For video footage of the race, click here.
Braving the still-frigid river on Saturday morning, 25 people eagerly took to the water for the Wells River Rumble race. Over the weekend, Dartmouth students and whitewater paddlers from across New England came together for the Ledyard Canoe Club’s sixth annual River Festival.
The weekend consisted of two whitewater kayaking races, a mini triathlon, a party and a documentary screening. The Mascoma River Slalom, the oldest consecutively-run slalom race in the country, was postponed to later this term due to unsafe water levels, Ledyard president Conor Cathey ’15 said. This year’s race would have been the 51st.
Cathey, who organized the Wells River Rumble race with Milo Johnson ’13, said that high water levels also led organizers to eliminate the triathlon’s two-mile canoeing segment this year.
Johnson said that Wednesday’s water levels in the Wells River, a tributary of the Connecticut River, were unusually high at around 3,600 cubic feet per second but dropped to around 500 by Saturday. If the water level had not gone below 1,000 cubic feet per second, the Wells River Rumble race would also have been canceled.
Though the flood moved some rocks and changed part of one rapid, this did not significantly affect the race, Johnson said.
“It was crazy to see it afterward,” he said. “The water flooded so high that all of the hanging pine branches got soaking wet, and when the water dropped down they all froze. On Thursday, the sides of the river had these clumps of frozen branches.”
Rogan Brown, a University Of Vermont senior, placed first in the men’s division, while Nick Gottlieb ’11 and Alex Toth ’10 came in second and third place respectively. Daphne Tuzlak, a Middlebury College senior, Ellen Ludlow ’10 and Gray Kelsey ’13 topped the women’s division.
Cat Mejia ’14, who volunteered at this year’s RiverFest and helped organize the triathlon two years ago, noted that this year’s race saw an unusually high number of Dartmouth winners.
Mejia said Wells River Rumble race is her favorite RiverFest event because of the course’s exciting nature and how easy it is to watch the large rapids. The race has a mass start and is in a small class IV creek that drops 86 feet over one mile.
“It makes it exciting going down the river with everyone right next to each other,” Johnson said. “It makes it a little more difficult because someone might be in the place you prefer to be in a given rapid and you have to decide to either charge ahead or let them go.”
Johnson said that all of Saturday’s competitors have been kayaking for at least two years, with most kayaking for far longer. Experience, he said, makes a paddler successful.
“It’s a fairly difficult river,” Johnson said. “The consequences if you make a mistake are real and you could get hurt. It takes practice knowing how to get your boat where you want it to go and to stay upright which in certain rapids is very important.”
The postponed Mascoma River Slalom occurs in class II and III rapids and was scheduled to occur Sunday, starting at the Packard Hill Covered Bridge in Lebanon. The club sets up temporary gates in the river that participants need to maneuver through.
Josie Nordrum ’17 and Eliza Grainger ’17 organized the modified triathlon, which consisted of a land race in which participants held paddles and wore “kayaking skirts,” a type of equipment traditionally used to cover kayaks, a 9.2-mile bike race through Norwich and a five-kilometer run around campus. The event brought 30 Dartmouth participants and drew a good number of spectators, Nordrum said.
Thursday’s documentary screening, part of a termly event called Conservation on Tap,
The Festival Party, at the DOC House Saturday night, featured a raffle and a live performance.
Money raised from the raffle, T-shirt sales and registration fees will be donated to American Whitewater, an organization that conserves and restores rivers and advocates for whitewater paddling.
“One of the great things about RiverFest in general is that it is a good way to contribute to the whitewater paddling community,” Cathey said.
Ledyard’s River Festival is not affiliated with the senior week event called RiverFest, organized annually by class council.
The article has been revised to reflect the following corrections:
Corrections appended: April 21, 2014
The initial version of this article mistakenly described participants of the Wells River Rumble race as braving the Connecticut River. It was the Wells River. The initial version of this article also misquoted Cathey. He said the event was a good way to contribute to the whitewater paddling community, not the white river paddling community.
