This article is from the summer 2025 edition of Mobile Baykeeper’s print quarterly, CURRENTS. The magazine is mailed to active members who have given more than $50 in the past year. To get on the magazine’s mailing list, donate here.
By Sam K. Wilkes | Photos by Courtney Mason
The Mobile Bay watershed covers over half of the state of Alabama, extending into the northern mountainous regions, and even into Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Within that watershed lies the longest connected river trail in the United States — the Alabama Scenic River Trail (ASRT). The ASRT contains more than 6,300 miles of accessible waterways, holding a variety of mountain streams, placid lakes, cascading waterfalls, whitewater rapids, and boggy deltas, all flowing into Mobile Bay and eventually the Gulf. Each fall, a group of determined souls race down a 650-mile portion of this river trail. The fastest racers typically finish in less than a week’s time, with no horsepower — just paddles.
The Race
“Our mission was to provide the best ultra-distance paddle race in the world and to promote the navigable waterways throughout the state to Alabamians and beyond,” says Greg Wingo, Race Director for the Great Alabama 650 (AL 650).
Around 2018, the board members of the ASRT wondered if it was possible to hold a race on Alabama’s unique river trail. They enlisted Greg Wingo to help bring it to reality. “I initially took some inspiration from the Yukon River Quest and the Texas Water Safari, but ultimately the AL 650 is a unique race with elements that don’t exist in any other race,” says Wingo.
They ultimately chose a 650-mile continuous portion of the Alabama Scenic River Trail that starts at Weiss Lake, in Cherokee County, and runs down through Gadsden, Pell City, Wetumpka, Montgomery, and Selma, then into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and finishes at the southern tip of Mobile Bay at Fort Morgan. “It is the longest paddle race in the United States,” says Wingo. “The next longest race in the country would be the Missouri 340, which is nearly half the distance of the AL 650. For solo categories, the AL 650 is the longest paddle race in the world. And overall, it’s the second longest race in the world, after the Yukon 1000.”
After nine months of planning, the inaugural Great Alabama 650 race launched in October of 2019. Growing each year in popularity and prestige, the AL 650 will be holding its seventh annual race in October of 2025. It’s now heralded around the paddling world as a premiere endurance race. “Up to twenty boats compete each year, with any model allowed so long as it is arm-powered paddling,” says Wingo. Some racers use long narrow-beam kayaks, some canoes, and a few standup paddle boards. The racers are also free to switch out boats depending on the waterway characteristics. One may use a surf-ski style kayak for speed on the calm lakes, but a stable sit-in kayak on the rapids in Wetumpka. Some compete as tandem while others ride solo. Local Alabamians typically make up a third of the participants, with the rest ranging from various parts of the world. To be considered, a racer must have finished one of the approved qualifying races within the last five years and must have competed in a solo or two-person tandem in that qualifying race. Prize purses of $2,000 each are awarded across three categories: Male Solo, Female Solo, and Two-Person Tandem.
Absent any hazardous flooding, the race carries on regardless of weather conditions. Each paddler is equipped with a GPX file of the entire route, so if they get lost, it’s on them. “The lakes in the beginning of the race are tough because of boat traffic,” says Wingo. “Then the rapids in Wetumpka cause many racers heartburn. The Delta is tough because there’s very few places to get off the water. But the toughest part of the race is probably the Bay, though, because conditions can change in a moment and it’s the last 50 miles of the race so racers are exhausted.”
Other than a 30- to 45-minute pause at the nine dam portages along the route, the racers are free to paddle nonstop, as their bodies allow. Most first-place finishers complete the route within four to seven days. Trey Reaves was the male solo winner for 2023 and 2024, with Bobby Johnson winning male solo every other year, except 2021 when West Hansen finished with a record male solo time of 5 days, 19 hours, 9 minutes. Salli O’Donnell has been first-place female solo every year except in 2024 when Ryan Gillikin won, finishing in 8 days, 18 hours, 37 minutes. The fastest overall record and tandem record was achieved by Joe Mann and Paul Cox in 4 days, 17 hours, and 2 minutes. For comparison, it would take an average paddler over two weeks to a month to finish the route. Needless to say, these are special folks.
A Few Local Racers
Ryan Gillikin grew up in Baldwin County, regularly sailing and windsurfing. But it wasn’t until she married in 2003 when her husband introduced her to kayaking that she took up the sport. “As soon as I started paddling, I knew I had found my passion,” Gillikin says. She and her husband built two Chesapeake 17 kayaks from kits and started racing throughout the southeast. When she heard about the Missouri River 340, she began yearning for the challenge of long-distance racing. “I thought I would have a one-off adventure for my 40th birthday in 2018, but once I got into it, I couldn’t stop.”
Gillikin then discovered the AL 650 while listening to a podcast. The race didn’t have a website yet, so she contacted the ASRT directly. “As soon as entries opened, I was the first to sign up,” Gillikin says. “The first year I raced tandem. Only three teams finished. Bobby Johnson finished first and won male solo, with Salli O’Donnell right behind him as the first female solo. It took us a few more days to finish, but we placed first for tandem.”
