A few score miles from its source in the snows of Colorado, the Arkansas River becomes a bruising stream, sweeping along at 8 to 10 m.p.h., and churning into turbulent white water where great rocks challenge its course. The river is a trout fisherman's paradise and a boatman's purgatory. In early June, two Germans arrived at its banks, not to fish but to scout the Arkansas for what is widely regarded as the world's longest, roughest riverboat race.
Along 30 miles of river, on either side of the mining and tourist town of Salida (pop. 5,000), Theo Bock, 43, and Erich Seidel, 26, members of the Munich Kayak Club, scrambled along the bank, noting treacherous crosscurrents, whirlpools, lurking rocks. Their Teutonic thoroughness was warranted.
Upsets & Death. The first riverboat race on the Arkansas, in 1949, ran nearly 60 miles, from Salida, down between the quarter-mile-high walls of the awesome Royal Gorge, and out again. Only a daring Swiss pair finished; most others dropped out short of the gorge, where capsized boatmen, flanked by sheer rock palisades, have little choice but to sink or be swept, dead or alive, through the canyon. Though .safer, the present shorter course is still a grim ordeal by white water, spiced by three major rapids threatening upsets and death to even the best boatmen.
As a keel-wetter for last week's race, a 300-yd. water slalom was run off at Salida. Its course, laid out by Experts Bock and Seidel, was marked by a dozen sets of red and green poles. Boats had to pass the poles to right or left, according to color. Young Erich Seidel, Germany's white-water and slalom champion, threaded his kayak skillfully through the course and won with ease, while several less-practiced contestants upset in the swift water. Then the boatmen got a briefing on the main race. Besides the two Germans, there were three French entries, a dozen Americans. Their paddle-powered craft: a two-man canoe, three rubber rafts, a two-man kayak and eight single-seater kayaks. Boatmen who preferred to race unencumbered by life jackets signed releases, relieving the race committee of responsibility.
Next morning a crowd of some 25,000 began snaking along in cars on U.S. Highway 50, which winds with the Arkansas' west bank. Across the river, on the twisting tracks of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, photographers climbed aboard handcars. At one-minute intervals the boatmen began shoving off from Big Bend, five miles north of Salida, into the chilly (52° F.) torrent. The first big test, Bear Creek Rapids, which a week earlier dashed a boatman to death, lived up to its bad reputation by capsizing the first starter. Soon Theo Bock lost his lead to France's Roger Paris, who kept his kayak ahead for 15 miles until he hit right-angling Tin Cup Rapids and got ducked.