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Friends ride spirit, raft to Zimbabwe Photo courtesy of Greg Clevenger Six local rafters, seen here paddling the upper Colorado River during last year's national championship races, comprise the United States National Rafting Team that heads to Africa next month to compete in the world championships. They are, clockwise from bottom left: John Tribble, Scott Eastman, Max Pfaffinger, Ryan Allred, Greg Smith and Todd Clevenger. World championship awaits at the end of September river race By MARK FREEMAN ASHLAND - As teenagers with a zest for whitewater adventures, Todd Clevenger and his fellow high-school rafting bums recall encircling a riverside campfire six years ago and sharing raft-racers' ultimate fantasies. "We were 16 years old, and we just started hearing about these rafting competitions," says Clevenger, now a 23-year-old college senior. "We'd talk and talk about how cool it would be to go in races, us friends, together, and win a world championship." Now Clevenger and his five local rafting friends are a few harried paddles down one of Africa's most treacherous whitewater rivers from fulfilling their shared dream. As reigning national champions in the six-man whitewater competitions, the friends will represent the United States in world championships set for Sept. 4-11 on Africa's famed Zambezi River. During the 20-team, seven-day event, they will rely on honed skills and raw power to speed a 14-foot raft through monster rapids and a tight slalom course. In doing so, they not only attempt to tame the Zimbabwe's wild Zambezi, but also match mettle against the rest of the rafting world's best. Clevenger is joined by teammates Scott Eastman, Max Pfaffinger, John Tribble, Ryan Allred and Greg Smith. The six men, all in their early 20s, together have guided summer rafters along Northern California's Klamath River since their early teen years. "It's been a dream of mine to put together a team of my buddies, and whether we win or lose, it's going to be awesome," says 23-year-old Allred, who is the team's captain and most seasoned racer. "But if we do win, it's something we can carry with us through the rest of our lives." That's no easy task, especially for a group of rafters who work days and attend college in the off-season and cannot train year-round like the full-time professionals they row against. And the Zambezi is no easy river for a group of rafters who practice an hour a day after work on the upper Klamath. "The Zambezi is nothing like anything in the states," says Tribble, who joined Allred, Smith and Eastman on a six-man team that raced on the Zambezi in 1999. "It has big volume, big drops and massive rapids that, if you don't hit them just right, will flip a boat. Easily." The team has paddled uphill in competitions since last summer, when Allred decided to do something about the group's shared dream and re-assembled his old pals for a team. Tribble was at a Grenada med school, while Clevenger was starting his junior year in zoology at Brigham Young University. Greg Smith was rowing a driftboat for fishermen on the Rogue River, Eastman was working at the Yreka YMCA and Pfaffinger was leading a group of missionaries in Mexico. They all returned to the Klamath, guiding clients all day and training in the evenings in preparation for the Teva Whitewater Challenge last August in Gore Canyon, a stretch of the upper Colorado River that is known as sporting some of America's most troublesome whitewater rapids. The group took a risk by competing in a Sotar fly-fishing raft that is more narrow and more prone to flipping than those used by other competitors, including a home-town team of Colorado pros. The risk paid off, as they won both the half-mile sprint and six-mile downriver race to sweep the competition and earn national champion status. Since rafting is not an Olympic sport, the highest level of competition is the annual world championships, which is called the Camel Whitewater Challenge, on the Zambezi. The group all went their separate ways, then returned to the upper Klamath this summer to prepare in earnest for the Zambezi. The group carries the American rafting banner to Africa on Aug. 27 for practice runs before the competition. "It's cool to be able to say we're national champs, for sure," Clevenger says. "But when we go over there and see all the other teams with people who don't speak our language at all, then I think it'll sink in." But they won't let their awe sink their goal. "We're not going there just to go there," Clevenger says. "We're going there to win." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.