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TEAM WET PLANET

King of the River Competition

In September of 2003, the Wind River Cellars hosted the first, and only, Annual King of the River Competition. At the end of the event, Wet Planet Rafting and Kayaking was crowned King of the River for Washington and Oregon whitewater rafting!

The competition was held in the evening, with the various rafting companies from the area competing. The event itself was pretty simple... a team of guides from each company made two rafting runs over the legendary Husum Falls on the White Salmon River. Three judges (an owner of a local whitewater kayak retail shop, a rep for Teva, and the river ranger for the White Salmon) evaluated each company's run and gave the team of guides a score based upon three criteria: style, costume, and execution of the run through the rapid.

The event was perfect for Wet Planet Rafting and Kayaking, as the event called for a combination of skill and personality. The Wet Planet team consisted of Andy Round and Jaco Klinkenberg, both dressed in the flags of their national origins, Todd Collins and Steve White, dressed up as the local bus drivers from their days guiding in the mountains of West Virginia, and Beth Fry, Hootie, and Corey Williams, all dressed up as some form of super hero.

Although there were many creative costumes and interesting runs through the Falls, Wet Planet's first run set the bar for the evening. The team stacked three rafts on top of each other, with the bottom two rafts strapped together and the top raft sitting loose on top of the other two. The team climbed on top of the three rafts and floated toward the waterfall. Right before the stack of rafts plunged over Husum Falls, the shift in balance of the raft stack caused the top raft holding the Wet Planet team to slide off of the stack and run the waterfall on its own. To the surprise of the crowd watching from the bridge above, Todd had been hiding in the bottom stack underneath the top raft. As the stack of rafts plummeted over the drop, Todd sprang into view holding a Wet Planet Rafting and Kayaking banner. The double-stack of rafts with Todd on top and the raft holding the other five Wet Planet team members both made it through the rapid cleanly, drawing a roar of approval from the crowd and earning Wet Planet honors as "King of the River".