MISSOULA – Growing up in Missoula, University of Montana alumna Esther Lyon Delsordo spent time casually floating the Blackfoot and Bitterroot rivers, generally in inflatable kayaks, but had never taken a hard-shell kayak down any fast-moving water with rapids. After watching her friends in college kayak and surf through whitewater, she decided she wanted to expand her skills to join them.
Lyon Delsordo decided to enroll in the kayaking class through the UM Outdoor Program as a junior in 2021 so she could learn important skills, like how to roll a boat if she flipped upside down into the water.
“When I took the class and I got to roll for the first time, that really opened the door to the whole world of whitewater kayaking for me,” she said. “Once I had that, I was pretty hooked and just wanted to go out and explore.”
She’s been active ever since in the local paddling community and has even taught several of her friends how to roll kayaks themselves. Now she’s an instructor for kayaking classes on campus, helping new generations of paddlers get into the sport.
“I don’t think I would have gotten into kayaking that quickly if it were not for this class,” Lyon Delsordo said.
Located on the Clark Fork River and on the edge of the Rattlesnake Wilderness Area, the University offers students unparalleled access to explore the natural world around them. However, it can be difficult to know where to begin when learning a new recreational skill like rock climbing, kayaking or cross-country skiing. That’s where the UM Outdoor Program steps in.
Elizabeth Fricke, Outdoor Program senior assistant director, didn’t have access to outdoor recreation growing up and later developed those skills in college and throughout her career.
“It can be very intimidating to get into it, and a lot of times you’ll see a lot of ego with outdoor sports or activities, and I’m not really interested in that at all,” Fricke said. “For UM’s Outdoor Program, it’s more about are you excited to do it or are you excited to get other people into it?”
That focus on eliminating ego and increasing inclusivity is baked into everything the Outdoor Program does, whether it’s a skills class for credit, a trip backpacking in Glacier National Park or the Freshman Wilderness Experience, where first-year students spend several days backpacking or canoeing prior to the start of fall semester. The Outdoor Program also provides students with the necessary equipment for their excursion or class and has gear rentals available.
“We really want to set people up for success,” Fricke said. “We are just excited to teach people, and we welcome anyone that’s excited to learn.”
Making the leap into an activity like whitewater kayaking can be especially difficult. Generally, whitewater kayakers use a spray skirt – a neoprene or nylon device that seals the paddler into the boat to prevent it from flooding. Because of the seal and how disorienting it is to be upside-down in moving water, it is important for new paddlers to understand how to either roll the boat or exit it underwater (also called a wet exit), in the event their kayak flips.
In order to learn those important safety skills, the kayaking class first begins in the Grizzly Pool on campus so students can develop foundational skills in a controlled setting. Over the course of three pool meetings, students learn important skills like how to seal their spray skirts to the boat, various paddling techniques, how to exit their boat underwater, and both assisted and independent rolls. There are typically two-to-four instructors leading the class of six-to-eight students.
“It’s not like were throwing you in a big piece of plastic and strapping you to it saying ‘good luck, let’s see what you can do,’” said Burke Schrimsher, a kayaking instructor and rising senior at UM majoring in parks, recreation and tourism management. “What I like most about these classes is that we’re able to get the students comfortable before sending them down the river.”
After the pool, the class takes on moving water for three classes. First, the class meets at Sha-Ron Fishing Access Site two miles east of Missoula on the Clark Fork River, where the group learns to maneuver through an eddy – a current created behind a rock or other obstacle that flows in a circular upstream direction. During this initial river meet-up, the class also practices rolling in moving water, as well as how to communicate and move across the river in a group.
During the second river day, the group puts in near campus on the Clark Fork River and floats through town and gets out near the PaddleHeads’ baseball stadium. This float is designed to teach students how to navigate the river and confidently go through some lower-class rapids.
Finally, the students conclude the class with a longer day floating the river. The spring class typically floats the Blackfoot River east of Missoula, however if it’s too low for the fall semester students, the class will instead head to Alberton Gorge, which is about 45 miles west of town on the Clark Fork River. In either case, students practice longer river floats and how to stay in formation, as well as scout rapids and plan their route through them.
“On the last day of class, we give them information on where to find pool roll sessions at Currents here in Missoula, how to get connected with community floats, where to find their own equipment and how to sign up for private lessons,” Schrimsher said.
This past spring semester, Will Foster, a rising senior majoring in wildlife biology, was looking for electives to add to his class schedule and was intrigued by the whitewater kayaking course.
“I saw a lot of people doing it when I was on the Lochsa River in Idaho last year, and I thought it looked really awesome,” Foster said. “So I wanted to give that a try. I just signed up for it and didn’t know what to expect.”
Originally from Chicago, Foster had some access to the outdoors through Boy Scouts and he grew up fishing with his family. Before the class he’d done his fair share of kayaking on still water and had gone whitewater rafting a few times.
“But nothing where if you flip over you’re stuck,” Foster added. “That was an entirely different thing that I was not used to. I knew that learning to roll would be the biggest challenge for me, because just the thought of being underwater, moving down river while you’re stuck in a kayak is pretty frightening.”
Learning different paddle strokes and other maneuvering techniques in the pool felt a little silly at times, but when it came time to practice on the river everything started coming together, Foster said.
Over the course of the class, Foster said he successfully rolled the kayak once, but was pretty confident in his wet exit. He wants to continue practicing rolling, and once he’s mastered that skill he plans to get a kayak of his own.
“Ultimately, I’m really glad I decided to sign up for the class,” Foster said. “They did a really good job of getting us to work together, and by the end of it we were all good friends. It was just so much fun.”
Photos by UM Photographer Ryan Brennecke
