Millrace Massacre and Iceman Championships

Photos and words by Sean Rayford

Blast-O-Matic, Cookie Monster, and Dumbass Hole are my three favorite parts of the Millrace Rapids. I’ve never floated or paddled through the whitewater, but they obviously have the best names.

Located just above the Riverbanks Zoo, this section of the scenic Saluda River is a training ground for world class athletes.

“We’ve got a surf kayak champion right there,” says kayaker, race organizer and Saluda Riverwalk park ranger, Andrew Grizzell — pointing to the young man standing behind him.

“We’ve got two surf kayak champions from Columbia,” he clarifies, pointing out another in the crowd within shouting distance.

For more than two decades, where the cold water from the bottom of Lake Murray pours across a fall line and over remnants of a twice dynamited coffer dam (blasted during the civil war to slow Sherman’s march), Grizzell has held the Millrace Massacre and Iceman Championships. The first year he was just trying to convince his whitewater friends to join him paddling in the winter.

“People keep wanting it, so we keep doing it.” This year featured more than 50 competitors.

*Millrace Massacre and Iceman Championship co-founder Andrew Grizzell, right.*

On Saturday, Grizzell stood on a boulder in the middle of the Saluda overlooking Dumbass Hole. “[It’s] where all the action took place — where some of the people ended up swimming out of their kayaks.” he says, “I was throwing the rope to that hole. If somebody got into trouble on this course, that's usually where it was.”

Former body building, strong man and power lifting competitor Teresa Moore, of Columbia, didn’t need the yellow rope Saturday. It was her fifth Iceman, but her first competing in the Massacre.

The latter follows a course and racers go one at a time in time trial fashion. The Iceman uses a longer section of the river and requires swimming, portaging and paddling, both down and upriver. It also features a mass start and paddlers can use any route.

“This set of rapids at a normal flow is about class three. At this level it approaches class four. It's very technical,” says Moore, “There’s a lot of rocks out there. There’s a lot of pour overs, a lot of holes you have to avoid. And the current is very pushy and you have to know how to maneuver your boat to avoid the holes.”

For Michael Whitaker, a five year veteran of the event, it’s the comradery that makes it so great. He says it’s different than other sports.

But what really draws Whitaker to the sport is the “zen experience” it provides. “You're getting exercise — but with kayaking you have to control the inner part of you. There is fear out there. And the more fearful you are, the worse you're gonna do. So it really makes you look inside to calm yourself down before you hit those rapids. That's what I like.”