Reno River Festival 2007

Reno River Festival 2007 was AWESOME! Last Thursday Glenn and I (Larry) headed to Tahoe to stay at his family’s condo. What an incredible spot, just feet from the water. It was really all about the great views. Friday morning at almost 2 a.m. Jeremy started calling my cell phone from outside the front door. He didn’t want to wake up anyone in the condo next door, which was vacant.

We got an early start the next morning and headed into Reno. The three of us registered for “intro to playboating”. This clinic was scheduled for Saturday morning. We checked out all of the booths, which included all the major companies and local adventure outfitters. After that we headed up to explore the Truckee River.

We decided to run the class III-IV section running from Boca down to Farad. For all of you adrenaline junkies………this first part is reminiscent of the lower Kings. After a lazy float we came to some great rapids. We had scouted Bronco on the way down to Reno earlier in the day. Just when we thought we were there we encountered another rapid upstream. I decided, last second, that I wanted to scout it. I was unable to catch the “mini” eddy and worried that I was headed into what I thought was a hazard. All three of us made it through that without and rolling.

We got out at Bronco to take a quick scout. After getting back in our boats we all made some final adjustments. I went down a small drop and my backband came loose. I ended up rolling three times on that rapid because my backband was gone. This was a great section and I would definitely do this section again. Sorry, but we didn’t take the camera along for this part of the river.

On Saturday we headed back down to Reno for our playboating clinic. Jeremy tried out a new boat and spent quite a bit of time in a hole in the slalom channel. Glenn and I both got into the meat of hole 2 & 3, which was lots of fun. I got window shaded, lost hold of my paddle and ended up swimming with a huge crowd there to watch. I don’t understand why no one applauded…..it was a perfect wet exit!

We had a great time watching the playboating events and seeing some of the greatest playboaters competing. We saw E.J., Emily and Dane all perform well. Actually, all three took second in each of their events. We also saw good performances by Jay Kincade, Stephen Wright, Tanya Faux, Ruth Gordon, Nikki Kelly. The kids were amazing and Jason Craig rocked!

Here is the really great news for the festival. A new record was set with over 30,000 people in attendance during the event. Cool!