eliminated. It was the most chaotic yet awesome thing ever. Every one was just piling on top of each other going into the big stuff. I made it past the first round but not the second one. Nick Troutman took the win with Bryan Kirk in 2nd and Anton Immler in 3rd. It was the most insane boatercross any of us had done. It was a sweet event. Then we headed to La Tuque for the time trial.
This event was the first time I have seen every competitor super nervous before each run. It is two 10 footers back to back. Then it is a 5 footer. Then it is a 500+ft high volume slide with a big hole at the bottom. The finish was just downstream. You were already so worn out by this point that if you wound up in the hole you would most likely swim. And that is what happened pretty much. We had around 10 swims that day. I placed 2nd in that behind Evan Garcia. Ben Marr placed 3rd. It was a very intense and a super sick day. No one got super hurt luckily just a few minor injuries.
We headed out the next morning to the Mistassibi river for the 2nd freestyle event on the black mass wave. Unfortunately the water was too high for the wave so we wound up having a freestyle through the rapid on the Hawaii wave. Which is this huge tubing curler that was pretty intimidating. It was a tough comp just because it was tricky to get air. Everyone got 5 runs. Most people were in playboats and some were in creekboats. I started off in my playboat and got a great kickflip on my first run. But then Ben Marr got a huge kickflip in a creekboat and it was obvious that a creekboat was the way to go. I hopped in my creekboat and got a big kickflip but not big enough to beat Ben’s. But i still got up there for a 2nd place finish. I was fired up. We had one swim and that was bryan kirk getting destroyed in the Hawaii wave. Everyone got some cool stuff and it was another fun day.
The next day was our 2nd freestyle event on the Pillars waves. They were 2 waves back to back. The top wave was a smooth fast sweet wave. The second wave was a boily tricky wave that you could do everything on. It was a tough comp to do a lot of stuff. But everyone was still going big and it was a super fun day. I tied Ben Marr for the first place position. With Mat Dumoulin in 3rd. We had 5 out of 6 events done and it was super close between me and Ben Marr for the overall win. I was in 2nd place behind him going into the final event which was the giant slalom. We were only 2 points apart.
The giant slalom was interesting and pretty scary. It was already an intimidating high volume creek and you had to do slalom gates. There were 15 gates and they were hard moves. And once you were worn out from doing all the gates you had to do another double drop kind of thing. It was a flume drop and then it goes right into a drop with a horrible looking hole at the bottom. You had to drive right and just barely miss it to be safe. Some people got pushed left and managed to get around the hole but it was close. It was tough but lots of people managed to be fast and smooth. I placed 3rd place behind Gerd Serrasolses in 2nd. And Evan Garcia in 1st. I placed high enough to get in front of Ben Marr and take the overall win. I am super stoked to take 1st overall. It was an amazing event and it was blast every day. It was done very well and i cant wait for future years.
