John Goodman

When the boys aren't competing, they're often as not still on the water creeking (kayaking down steep, boulder-chocked creeks) or looking up water levels to figure out where to go next. Water can rise and fall in a single day, and it's easy to miss.

Word of a storm spreads all weekend. So on Monday they drive two hours east to Harriman, Tennessee, to pick up new boats at the Dagger factory and meet up with Kincaid and Grubbs. These two are also set up with a Suby, and the wagons convoy for two hours to Bear Creek, an infamous run in Georgia. There they connect with 37-year-old freestyle pioneer Marc Lyle.

In the Bear Creek parking lot, Byrd pulls his drysuit top over his head and hasn't even given the run a second thought when Emerick asks, "Dude, how's your creeking?"

Byrd doesn't know.

"This really isn't the place to find out," Emerick says.

When you drive four hours through rain to get to a creek, it's not so easy to pass it up. Wisely, Byrd does, but Ludden won't be denied. Lyle, who lost a best friend creeking in February, is concerned.

"I've paddled with both of you and I know that your skills are there," Lyle says to Emerick and Ludden. "Question is, where's your head?"

"Uh, on top of my shoulders," Ludden replies. Smartass.

In their four-mile run, the group loses two paddles, and Grubbs takes a nasty four-minute surf in a section called the Gnarr. Ludden rescues him with a rope. Lyle runs a blind drop and collides with a log, which holds him for a few terrifying seconds before releasing him. At the end of Grubbs's rescue, the group notices that the rock they parked a boat on earlier is nearly submerged. Bear Creek looks like it might "flash"—as in flash flood. They paddle like hell to get out of there.

"It was death," Ludden says later. "But not entirely a bad experience." The contrast of the weekend at Rock Island and the thrills and scare at Bear Creek helps Ludden keep the circuit in perspective. "We're not kayaking for sponsorship," he says. "We're sponsored so we can kayak."

There's a saying among the members of kayaking's new school: "Rodeo for dough, creek for fun." The weekend competitions are the office days; the weeks between are the weekends. For Ludden, it's certainly a sweet spot in time. Either the sport will stall out and freestylers will be back to selling nose plugs and hitching rides, or they'll face the greater demands of commercial success. Until then, they've got the Suby, gas money, free boats, and time, bountiful time enough to drive hundreds of miles out of their way in search of the next plush ride.  

Cristina Opdahl is an associate editor of Outside.