Breaks records and delights followers
Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Meghan Frondorf
and Wallace Bromberg Jr.
Submitted photos
Twenty of the fiercest, most elite paddlers in the world battled stormy elements at the start but finished strong in record time in the third edition of the Great Alabama 650, the world’s longest annual paddle race.
In late September, paddlers muscled their way through the 650-mile course from Weiss Lake in the north to Fort Morgan in the south, which covered the stretches of Neely Henry and Logan Martin lakes in between.
The statewide race has all the components of a great adventure – whitewater, tidewater currents, hikes around nearly a dozen dams – en route to a finish line 650 miles from the start.
Top finishers were:
- Joe Mann and Paul Cox – 4 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes
- Salli O’Donnell – 4 days, 22 hours, 39 minutes
- West Hansen, 5 days, 19 hours, 9 minutes
The Alabama 650 website featured a live map throughout the race with up-to-the-minute updates on each of the boats’ locations. Facebook and Instagram posts from the field and countless photos, videos and updates came from novice spectators and volunteers along the route during its duration. Hashtag was #AL650.
The map helped spur the interest of spectators all along the course to get a firsthand look at the paddlers coming by. According to Alabama 650 officials, spectators cheered for racers on river banks in Gadsden, Pell City, Wetumpka, Montgomery, Selma, Fairhope and dozens of other points along the way.
The racecourse is the core section of the Alabama Scenic River Trail, a 6,000-plus mile, mapped river trail system. The 650 miles at the core of the river trails extends from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Northeast Alabama through alligator country to the Gulf of Mexico.
Racers had up to 10 days to finish the race to compete for the top spot in three divisions – Male Solo, Female Solo and Two Person Team.
Portages, where paddlers and their crews put in and take out their boats, were nine dams on the Coosa and Alabama rivers.
Volunteers, along with paddlers’ crews, were stationed at portages, helping with logistics of getting the paddlers through each point.
Logan Martin’s Max Jolley served as portage chief at Logan Martin Dam, coordinating volunteers and keeping the pace moving as paddlers came in throughout a 24-hour period in days 2 and 3 of the race.
The first arrivals were about 6 a.m. on Sunday and the last of the paddlers came in between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Monday. He said he was amazed at the speed of this year’s race. “They were two to three hours ahead of last year.”
Jolley, who has been kayaking himself for 30 years, (but not on that level, he is quick to point out) has been involved since the inception of the race. “When I saw it, I wanted to get involved.” Now, he’s hooked. “One of the best things is you get to talk to the crew and the paddlers” on everything from weather to boat traffic. “They like coming down Logan Martin,” where people “greet, wave and clap as they go by.”
O’Donnell, the female solo winner, is a Logan Martin favorite. She has even joined a Facebook group locally, where she talks to fans, and they wish her well or congratulate her. In one post, she talked of stopping a bit for some sleep at the new Lincoln’s Landing.
In an interview with Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Outdoor Alabama, Cox, a member of the winning team estimated he and partner Mann managed an hour of sleep at Wetumpka, two at Selma and two as they neared Fort Morgan for the finish.
“That’s what you have to do to be fast,” Cox recounted to Outdoor Alabama. “Sometimes you have to fight off the sleep monsters. There were definitely moments when I wasn’t paddling well. I was trying to stay upright, splashing myself with water. You have to talk to each other and tell stories. My partner, Joe, is a great storyteller, but he finally told me no more stories. That’s when I knew we needed to pull over and get some sleep.”
O’Donnell, now a member of Love Logan Martin Facebook group, posted her report of the race – a lengthy, detailed account – three weeks later on the group’s page:
This is what she had to say about Logan Martin:
“That stretch is one of my favorite sections along the course because not only is it beautiful but normally there is a lot of boat traffic to keep me entertained. This year was totally different, the lake was practically empty due to the weather. I recall 3 or 4 boats on the whole stretch and the skies remained low, gray and wet. Most of all, I missed bantering with the locals, aka the Logan Martians, although a few brave souls hung out on their docks to cheer us on as we passed by!”
She was paddling alongside Hansen as they came into Logan Martin, and they paddled together to the dam. “West and I reached the Logan Martin Dam portage around 10:15 on Sunday morning and after our 45-minute mandatory hold, off we went towards Lay Dam.”
Heading into Fort Morgan two days later, she wrote, “As I approached CheckPoint 3, I began to have issues with my back-up GPS (remember I lost my primary GPS on the morning of Day 2 / Logan Martin Lake). Water spots under the screen appeared and grew until I couldn’t see anything at all. Fortunately, it was during the daylight and I was familiar with the area.
“Unfortunately, I had no watch and without my GPS I had no idea what time it was or how far I had traveled. I rounded the checkpoint and headed west towards a point of land that I eventually passed and then I headed southwest down into the cove thinking I was on the approach to Fort Morgan. The waves were stern quartering and with my surf rudder I was having fun riding across the backs of waves to keep me high in the cove or running with the waves when it was time to dip down towards Fort Morgan.
“I was having a blast until I finally realized I had headed down one cove too early and had to climb back out (later I would realize it was a 5-mile climb) northwesterly to round the real final point of land before turning southwest for the final 5 miles to Fort Morgan.
“Once I got around that point of land, I took a short break to adjust myself in my boat and get a quick bite to eat. When I looked up, I saw Rod and Bobby about one hundred yards from me! They took off and again I watched them turn into a dot, only a little more than 5 miles to the finish and they beat me by 16 minutes. Dang it, Bobby!!”
O’Donnell’s post gives ‘Logan Martians’ and the rest a first-person glimpse of what it was like on Logan Martin that Sunday – early in the race – and later legs of the journey toward a record finish: 4 days, 22 hours, 39 minutes.
Her physical condition? She wrote:
“Weight loss of less than 1 pound
Blisters on hands but none that opened
No skin rubs
No skin rashes
No aching muscles
Approximately a total of 13 hours of sleep
Tired but content!”
Jennifer Fratzke’s impressions were a little more succinct: “It’s the funnest, coolest, hardest, most awesome race ever.”
Editor’s Note: Next year’s Great Alabama 650 is scheduled for Oct. 1-11. Registration opens Jan. 1 at noon CST.
About the Alabama Scenic River Trail
The Alabama Scenic River Trail is the longest river trail in the United States.
When it was established in 2008, the river trail was comprised of just one 650-mile stretch of contiguous waterways. It extended from Weiss Lake in Northeast Alabama through the Mobile Bay, a waterway so biologically diverse, it is called “America’s Amazon.”
Today, the river trail includes more than 6,000 miles of mapped river trail and 60 boat rental shops exist on its banks to help paddlers tour the state’s vast aquatic resources.
