Ex-Navy SEAL teaches beginners to go with the flow at waterpark
Sunday morning the temperature was 3 below zero on Kellogg Peak at Silver Mountain. I was grateful to be in the tropical ambience of the Silver Rapids Waterpark in Kellogg.
The main attraction there is the FlowRider, a surfing wave that never breaks. Some people make it look easy. Most people don’t. The action is a parade of slapstick comedy scattered with moments of grace.
To master “flowriding,” you have to pay your dues. Before Jim Carver designed an introduction to the fundamentals, bruising the ego as well as the body for countless hours was the only way to learn.
“When people see the FlowRider it reminds them of being on the ocean,” said Carver, director of snow sports at Silver Mountain Resort. “But the mechanics are totally different. The ocean has power that pushes you. On the FlowRider, all the power comes at you, constantly trying to take you off the water.”
Pumps inject about 60,000 gallons of water per minute into a 3-inch sheet moving at 35 mph. The water forms a wave flowing up a padded ramp about 25 feet wide and 40 feet long. Flowriders must enter the stream, stay balanced and control resistance to the energy of the flow.
Most people use a body board. Some stand on a “flowboard” about 3 feet long. Either way, separation results in a swift and often indignant ejection as the flow punts the ex-rider up the ramp onto the deck.
The makers of the FlowRider, Wave Loch, Inc. of La Jolla, Calif., offer no standards on how to ride the attraction. Carver, a 65-year-old former Navy SEAL and ski instructor for more than 30 years, spent about 35 hours figuring it out and breaking it down. He designed a lesson offered at 8:45 a.m. on weekends for $15.
“People who become good at it on their own have no idea why or how,” Carver said. “They will tell you when you lose your balance, reach down and touch the water with your trailing hand to recover. They don’t realize reaching down like that realigns your hips in a straight line over the board.”
Carver said wakeboarders, skateboarders and some snowboarders are most familiar with the stance and mechanics required for the FlowRider. As a skier I fall outside those categories, but he was confident his program would work, even for me.
We started with learning how to handle your body in the flow. The trick is to roll on your back and point your feet uphill so the wave ally-oops you into a sitting position on the deck, instead of squib-kicking you like a football.
Working with a body board helped me understand how the implement responded to the flow. Carver showed me how to ride in a circular pattern. Eventually, I could perform barrel rolls.
Standing on the deck, I learned foot position and weighting for the flowboard. Carver had an assistant hold the board halfway over the front edge of the flow. He threw me a rope. Pulling on the rope with my lead hand put most of my weight on my back foot – essential to flowriding.
Released into the flow, I toppled and was spit onto the deck in an instant. Eventually, I could let go of the rope and stand on the flowboard for a few seconds before that happened.
Learning how to enter the flow standing on the board came next. After many tumbles I could stand in the flow for up to a minute. No maneuvers yet, but a fulfilling sense of accomplishment. The lesson lasted about 11/2 hours. Getting to that point on my own may have taken 10 times as long.
I’m looking forward to mastering a more graceful dismount.