by Jedd Ferris

For the past four years, Asheville’s Tommy Hilleke has won the Green Downriver Race-the nastiest, craziest, and most respected downriver whitewater race in the region. The Team Teva boater also boasted a first place finish in the 8 Ball Sprint and a third-place in the Boatercross at this summer’s Vail Mountain Games. He’s also a four-time winner of the Russell Fork Rendevouz Extreme Race.

His epic runs on the Green have made Hilleke, 28, one of the top steep-creek masters in whitewater kayaking today. Located in western North Carolina, the Narrows of the Green is the Southeast’s most revered steep creek-a rough and rugged class V that never lets a boater out of its grasp without a tale of carnage. Over 2.9 miles the Green River Narrows drops on average 178 feet per mile, and the Narrows features a half-mile section where the river contains 11 major Class IV and V rapids in a row. In November a national crop of expert paddlers compete in the Green Downriver Race-heralded as one of the most extreme downriver whitewater comps in the world.

“Maybe I take it more seriously than anyone else,” Hilleke says of his success on the Green. “I love that river, and I’ve spent so much time out there. It’s my favorite local run. There are so many moves that you have to make. Even in the smaller rapids there are tons of little tricks and lines that you have to know.”

While Hilleke certainly enjoys the thrill of competition, his biggest thrills come from extended expeditions. At the end of the summer he finished a one-day descent of the untouchably remote Stikine River in British Columbia, which has been run by less than 20 people. Hilleke and three other boaters decided to take on the entire 45-mile run in one day-finishing what is usually done in three days in 10 hours. The Stikine’s steep, remote gorge is flanked by 1,000-foot walls, and the river runs at a punishing 15,000 cubic feet per second (CFS). Comparatively, the Green runs around 400 CFS.

“We wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before,” says Hilleke. “That’s where my heart is-going on exploration trips and really just paddling rivers and being out in the wilderness.”