Epic Day Of Freestyle Kayaking On The Arkansas River

I always look forward to going back to Buena Vista for CKS Paddlefest and am so happy with this years competition!

The Buena Vista Whitewater Park is one of my favorite playboating holes! It was really small this year compared to last year because of the cold weather, it was still snowing in BV, so we didn’t have the snow melt that is typical of late May.

Regardless, the water on the Arkansas River is always very cold. I am used to the cold water, but even still I was very thankful for my Kokatat Gore-Tex Dry-Suit, skull cap and awesome Snap Dragon Design Spray Skirt.  I stayed warm and dry all weekend long.

The weekend started on Friday, with the Pro Women and Men semi-finals.  My brother Grady, competed and placed 9th, which he was happy with, even though he didn’t throw his top score … 9th in Pro-Men’s is pretty sweet.

On Saturday the day started out with my dad, Dan, competing for the first time in a long time.  It was a 9 am comp which is really early for our late night family.  He did great, scoring some loops, cartwheels and spins.

The rest of the day was filled with Cadets, the Juniors and the Pro finals freestyle kayaking competitions.

My brother, Dally, dominated the Cadets and most of the rest of the competitors including the Pros!! He had an unbelievable score of 535 points! He threw every hole trick in the book pretty much!

My brother, Cardy, also a cadet,  threw a personal best ride of 115 points and came in 3rd place for the cadets, his loops are huge!

My sister, Maddy, competed with the cadet girls!  When I was a cadet I always had to compete with the boys. I am super happy for Maddy that she actually got a girl class with two other girls! She got a score of 25 points and got 2nd place!  Way to go Maddy.

I competed in the Junior Women’s Freestyle Competition. There were four other girls in this division. For that reason we went straight to finals which meant we each got 3 rides and our best ride counts. I was second to go. My first ride was pretty good, for me, with a score of 210 points.

I still had two more rides to get a better score! After my second ride I was tied for 1st place with a score of 390 points! I was so stoked with this score!  When I compete, I only compete against myself and a 390 point ride is my best score so far! I ended up in 2nd place which I am really happy about!

Brody and Kenny were the only Kellogg boys in the Jr. Men’s division since Grady aged out this year! There were more Jr. Men than there was Pro mens since the Colorado Rocky Mountain School came with PEter Benedict!

Both Kenny & Brody did awesome and made it into the top five for finals, which was held right after their pre-lims.  Brody got 3rd place and Kenny 5th!

Over all CKS Paddlefest was a blast! Everyone was able to get in and compete which is totally awesome!