Kayak Kids

Bryce Bennett reached forward with his right arm, digging his paddle blade into the frothy water. He pulled hard, first with his right arm, then his left, using the twin-bladed paddle to propel his bright red kayak down the river and toward the first slalom gate. The small, narrow boat rocketed over the two-foot-high waves, and Bryce guided it cleanly through the gate, which consisted of two poles spaced five feet apart and hanging from a wire that stretched across the river.

"Go! Go! Go, Bryce!" shouted his sister Brenda from riverside.

There were 25 gates hanging down the 200-yard length of the early-season whitewater slalom course on the Nantahala River in the mountains of Western North Carolina. This was the Glacier Breaker competition, the annual opening of the racing season, held every year in February. It was a fairly informal event, without the wired timing devices which would be utilized at the larger, more official races later in the season.

Bryce was entered in the K-1 Junior category, for boys 18-and-younger. His sister had already competed in the K-1-W Junior competition, for girls 18-and-younger, a few hours earlier. She had finished 5th, out of a dozen entrants, not bad for a 14-year-old in her first year of whitewater slalom racing.

Of course, Brenda and Bryce had been paddling together, strictly for fun, under their father’s supervision, for the past three years. And just then, as Bryce sped through another gate, he heard his dad, Buddy Bennett, shouting, "Hut! Hut! Hut! Pull! Pull!"

Immediately ahead on the river was Nantahala Falls, a Class III rapid that had dumped many thousands of kayakers, canoeists and rafters over the years. During the busy rafting season, the Nantahala River was jammed each day with rafts from. a dozen different companies, all aiming to complete the B-mile jaunt down the river by negotiating the Falls correctly and safely. Today, though, the racers had the river to themselves.

Bryce pivoted through an upriver gate, paddling against the current, and he felt sweat forming on his brow, even though it was a cold wintry day, with snow still decorating the riverbanks. There were three gates set at Nantahala Falls, two just above the drop, requiring a nifty cross-river move, and the third at the very bottom of the Falls, where the wavy water could quickly push the unwary or unprepared racer off-line.

Bryce had no trouble on top, but as he came down the Falls, he lost control and felt the waves push him sideways and off-line. He braced with his paddle, did a hasty half-draw, but it was too late. "Oh, NO!" be murmured to himself. His kayak passed six inches too far to the left and failed to get through the two slalom poles, giving him an unacceptable 50-second penalty for missing the gate entirely.

"Go back! Go back!" his coach, Charlie Harris, shouted from atop a big boulder overlooking the Falls.

Bryce eddied out, pulling into a calm spot of water behind a rock, from which he took a moment to catch his breath, knowing that only a superb effort would enable him to get back upriver into the Falls. Undaunted by the challenge, he pushed off and stroked hard. Harder. His boat crested across the waves, overcame the forceful current, reached the bottom of the Falls, where Bryce managed to push the nose of his kayak even deeper into the downpour of water, swinging around one dangling pole and then through the gate ... cleanly.