The LVM Green River GS

When it comes to interesting competitions, LVM's John Grace sure does know how to put on a competition that no one has ever seen before. The LVM Giant Slalom is the most recent of such competitions, and this time I think John has hit it right.

The Green River version of the Giant Slalom involved a down river section beginning at the putin for the Green, and ending at Chief (the drop just above the monkey). After that, it had 2 runs through a 7 gate slalom course set up in the slides after Gorilla, and the race finished just above Rapid Transit. Below, John explains the set up at the confluence of the Big Hungary and Green Rivers.

Since I left my camera at the putin, I didn't get any pictures of the down river section. Thankfully Adam Herzog brought me my camera. So after an hour of looking at the course (note that we were not allowed any practice runs on the course), we started the slalom portion. The slalom began with the slide in after Gorilla, and below is a photo of Nate Elliot just after his start.

Below is a picture Pat after making the first gate, making the move to the second gate in the Scream Machine.

Below, John Grace finishes the moves through Scream Machine and starts in to the Nies' Pieces sequence.


And, the following is Toby MacDermott beginning the Nies' sequence.

Next are a couple of shots from upstream of Adam Herzog and Chris Gragtmans (who eventually won) that show them making the moves into the Nies' sequence.

The crowd watching Adam:

Chris in the middle of the Nies' slides (I know the course isn't very visible here, but I really liked the picture):

Finally, the following photo shows the legend who has been laying down huge results for as long as I can remember, Shane Benedict, entering Nies' Pieces.


The next photo shows the last gate in the middle of Power Slide placed to set the paddler for hitting the hole head on. Caleb Coaplen showed everyone the right way to hit the line.

The race was amazing. Despite my not qualifying for the National Championships (i.e. making the top 20), I had a great time. I guess I could blame my poor performance on a hurt shoulder but no. I simply missed a gate (oh well maybe next year). Anyways, I decided to walk Sunshine and happened to get this picture of my buddy Eric Chance.

I would suggest all of you guys out there who can make it to go to the final in the LVM Giant Slalom series. I'll definitely be out there shooting pictures and running the Green at 200 percent. Until then maybe I'll see you on the water.