The Boards of Summer

And no, you don't sit on them. Riverboard design is anything but standardized, but the general concept is arms and upper torso on the board, hips to flippered feet in the water. Unlike the familiar beach boogie board, riverboards typically have some kind of grip to hang on to. Hang on, you'll want to, although Washnock points out that on a riverboard you automatically avoid two of the scarier scenarios in rafting and kayaking: "You're already in the river. You can't fall out of the boat, and if you flip over you're not trapped." Well, that's one way of looking at it.

Washnock rides a Ripboard, from the Colorado-based company of the same name founded by Shane Bolling. It was a Ripboard that Washnock found in that Internet search, and it was a Ripboard that Washnock lost in fall 2003 when he jumped into the James River's infamous Hollywood Rapids, in the heart of Richmond, when the river was a whitewater chaos at a flood height of about 16 feet.

"I was running the main drop," Washnock recalls. "I got introduced to being 'worked in the hole.' I was pushed under so far that the board had so much flotation that it just ripped right out of my arms." Eventually, Washnock popped out, too, his board long gone, and fought his way back to shore, bypassing the dead cow floating in the eddy. And this is how Washnock became Ripboard's official southeastern sales rep. "I was the first individual to order a second board from Shane Bolling," he says. "Or maybe the first to admit losing one. That's how I got to know him."

Back on the James (Washnock lives just outside Richmond), Washnock prepares to take on Hollywood Rapids in far lower water, though you still have to speak at a shout to be heard over the roar of the river. Washnock recommends, of course, that anyone trying the sport for the first time begin on flat water to get a feel for maneuvering the board before graduating to progressively livelier challenges. And no matter how many times he returns to the same spot on the same river, he scouts his line carefully before hitting the water. "Every river is different at different levels," he says. "Reading water is the skill that's most important because once you start your line, you're committed to it -- that's the line you're taking."

Having picked his course, with a wary eye for a midstream boulder that announces itself by the vaulting green fountain spurting over its top, Washnock takes a flying lunge and lands, board and all, with a belly-down smack in the water, aims himself into the current with a few swift kicks, and within seconds he is snatched up by the river and flung into the turbulence. As he shoots the rapids, a mountain biker and three strollers on the riverside path stop and stare. In these jaded modern days when bungee-jumping from bridges and skiing off cliff-faces have become merely yawn-inducing old hat, it's nice to see there's a sport that can still elicit mouth-agape astonishment from the sidelines.

Washnock emerges 100 yards downstream, body and grin intact.

"Whitewater at face level" is what Bolling calls riverboarding, Washnock says. "All you're focused on, all you can see, is the area right in front of you," he says.

"On a riverboard it's mano a mano ," Carlson says. "You're wrestling with the river. It's a great sport. I'm going again tomorrow."

Chris Washnock and Ripboard will be at the Gauley River Festival in Summersville, W.Va., Sept. 23-25. "We're trying to get 50 experienced riders to go down together at the same time," Washnock says. Call 866-311-2627 or 303-904-8367 or visithttp:// www.ripboard.com.

FACELEVEL.COM -- For riverboarding history,

board reviews, links, photos and more, visithttp:// www.facelevel.com.

CARLSON RIVERBOARDS -- Boards can be found athttp://www.pacificriversupply.com, or visit the Carlson's Web site athttp://home.comcast.net/~robert.carlson4.