Riot Burlfest Charge #1

So the Colorado Burlfest has begun, and myself (Nathan Silsbee), David Finney, Cooper Lambla and Shane Groves have had an interesting two weeks! Our first stop was Vail, Colorado. Vail is a very resorty upper-class style town, and did not really fit with our style.
Burlfest in the parking lot. The sun in colorado is the preferred means of drying damp supplies.


Charging the Ramen. Notice the drips: water is key to softening cold Ramen.


The Homestake Creek race was a really cool event, located on Vail's local burlfester. Homestake creek is a super low-volume run with a lot of tight moves to be made. There were 50 competitors, including the world's best. Pat Keller, Tao Berman, Tommy Hilleke, Brad Ludden, Eric Jackson, Andrew Holcombe, were some of the names to watch out for.

Cooper and I made the top 25 cut to finals, with Cooper placing 11th and myself placing 17th. Cooper moving quickly through the boogie water.


In the Finals run, Cooper choked and had a costly spin which put him in 23rd. The average of his two runs placed him 18th overall. On my finals run I placed 9th, which averaged me at 12th place overall.
Me paddling hard.



Team Riot had respectable finishes for only a few practice runs down the course. Tao Berman placed first, Brad Ludden in Second, Andrew Holcombe in third. See full results here:

http://tevamountaingames.com/results.htm

Coop-a-loop moving at light speed in the Homestake race.


A week or so later, we headed to Lyons, for the South Saint Vrain extreme race. Cooper cleaned up with 5th place. I got 9th after a dumb mistake on my part in the finishing eddy. Andrew Holcombe won it, with Eric Jackson in Second, and Todd Baker in third. The creek was similar to Homestake, and there were a lot of quick moves to be made to avoid getting burled.

Aside from competition, we've gotten on lots of great creeks, and one of the best was Gore Canyon at highwater. Big water, big boofs, big holes. Quality whitewater.
Dropping into Gore Rapid, a good one towards the beginning.


David Finney, styling Gore rapid.


Colorado is definitely the place to be in the summer, and for the first time in a long time, I'm really happy not to be in Asheville which is dryer then a dead lizard right now.

Nate Dawg signing off
Flow Rider