Yukon River Quest
I just got back from a great time up North (BC, Yukon and Alaska). The highlight of the trip was participating in the Yukon River Quest, a 400+ mile race down the Yukon River. This was the second year that my friend Amy and I took part and it was a blast. It's great being around so many people that love paddling. It's a co-ed, all ages, all walks-of-life event which makes for a casual and friendly atmosphere that's quite a bit different from most of my sporting experiences. We are "back-of-pack"-ers but still enjoyed the race atmosphere. Since it never really gets dark up there, we paddled day and night (they have 2 mandatory rest-stops) and that's something I could never motivate to do under normal circumstances. Last year we struggled with endless rain and very chilly nights. So after a year of trying out cold-weather gear, we arrived in Whitehorse to discover near 100 degree temp's that would last a couple of weeks. We had a day to prepare for the heat and bought ridiculously large hats and pajama tops to cover up. But we hadn't anticipated the ensuing forest fires and the smoke turned out to be our worst enemy.

In our first few hours on the river we made a few observations. One, we should have practiced paddling in a tandem (since we live on separate coasts both of us paddle singles most of the time). Paddling together would have been a bonus too! Two, we should have practiced. Yeah, we didn't really paddle our singles much this year because we were both working on finishing our dissertations. Three, having a new boat is great but it would help to paddle it a little bit before the race so you could figure out that the seat back is useless and try to make an adjustment! Now we know and the scrapes on our backs will probably still be around come next June.

We were lucky enough to have up-close encounters with Moose, a Grizzly Bear (thankfully he decided not to jump in for a swim) and of course the usual beaver, river otter, bald eagle mix. As can be expected, we had some unexpected set-backs: the smoke-induced nausea, a lost sprayskirt that magically floated into the rest-stop, surprise hypothermia one night (how can it get so cold after being so damned hot???), broken steering, a slough that absolutely is nowhere on the map, oh yeah and the other map that went into the river (whoops!). But it was all good fun and we plan to be back next year. If anyone is interested, it's a great event and there aren't enough kayakers in it (many more canoes) so join up! Oh yeah, and I need a training partner because my friend lives on the East Coast so if anyone wants to do agonizingly long paddles in my tandem let me know (sounds like fun eh?). We've decided we're gonna train this time around (ha ha).

Danise Kimball (Santa Monica)

Submitted on July 07, 2004