The 68 rafters and kayakers who raced down the Class V rapids of the Colorado River’s daunting Gore Canyon in late August, were not just paddling for their lives, they were reviving one of the nation’s most storied whitewater races.
“It’s a meeting of the minds of everyone who is really into whitewater,” said Conrad Niven, whose Whitewater Racing LLC resuscitated the Gore Canyon Festival and race this year after two years of no racing in the steepest stretch of the Colorado River. “People were so stoked. So many people were coming up to me and saying thanks. That’s such a nice payoff.”
The revival of Gore Fest — one of the first Class V whitewater races in the country — bodes well for competitive whitewater paddlers. The future of racing in difficult whitewater has been clouded in recent years as acclaimed competitions fade away, mostly due to the challenge of securing liability insurance.
American Whitewater, which took over organizing the Gore Fest race in 2017, was forced to cancel the 2022 and 2023 races after the longtime insurer of the event, the American Canoe Association, announced its underwriter would no longer provide liability coverage for the race. The insurer was willing to write policies for whitewater events on rivers classified as Class IV or lower.
A series of expert-only whitewater races soon followed the Gore Fest race into a terminal hole. The famous Class V Tobin Downriver Race at California’s annual Feather River Festival was canceled in 2022 due to insurer concerns.
The Steep Creek Championships on the plummeting Homestake Creek above Red Cliff has drawn the world’s top kayakers since its founding in the early 2000s but has not been part of the GoPro Mountain Games in the last two years.
The North Fork Championships on Idaho’s North Fork of the Payette River first took place in 2012 and the Class V race quickly grew into the nation’s largest whitewater kayak race, with paddlers navigating through slalom gates in churning class V rapids. But the family-owned North Fork Championship race was canceled in 2023 when operators were unable to insure the race.
The Green River Narrows Race was created in 1996 and regularly draws more than 150 kayakers who race through Class V rapids lined with hundreds of spectators.
The Great Falls Race on the Potomac River in the Park Service’s Great Falls Park just outside Washington, D.C., started in 1988 with kayakers often racing for less than a minute down a stretch of daunting waterfalls. The Great Falls Foundation formed in 2015 to help manage the race and the foundation last year started hosting the Little White Salmon Race on Forest Service land in Washington state, one of the most prestigious kayak races in the world.
The Great Falls Foundation — which now organizes several Class V whitewater races in Kentucky, Maine, New York and Mexico — has worked with an insurance provider to craft a policy covering Class V whitewater races and the foundation helped Niven secure a $2 million liability policy for Gore Fest.
It was more expensive than the American Canoe Association policy but it covered everything and it enabled Niven and American Whitewater to secure a permit for the race from the Bureau of Land Management, which requires insurance for event permits. Niven signed a deal to take over the race from American Whitewater earlier this year.
“I was like, well, I want to race and I know my friends want to race so I really put my neck on the line,” said Niven, who competes on the U.S. Open Men’s National Rafting Team and teaches snowboarding in the winter for Aspen Snowmass.
Racing without scouting rapids
Gore Fest was started in the 1980s by the late kayaking hero Chan Zwanzig, who founded the pioneering Wave Sports Kayaks in Oak Creek in 1986. The idea of racing through one of the steepest, gnarliest canyons on the Colorado River — without stopping to scout rapids — was a big deal back then. So were plastic boats, which were just replacing delicate fiberglass crafts in the 1980s.
When the Gore Fest race picked up steam in the 1990s, the race started dividing into different classes with old school paddlers competing in fiberglass racing boats and new school kayakers racing plastic boats. Rafters would race as well. A handful of stand-up paddlers would compete atop what was the predecessor for SUP whitewater crafts. The Grand Junction inventors of the fabled Creature Craft would roll through the canyon, thrilling spectators.
For more than 30 years, the race was the end-of-season rally for paddlers from all across the West and its after-race party at the Pumphouse campground was the stuff of legend. Bands would play till late. One time, they set up a charity boxing ring. Companies would set up booths and peddle whitewater gear. Tents and boats packed every open patch of ground.
That party is quite a bit tamer these days. The BLM, which manages the campground and river access at the Pumphouse Recreation Area, watches over the crowds. The BLM was braced for parking challenges during the festival this year at Pumphouse and the event went well, said Josette Morange, the special recreation permit administrator and ranger for the BLM’s Northwest District Office.
“I think it’s absolutely possible for the event to happen again next year and I think Conrad has some hopes that the event can grow,” Morange said, noting that if Niven’s team can continue to “work within our permitting policies” — which includes a requirement for insurance — “we can likely facilitate a growing event.”
Morange said a primary concern for the BLM is making sure the general public still has access to the river and the recreation area during the event.
Niven had more than 20 volunteers helping with timing, registration and, most importantly, handling safety at each of the Class V rapids along the 9-mile stretch of the Colorado River in Gore Canyon.
Finding qualified safety people is a challenge, he said, because the most qualified paddlers are likely racing. Many of the spectators — and there are dozens who paddle Gore Canyon on race day just to watch the action — are also ready to help rescue swimmers. Despite one team — a two-person rafting crew aptly named the Dimwitted Duo — swimming through just about every Class V rapid, no one was hurt in the race.
That reflects the “highly skilled and competent people” who showed up to race, Niven said. There are not many folks who float willy-nilly into Gore Canyon without being prepared for serious whitewater. And only experts race-pace paddle through the canyon, where in its steepest stretches, the river can drop as much as 120 feet a mile.
“As far as risks go, I would argue this race is not that much more risky than any other event you can offer,” Niven said.
Charles Thortnon, the head of the all-volunteer Great Falls Foundation, has expanded the group’s race-management role with its one-of-a–kind insurance policy. The group has shifted the burden of liability protection from rafting outfitters to the nonprofit group.
“We found a couple brokers who were willing to craft coverage for us and landed on a model that is working for several different races,” Thornton said. “With all of these policies, you are talking about managing risk and the policies we have settled on are not really looking at the racers as the primary risk. We are more looking at spectators slipping on the shoreline or some kind of damage to property. We don’t think of the racers as the highest risk.”
Over the last several years he Great Falls Foundation has assembled comprehensive data detailing the risks of class V whitewater races. That database is the first of its kind and it’s helped persuade underwriters to write policies for the races.
“I’m proud of what we have built and I think we are providing a good service to our community,” Thornton said. “It’s not perfect but it’s working.”
Niven and Hattie Johnson, the stewardship director for American Whitewater who shepherded the Gore Festival for several years, are hoping that the smooth revival of the Gore Fest race last month draws more participants and sponsors next year. Whitewater Racing LLC is planning to offer more races next season.
Maybe Niven can start offering cash awards to winners. Maybe a big-name sponsor like Red Bull could step up and help.
“The Gore race is legendary,” he said. “It needs to stick around.”