Leave it to the Canucks. While Canada and the US are going toe-to-toe battling it out in a trade war, kayakers did the same all in the name of fun on September 5 at the carnage-filled 9th annual Cheakamus Pinball Race.
Dubbed the “IV The Outhouse Christening”, the mass beatdown featured 82 racers in teams of three paddling head-to-head, trying to get themselves, all of their kayaking gear (including nose plugs), as well as a giant exercise ball, to the takeout finish line at the House Rock parking lot.
Inspired by New Zealand’s Kaituna Pinball Race (leave it to the Kiwis), in all the carnage barrage included 27 of such decorated exercise balls, with “sabotage” (or opponent ball corralling) “highly encouraged.”
How does the race begin? It starts with the balls getting dropped off a bridge above Triple Drop, “coincidentally” the section’s hardest Class IV rapid and narrowest drop on the river. This causes paddlers to pancake over one another from the get-go, setting the crash-and-burn stage. The mayhem then goes on that way for another two miles, breaking every safety rule in the book before ending at a raucous party at the takeout, which, you can guess, yes, likely includes a mosh pit.
Confessions of a Competitor
Read on for one racer’s recollection of what goes down in a typical race:
“The Cheakamus Pinball race is probably the most competitive, fun and strategic race on the BC calendar, and also probably one of the best attended. Easy, one would think. Not so.
This race is all about sabotage. It’s not my first rodeo, and through my experience of competing in the previous two years of Pinball I’ve learned many tactics to steer my ball towards glorious success. Last year I left my paddles unattended while I helped organizers. As I seal-launched in above the first waterfall it became apparent that sabotage had begun before the race even had, a thick layer of coconut oil was covering the shaft of my paddle, making it virtually impossible to hold any kind of stroke as I approached the must-boof falls. This is the kind of camaraderie this event provokes.
It is a mass start race. The balls are released into the river above the crux of the run, Triple Drop, which falls over three drops with burly boils and sticky holes. Sixty people squeezing through the river’s narrowest point while a collection of large exercise balls fall from the sky is quite the scene -— add to that some kayakers getting surfed, losing paddles and swimming, it really is a sight to behold.
If you make it through that and manage to reconvene with your team and find your colored ball, then you’re off to a great start. The sabotage continues down the river with balls getting stuck in holes, micro eddies, and shrubbery and trees lining the riverbanks. Making it to the finish line uninjured, in your kayak and with your paddle, team and ball is quite the achievement and something to walk away feeling quite proud of.”
Watch the mayhem here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/theocho/comments/11wrd0x/the_cheakamus_pinball_race/
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdJMhIeFN4Z/?stkn=MWRibDJyZm81dnQwYw==
(Photo courtesy Nick Gottleib/Cheakamus Pinball)