White Water Rites of Spring

To celebrate May, try shooting the Hudson rapids

Let other communities plant their gardens, organize their Little Leagues, crown their beauty queens. North Creek, N.Y., a hamlet 100 miles south of the Canadian border, celebrates the joys of May in its own distinctive fashion--staging a carnival on the nearby Hudson River for people who like to climb into canoes and kayaks and, paddling desperately, race through the rapids.near town.

Called the Hudson River White Water Derby, the two-day event, which ended last week, is really a springtime happening that has been occurring with growing success for 21 years in North Creek. Canoeing or kayaking over treacherous courses has developed into a highly skilled and ruthlessly competitive sport --one that is included on the Olympic schedules--but the races at North Creek are refreshingly informal. Many of the contestants are old friends who have been watching each other capsize or ram into rocks for years. They treat the derby as a kind of giant family reunion. This time some 600 racers turned up: husbands and wives, fathers and sons, teen-agers as young as 14 and a sizable group of over-50s, discreetly known as the "matures." To watch them challenge the Hudson, a crowd of some 15,000 descended on North Creek, an outpost in the Adirondacks that welcomed the attention and the money. There was free camping for all comers, and budget-priced breakfasts cooked by the Boy Scouts, roast-beef dinners served up by the Methodists and snacks sold along the riverbank by the volunteer firemen. "It's the area's biggest economic weekend of the year," said Martin Wicks, whose bar dispensed 1,500 bottles of beer a day.

At North Creek, the Hudson is totally different from the lordly river that passes New York City, 287 miles downstream. The races are run where the Hudson is still fresh, clear, wild and lovely, befitting a river that rises from a tarn--28 miles to the north--with the haunting name of Lake Tear of the Clouds. Visitors from Manhattan are always startled to see the locals cup their hands and drink right out of the stream.

In name and style, the derby's races are closely patterned after the more familiar slalom and downhill races in alpine skiing. In the slalom events, the contestants must weave down the river, passing through a series of metal gates. Novices have to pass through 15 gates; the hardy competitors who try the toughest slalom must find a way of getting through 20, which are often devilishly placed in the most treacherous spots in the Hudson. Anyone hitting a gate suffers penalty points; anyone missing one then and there loses just about any chance of winning. The longest slalom race is 1.5 miles. The "downriver" runs for 7 1/2 miles, and is purely a speed and endurance event. The only contestants to get a break are the matures; they can have as much as 10% subtracted from their times.

Although no one has ever been seriously hurt during the derby, people have been drowned practicing beforehand, and the organizers set up an elaborate safety system of volunteers stationed onshore and in boats downstream to pull out anyone who got into trouble. The contestants had to wear life jackets; helmets were optional. To keep warm in the splash of 38DEG F. water, many also donned black rubber wet suits similar to those used by scuba divers. To keep track of all the confusion, local ham operators broadcast messages up and down the course.

One after another, a minute apart, the slalom contestants were launched by the starters. The downriver course began just above the railroad station where Teddy Roosevelt happened to be in 1901 when he learned that William McKinley had been assassinated and he was about to become President of the U.S. Spectators clustered around the most hazardous stretches of the river, like the Spruce Mountain rapids, just as auto-racing fans flock to the most dangerous turns.

Right below Gate 16 in the giant slalom, the Hudson foams into a fury of white water. A boulder, an obstacle that was a legend to the contestants, rises 2 ft. out of the river, churning the currents into a whirling eddy. All afternoon the competitors, young and old, hurtled down, striving to swerve their boats around it The better racers changed directions nimbly; the novices--faces distorted by fear --dug frantically at the water.

A kayak carrying two 20-year-old men swept cleanly through Gate 16 as the pair jabbed their paddles into the water, trying to kill their momentum. Spotting the rock, they managed to go wide, but then their bow strayed and they were trapped in the eddy. Instantly, they pivoted broadside and swamped. On the shore, the crowd came to life, cheering them good-naturedly and whistling. Clinging to the capsized hull, the men were swept past the last four gates and across the finish line.

In all, about 20% of the contestants came to watery grief, but none seemed to mind after they were hauled out and dried off. Soon they were swapping stories about their runs. "The waves are always 20 ft. high and the holes 5 ft. deep," said Tim Clark, 29, an architect and ski instructor at Vail, Colo., who always times his yearly trip back East to coincide with the derby. "We all lie like fishermen."

There are those who would like to dress up the derby a bit so that it could be sanctioned by the American Canoe Association, which awards points used in compiling national rankings. But the residents of North Creek are not at all sure they want that. Says Walt Schultz, 65, who has helped run all 21 events: "With the A.C.A., we'd still have to do all the work and they'd just tell us what to do. We don't want to kowtow to the great canoeists. All we want is a fun weekend--strictly amateur. We cater to the everyday Joe who wants to bring his kids here and have a good time." By those criteria, North Creek's derby this year, as always, was a success. Cold and wet, but a success.

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