This past Saturday, spectators lined the streets along the Packard Hill Covered Bridge in Lebanon to watch kayakers and canoeists compete in the 43rd annual Mascoma Whitewater Slalom Race.
Jay Evans '49, Chris Knight '65 and Ben Holden -- a local paddler, started the race in 1963. Since that time, members of Dartmouth's Ledyard Canoe Club have run the race without missing a year, making the contest one of the longest continually-run whitewater slalom races in the country.
Some years, the race was held even when the river was in flood stage, or, as was the case in 2003, when a blizzard was raging. This year, however, the weather was perfect.
For the first time in many years, the race was moved downstream from its usual location to the covered bridge, which allowed for much greater visibility of the race.
There were certainly far more spectators this year than in years past. Jay Evans, himself, who still lives in the area, even made an appearance at the race, staying to watch for several minutes. Dave Kurtz, a whitewater slalom coach who runs the Mach One racing program based in Pennsylvania, also stayed for the festivities.
Kurtz raced in some of the very first slalom races held back in the 1960s and has been to most of the 43 Mascoma races. He placed second in the men's masters division this year.
The race this year served as the qualifying race for National Team Trials and thus attracted competitors from as far away as Pennsylvania and Virginia, each one looking for a shot at the next level.
Among the competitors was Hannah Larsen, who grew up in Canaan, N.H., and who has been a member of the National Team for many years. Four Dartmouth undergraduates -- Laura Jorgenson '05, Alex Steinberg '07, David Strauss '08 and Evelyn Mervine '06 -- were among the students who competed in the racing category.
Both Jorgenson and Strauss qualified to compete for a slot on the national team but do not intend to pursue this opportunity, as neither of them competes in slalom on a regular basis at the present time.
In addition to the official qualifying race in the morning, there was a more relaxed recreational category, which primarily consisted of Dartmouth students involved with Ledyard who had volunteered to organize the morning race. As many of the competitors in the recreational category had never competed in a slalom race before, the race proved quite exciting.
Some of the competitors did very well and made all the gates. Others struggled, missing gates, getting off course and even flipping over and rolling.
Several of the recreational competitors ended up swimming and safety boaters positioned at points along the river had to fish them, their boats and their gear out of the raging whitewater.
Dartmouth students won all of the recreational categories. Nell Campbell '05 won the women's category, while Nate Monnig '05 took the men's section. Scott Andrews '07 and Mike Holliday '05 won the men's tandem kayak category, and Nate Monnig '05 and Nicole Mansfield '05 placed first in the mixed tandem kayak category.
