River Life: Ocean Athletes Izzi Gomez and Chuck Patterson on River Paddling
words by Joe Carberry
Chuck Patterson stands in the parking lot of the Vail Lodge with a hacksaw in one hand and a fin for a standup board in the other. The longtime big wave surfer and waterman is hacking the plastic skeg in half.
It's too long, he says.
Patterson and 15-year-old Izzi Gomez are modifying their equipment to run Gore Creek, a three-mile section of whitewater above Vail, Colorado, and the downriver race venue for the GoPro Mountain Games. They've shortened their fins so they don't catch on the shallow creek bed, causing them to go over the handlebars. For both of the exceptional ocean athletes, running whitewater is a relatively new experience. Patterson has been in whitewater a few times, but Gomez has never stepped foot in a river before coming to Vail.
The river is super-cool, says Gomez. I'm just used to surfing so it's awesome for me to come here and do something completely different. I love it.
Gomez, who last year became the youngest World Champion ever in the sport of standup paddle surfing, is a natural on the river. We stuff all of our gear into the small rental car, helmets, lifejackets leashes, booties , paddles and boards and drive up to the put-in. The day before Gomez and Patterson ran this section of river eight times to prepare for the upcoming race.
And it shows, they dial in each rapid, and the one's they don't they hike up and run again. Patterson is a perfectionist and eternally, a big kid. If he doesn't like his line through a certain drop, he simply gets out and hoofs it back to the top. The whitewater thing is super-challenging, he says. It opens up a whole new facet of your water knowledge. You come up to rocks and rapids and you have to figure out how to navigate those and what strokes are appropriate. It's kind of like paddling out on a big day in the ocean and having to watch all the currents coming off the reef. Only it's coming at you from even more directions.
Light rain comes down as we round a bend in the river, leading us into the heart of the Vail Village. I muff my way into the eddy, jumping off my board to grab rocks so as not to be sent downstream in front of the crowd that's gathered to watch the raft cross a two man competition where athletes charge a slalom course in small, rubber rafts. We all stand and watch the competition for a few minutes as Gomez and Patterson look on. This is crazy, says Gomez. The river is such a different world. It's definitely something I want to experience again.
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River Life: Ocean Athletes Izzi Gomez and Chuck Patterson on River Paddling 
