Crowds will gather in Great Falls Park this month to watch as advanced whitewater kayakers take to the water, racing one by one down the 60-foot vertical drop of rushing water. This heart-pounding event is the 36th annual Great Falls Race, which brings together the paddling community every year in Northern Virginia.
For paddlers, race day brings “mostly excitement and definitely some nerves,” says Tara Blair, vice president of the organizing nonprofit Great Falls Foundation and a race participant for the past four years. Those nerves are magnified by the fact that changing water levels could alter the course lines until just days before the race.
These racers are professionals with years of experience, Blair says. Great Falls is a Class V course, one of the most extreme classifications. As a result, the foundation works closely with the National Park Service and local emergency services to keep paddlers safe. And, though each run lasts only about a minute, there are weeks and months of practice behind it.
“The whole year, they’ll be thinking about trying out different lines when they’re going down the falls, trying new lines to see if they can find something faster, kind of studying the water, analyzing the water,” Blair says.
Though the event draws a crowd today, it wasn’t always such a large production. When it began, it was a small gathering of friends who wanted to race, Blair says. It grew over the years, changing hands often until the foundation was formed to give it more structure, and it now brings in between 50 and 60 racers per year.
In addition to this race, the Great Falls Foundation puts on other races across the country, plus river cleanups, all of which allow the paddling community to get together and take part in a shared passion for the sport.
After the August 10 race is run, racers and other paddling enthusiasts will gather at Rockwood Manor (on the Maryland side of the park) for the Potomac River Festival, where people can talk with the kayakers and learn more about how to get involved.
When: August 10, race at 10 a.m., festival at 2 p.m.
Where: Great Falls Park (9200 Old Dominion Dr., McLean); Rockwood Manor (11001 MacArthur Blvd., Potomac, Maryland)
Feature image by Jack Ledgerwood
This story originally ran in our August issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
