Adirondack Canoe Classic: The 90 Miler

PADDLING
BY REBECCA BARTON-DAVIS

For the past four years, I have traveled to Newport Beach, California, the second weekend of September to race against the best women paddlers in the country in the Catalina Crossing from Newport Beach to Catalina Island.

However, this year I decided to skip the crossing and go back to the Adirondack Canoe Classic 90 Miler for three days of racing between Old Forge and Saranac Lake, New York.

This race isn’t the most intense of my season, but it has the highest participation in the C4 division, making up nearly half of the 260 boats. 

Entry into the event fills up most years, so landing a coveted spot should be on every paddler’s bucket list.

C4 is a fun class to race – you get the teamwork of the C2 in a more forgiving (less tippy) boat, and the boat isn’t so heavy you can’t portage it well. 

Our team of Mike Davis, Paul Olney, Paul’s daughter, Jo, and I had never paddled together before, and this race gave us the excuse to get together. 

The event takes place over three days with distances of 35 miles, 30 miles and 25 miles, respectively, with portages or carries each day. 

The portages are long, and some are on trails, totaling about 6 miles by the end of the race. 

Teams can either use a cart (which must be carried in the boat), or they can go without a cart and shoulder the boat during portages.

Our team decided to take a cart and prepared by running portages throughout the summer. 

We had our sights set on winning the race but knew it would be a tall order going up against a men’s team of Mike Fries, Joe Manns, Mark Olney and Dana Henry – the Delta Lake team.

The first day of racing takes us over the most portages – four carries with more than 3 miles of running and the most technical stretch of river. 

The race starts, and immediately it’s clear we are in a two-boat race for the win between ourselves and the Delta Lake crew. 

We take turns riding and pulling into the first carry – a long uphill on the road with a short down at the end. We plan to use our wheels and execute putting them on as we practiced.

The two teams continue to paddle together to the second carry – the approximately 1-mile sprint through the Eighth Lake Campground. 

We take off again – Mike is determined to beat Dana and company to the water.

Our slowest runners reach the boats within seconds of each other, so it looks like the next carry on a trail, and the twisting Brown’s Tract to come, may decide the race.  

Brown’s carry is about as long as the Eighth Lake carry, but it’s on a trail instead of the road. 

The wheels are helpful, but the runners must be aware of rocks and roots, avoiding them to minimize the risk of bending a rim, breaking a strap or damaging the boat. 

Mike is our best runner and takes off with the boat, while I try to keep up with the stern in order to lift the boat over rocks when needed. 

Toward the end of the carry, the terrain gets more precarious, and our team has a cart causality – we broke the strap, rendering it useless. 

Mike and I shoulder the boat and fall in behind the Delta team.

It’s faster for us to run without the cart on trails but much more taxing. 

We manage to regain the lead as the other team removes their wheels for the put in – a lucky break.

Next, we paddle into the fabled Brown’s Tract. 

The hairpin turns are difficult to navigate, and the hard portage has us feeling a little low, but we quickly start to pull ahead – the first separation between the teams for the whole race. 

By the time we reach the end of the 40-minute section, our team has a 1-minute lead. 

We paddle hard across the next lake and into the Marion River, but Delta catches us as we start to go upstream.

We now know Delta is faster than us, but we have a little bit better skill – it will be a tight race for all three days.

We reach a beaver dam blocking the river which must to be portaged before the Marion carry and take off again, paddling hard to final portage of the day. 

This portage is much shorter but also a trail – we have no choice but to shoulder the boat again. 

Mike and I take off running, with Paul in reserve to switch off with me as I tire.

The last hour was at breakneck speed – the wind was starting to pick up, and the other team was better in the wind earlier in the day. 

We didn’t look back until we rounded the final corner, and to our surprise, Delta was a tiny spec in the distance – we put nearly 3 minutes on them.

Going into day two, the fatigue was starting to set in – our whole team had raced the weekend before, and this late in the season, we aren’t sure what we have left. 

The second leg is fairly straightforward – paddle a couple of hours across Long Lake and then a couple more down the Raquette River. 

The Raquette Falls carry, about two-thirds of the way down the course, is the toughest of the race – over a mile long and through the technical boulders, roots and small creeks. 

The early part of the race unfolded as we expected, with the first three teams riding together across the lake – Gene Newman’s team is the third and pulling most of the way.  

We hit a shallow stretch at the entrance to the river, and our fatigue started to show – we dropped to the stern wave of Delta. 

We make some aggressive moves, and we finally climbed to the side wave again, racing each other hard over the next hour.

Our team won the sprint into the portage, as Delta hit one of the many boulders, and we walked quickly up the steep hill. 

Paul and Mike started with the boat, Jo and I switching off carrying the cart – we had fixed it but decided not to use it on the technical trail. 

Joe and Dana carried the Delta boat and followed our brisk pace.

As we reached the top of the hill, Joe called for the wheels, and we took off down the technical downhill, walking or running as fast as we could. 

We put in at the end of the portage with a lead. 

The next hour was a sprint to the finish, and while Delta did gain some time back, we were able to hold on to a minute of lead – putting us at 4 minutes total.

Day three and victory was ours if we could stay with Delta.

The lake paddling which started the day had the first four C4s together into the first portage. 

After the two final carries, both so short we weren’t allowed to use the wheels, the two teams were still neck and neck. 

Two-hundred yards from the finish, the sprint was on – Mike, Paul, Jo and I managed to win by a half-boat length.

After the finish, it was chocolate milk for everyone to celebrate our victory. 

The 90 may not be something I can do every year, but the memories from this event are some of my best in the sport – the course, the friendly competition and the team itching for more.