Photo courtesy of Rochelle Parry | WWU

Rochelle Parry, a graphic designer and Web developer with Academic Technology at Western, rides her riverboard in the White Salmon River in southern Washington during the Gorge Games in late July. Here, Parry is competing in the freestyle surfing event, in which competitors attempt to do tricks on a standing wave.

by Matthew Anderson | WWU

Yeah, of course it’s dangerous. But so what?

Myriad scars and scrapes crisscross Rochelle Parry’s knees and ankles. Thirty years of surfing and bodyboarding will do that to you.

Parry, a graphic designer and web developer with Academic Technology and User Services at Western, recently has taken up riverboarding, a relatively new sport that takes the concept of bodyboarding inland. Enthusiasts compete by riding boards through the rapids—and over the falls—of some of the area’s mightiest rivers.

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The sport is a natural for surfers looking to get their kicks without constantly having to trek to the coast.

“I was just looking for a way to do it closer,” Parry says.

Now, she’s hooked. Just last month, Parry competed in the inaugural riverboarding portion of the Gorge Games on the White Salmon river in southern Washington.

“When they told me I’d be going over a 10-foot waterfall, I had some fears about doing this,” says Parry, who’s been riverboarding for about three years. “But I watched someone else do it, and I thought, ‘Oh, this looks easy’.”

The games are being shown on Fox Sports Northwest, with the riverboarding portion likely airing on Friday at 4 and 11:30 p.m. The games have been shown all this week and also will run from 12:30 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, according to the FSN Web site.

Parry entered all the riverboarding events at the games, placing second in the boardercross event, a head-to-head race down the river in which competitors try to knock one another off their boards.

And Parry’s not slowing down. She just returned from two weeks of surfing in El Salvador (her flight left just three hours after her last competition at the Gorge Games), and now she’s heading off to California to attend a conference and—naturally—do a little boarding on the American River outside San Fransisco.

Images of Parry competing in the games are available in the FAST Online Galleries section here.

Videos of Parry competing in the games are available in the FAST Online Videos section here.