{"id":32672,"date":"2024-05-07T10:00:18","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T17:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/?p=32672"},"modified":"2024-05-06T14:55:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T21:55:01","slug":"darby-mcadams-and-the-evolution-of-passion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2024\/05\/07\/darby-mcadams-and-the-evolution-of-passion\/","title":{"rendered":"Darby McAdams and the Evolution of Passion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Halfway through high school, Darby McAdams was on the brink of something big. She had been kayaking for two years, and it consumed her free time. After school, she would paddle to Brennan’s Wave, Missoula\u2019s human-made surf wave, from her house at the confluence of Rattlesnake Creek and the Clark Fork River<\/a>. At the end of her session, she\u2019d attain the river, paddling back upstream against the current, eddy-hopping her way toward home. In the spring, if the water was too high, she\u2019d ride her bike with her kayak strapped to a little trailer her dad helped her build as a project for welding class. Alone after school, accompanied only by icebergs moving downstream, she practiced playboating tricks and built the foundation of her kayaking.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9American Whitewater<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At five-foot-one-and-a-half, Darby\u2019s muscle-to-mass ratio is advantageous in freestyle kayaking. Her parents, a dynamic duo of athleticism\u2014her dad was a gymnast and her mom a bodybuilder\u2014raised her in a town with a robust female kayaking community. The older generation of women paddlers in Missoula embraced Darby, inviting her to paddle the Alberton Gorge <\/a>with them every Saturday. In addition to her father and coaches, she credits this constellation of river women<\/a> for fostering a climate of confidence, social acceptance, and mutualism in kayaking.<\/p>\n

Among the other influential women in her life was Darby\u2019s high school film teacher, who sparked an ember of curiosity within her. In Ms. Cole\u2019s class, Darby relished the process of storyboarding, analyzing films, and finding meaningful stories out in the world. She started paying attention to how films were made and who made them. As an independent study under Ms. Cole\u2019s guidance, Darby created her first documentary, a short film about the push to build a second urban surf wave in Missoula\u2019s Clark Fork River. Just as kayaking had hooked her when she was 14, she now had to make room for this emerging passion: telling stories that matter.<\/p>\n

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After a couple of years, Darby was paddling harder runs, playboating a lot, and competing in local events like the Bigfork Whitewater Festival<\/a> on Montana\u2019s class IV+ Swan River. Leading into her senior year, she received a partial scholarship with World Class Academy<\/a>, a traveling high school for budding kayakers. After she graduated, Darby enjoyed two significant first-place finishes: Bigfork (though she says the timing was botched and that Nouria Newman should have won) and Unleashed in Quebec.<\/p>\n

Despite the traction she was gaining as a competitive kayaker, Darby found herself still working to find her place in an established community of professional kayakers, and at times became skeptical of her ability to progress. \u201cI had to get really good at surfing holes and dealing with mistakes before I could run class V smoothly,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n