2nd leg, Club Cup Challenge
| River: | Nantahala |
| Skill: | All |
| Trip Date: | 07/21/2012 |
By Ron Miller, CCC President
I think it’s safe to say CCC is everybody’s second-favorite club.
This revelation came to me last year when I attended my first Club Cup Challenge event at Nantahala Outdoor Center last year.
The event involves three days of competition spread out through the summer. Individuals can compete in a downriver race, worth a point each (two points for this year’s final downriver race in August), then can take up to five clean runs through the slalom gates at NOC for a point each. After the three sets of competition, points are totaled and the winning club gets a boat.
Everywhere I looked at last year’s event, I saw so many familiar faces from our Week Of Rivers. We had a ton of CCC members there. Yet when I looked at our roster, we only had about 25 people signed up. It turns out that most of the folks I saw there were competing on other teams. Most were with GCA, some with Team POP, some with APE’s. Oh, well. At least we got their dues when they attended WOR.
At the Club Cup Challenge’s second leg this year, held on July 21, this phenomenon continued. We came into the second leg with just two points from the first event (thanks to Spencer Muse, our only club representative during the June 16 event—by comparison, the leading club collected 103 points during the first phase). We fared slightly better this time around, with 10 CCC faithful competing in either the downriver race or the slalom event for a total of 34 points—totalling 36 for this year’s cumulative total, pending results of the third event.
A bonus to this cup event was the clinic NOC put on between the downriver and the slalom competitions. Andrew Holcombe and Pat Keller spent two hours dissecting the many lines and features of Nantahala Falls. Most notably I saw both Greta and Marlow Durbin catch Micro for their first times, under the tutelage of Andrew and Pat.
No, we’re not going to win a boat this year. Still, I encourage everyone to go up there and take part in this event, no matter who you claim as your home club. Motoring down Nantahala, looking for the fastest currents and shortest routes, gives you a different perspective on the river. No, it isn’t the way you’d want to manage all your river trips, but educational nonetheless. The racing through the slalom gates is just as educational—in order to make time, you have to plan your moves ahead and paddle as efficiently as possible—not bad skills to cultivate for use on other trips.
And we still have Week Of Rivers…..