Gauley Fest Update
Hello again! It's been about a month, so figured we should check back in with all of you. Conrad, Trevor, Curtis and Johnny were all able to make it out to West Virginia for the Gauley Race.
If you've never been rafting in the east, it's definitely worth adding to your list. Gauley Fest, especially, is a specatcle to see. The Animal Race on the Upper Gauley River was held on the Monday after the festival and was a great finish to a fun weekend. The format is uniqe, a mass-start, regatta-style start from just below the dam. Kayaks, canoes, rafts with teams of all sizes, even a paddle board, all took off together at the sound of an airhorn and battled it out for position. With each type of watercraft they break it down into different divisions, and with rafts, into categories based on how many paddlers (size of the motor) are in the boat. Our start position was at the back of the pack and we worked our way up to the front of the rafts. The finish line is at a rock known as Postage Due just below Sweets Falls.
We had an exciting line in the rapid and flipped in what's known as the "Meltdown". In this race, your time stops when your last piece of gear crosses the line. With all of us out of the boat, we swam across the finish for an unconventional finish to an all but conventional race. In rafts, there was just one strong team of 6 paddlers from a local company that we weren't able to overtake. We placed first in our division of 4-man raft teams! We're already looking forward to next year!
On September 24th we held a fundraiser party at Crown Mountain Park in El Jebel, CO. Phat Thai, a great restaurant in Carbondale, donated food and drinks for us. We had yard games, a couple loaner bikes for the bmx track, music, and a raffle with some great prizes. A bunch of friends from our community showed up to support us, making for a really fun evening. We've all been busy wrapping up the summer season.
As things wind down there, we're dialing in the final details for our trip to Nepal, and continuing to fundraise. Flights will be about $2,000 each so that will be our largest single expense. A few of the team will be out on other travels abroad already but we're all planning to meet up in Kathmandu on the 15th of November to make our final preparations. The race organizers have transportation in-country sorted out for us. It looks like we'll have about 20hrs (!!!) on a bus to by the time we wind our way through the mountains to Rakam Karnali where the race will start. This one will be a 5-day, 155-mile, stage race (think Tour de France, but in boats, and on a river, and probably nothing like that). Each evening we'll have different cultural events with the local communities at our camps on the river. The race will finish at Daulatpur Ghat.
We're super excited to announce that our friend Scott Lacy will be our safety kayaker in Nepal! He's a multi-talented athlete with a resume too long to list here. Scott joined the crew this summer, and raced with us in the raft at Royal Gorge. We're happy that he'll be paddling safety with us on the Karnali River.
Thanks again for all your support and generosity! Please feel free to share this fundraiser with your co-workers, friends, family, or random people off the street.
Much Love,
