North Fork Training

With the second annual North Fork Championship on the horizon, many of the world's best kayakers have been trickling in to Banks Idaho to try to dial in the lines before this weekend's race.

I arrived four days early to last year's race, rallying directly from the Little White Race. Having never paddled the North Fork before I was apprehensive about paddling Jakes. Over the four days I was only able to muster the courage for four practice runs down Jakes, needless to say I wasn’t as comfortable on the rapid as I would have liked leading into the race.

This year I wanted to change that so I showed up to the North Fork eleven days early to give myself lots of time to get used to it the river. In the last week I finally got in a few top to bottom runs as well as laps on the various sections and 12 runs down Jakes although only 2 of them after the river when from 1000 to 2300 cfs.

With the extra runs and the unseasonable low water it has made it easier to get used to the rapid but harder to dial in the lines since there are a ton of rocks to deal with. This morning the dam opened up the floodgates and the flow doubled. Time to learn the lines again. Regardless with four days out from the race I’m feeling good. Hopefully the extra training will help me improve my time and meet my goal of top ten.

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