The Iceman 2024 | Massacre

I was so stoked to hit the Iceman when I first heard about it, so naturally when it came around this January, I was in a boot with a grade 3 ankle sprain and hadn’t kayaked in about a month. I decided to use my small rewind, coming in at 8’4”, a boat I had only paddled once in October. I also did not warm-up, get a single practice lap, or even check out the section at this level before my turn.
I didn’t get to do the iceman because of my foot, but I raced the massacre and got 27th out of 60. Alright alright not bad.
But Rob Pope? The absolute animal shows up, doesn’t warm up, has never paddled this section at race flow, and is a first time racer. Gets 7th place (5 seconds off of first place) and beats Nathan Bond. The RPM is fast, but Rob is king. Hats off. He’s gonna win next year fo sho.
Anyways. I should get me an RPM for next year, and I should probably kayak more.
Lol. Enjoy laughing at my horrible lines through the eddy-catch section.

[@fresnoflats]

Interesting. Sort of a downriver race, but with eddies to catch. The eddies are marked with the orange cones. I didn't see if there was a reason you ferried out river left, after the first eddy. Was there a marker you had to make or just looking for a good line through the ledge drop? The ledge didn't look sticky in the video, so it looked like your ferry was just for fun or something.
I am curious about the set up and rules for the two races you name. Will have to search them out. I've meant to set up slalom races around here, but never got around to building enough gates. Putting cones on rocks seems like a nice easy but cool alternative.

[@christiantscott]

This was the first time I ever did this race, and first time I ever actually attempted the course. I watched other racers make the ferry left into the slack water, as the consequences of blowing the s-turn out of eddy one and into eddy 2 are more severe than they seem, so I decided to try that as well. The hole is actually fairly sticky (it held a prior race-winner for several minutes on year), but I overshot and went way too far. I would have been much faster to just attempt the s-turn. You should check it out, super cool event!

[@fresnoflats]

@@christiantscott Your explanation made total sense as I watched the video again. Hard to make perfect decisions when going as fast as you can without having paddled the course before. I come from a town with very few whitewater kayakers, so I liked seeing the big turnout and the simple way to set up a rudimentary slalom course. Gives me some ideas. Of my two times paddling in the east, once was playing kayak football on a canal in Augusta, Ga when my son was living there. The other time was on the Elkhorn out of Frankfurt, KY, after a film festival. Otherwise I boated mostly in the southern Sierra Nevada.