Gillikin returned the next year and finished third female solo. In 2021, she was out with an injury, and Wingo put her on staff duties for the race. “In 2024, I got serious about training and got a paddling coach. I also used faster boats and started training surf-ski,” Gillikin says. “I trained for a full year and had big goals. This was my fifth year racing so my first goal was to finish and get the 5-year award. I wanted to finish first female solo and to finish in the top 5 overall. I ended up finishing first female solo and 4th overall.” But exceeding her goals only fueled her fire. “After every race I think I will be satisfied, but I never am. I am taking 2025 off from racing the AL 650 but plan to come back even faster in 2026.”
Joseph Bolton had always been into cycling, even opening Pro Cycle Fairhope in 2011. However, a few years ago, he started paddling his age in miles as a personal goal. He thought exceeding 35 miles was impressive until a friend living on Mobile Bay told him about the AL 650. “Honestly, I thought those guys were crazy,” says Bolton. “I told him I’d never want to do anything like that.”
But Bolton kept up with the AL 650 on social media and eventually convinced himself that he could compete. After a lot of research, he started helping out at the races and competed in some qualifying events. Eventually, Bolton competed solo in 2024. “My primary boat in 2024 was an Epic V8. I did the whitewater section in my Wilderness Systems Pungo and a little bit of Mobile Bay in the Epic V7.” Bolton said he put in a solid year of training for the 650. “A majority of my training was in Mobile Bay and I’d swap to Fish River if there were small craft advisories. I would paddle almost every morning no matter how I felt when I woke up,” he says.
As Gillikin and Bolton demonstrate, most anyone can get into long-distance paddling, so long as they are willing to put the work in. Gillikin recommends researching the sport and testing the gear as first steps, then training as the last step. “I try to do a couple of shorter paddles of 3-10 miles during the week to work on speed and a long paddle on the weekends,” she says. “I am lucky to live on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and have multiple boat ramps just minutes from my house. The other nice thing about living on the Delta is that a lot of the times I can paddle upstream, so I don’t always need a shuttle. My favorite paddle is to get on the water around 3 a.m. and do a 25-mile sunrise loop through the braided rivers of the Delta.”
Gillikin stresses that the correct training is required to get your body acclimated to the marathon distances. “Several 20-plus mile paddles are a must. After that it is a mental game,” she says. “It is easy to quit when everything starts to hurt, and your mind tells you to stop. During the last 650 when I would get discouraged, I would tell myself, ‘No one can paddle 650 miles. That is ridiculous. But you can paddle five more miles. Anyone can paddle five miles’ and I just kept doing that until I reached the finish line.” As they say, eat an elephant one bite at a time.
The race guidelines have no sleep requirements, so balancing sleep deprivation without slowing down becomes one of the hardest aspects. “It’s something you can’t just train or study up on. The clock never stops!” says Bolton. “I probably slept more than most racers out there. But the rivers in the middle of the night are quite creepy and to mix it with sleep deprivation is quite the challenge.”
Gillikin shared a similar experience. “During one of the last 650 races I paddled all night the first night, slept one hour the second night and then one to three hours a night after that,” Gillikin says. “I have learned to manage sleep deprivation, but it is definitely one of the hardest challenges. It is something you can’t appreciate until you experience hallucinations, falling asleep while paddling and just falling apart mentally. One year I was coming through Bottle Creek in the Delta in the dark with no moon. I was hallucinating and seeing people on the bank. I love Bottle Creek normally, but that night I just wanted to get out of there, but I was falling apart mentally. The more I wanted to be out of there the slower I paddled. I called my husband, and he talked to me for a while and helped me to get going again.”
Hallucinations are not helpful when competing in such a wild environment. “The racers say that they’ve never seen more wildlife in a race than ours,” says Wingo. “Alligators, dolphin, sharks, snakes, bald eagles, bears, deer, wild boars, stingrays, and otters have all been regularly seen.” And in 2024, one of the racers had a gator encounter with their boat. But the unique wildlife and diversity is also one of the factors that sets the AL 650 apart from other races. “I love the scenery,” says Gillikin. “It is always changing with a good mix of rivers, lakes, portages, fern-covered cliffs, white water, the braided Delta, and of course the 50-mile Bay crossing. I have seen alligators, dolphins, deer, hogs, and even had a heron land on the front of the boat that kept me company for a while.”
The Crew
Each racer is responsible for his or her own support crew. A racer needs dedicated support to scout out rest spots, prepare food, switch out gear, and clean out boats, so the paddler can focus only on paddling. “They are the real heroes,” says Wingo, the race director. “They sacrifice their own sleep and eating and well-being for the well-being of the racers they are selflessly helping.” Some racers use a team of generous friends; some use one special person.
“My mom is my main crew person on most races and my biggest supporter. I could not have done all this without her,” says Ryan. “I have started adding a second crew person for more support because it is such a big job. Getting a solid crew is a challenge for a lot of racers. How do you ask someone to spend ten days in the backwoods of Alabama, taking care of you in the middle of the night, every night? Cleaning out your nasty boat and taking care of you when you feel like you are falling apart. A solid crew is invaluable and mandatory on the 650.”
Trevor Clarke grew up in Baldwin County and had spent a majority of his free time on the water, but he didn’t know anything about paddle racing until discovering the AL 650. “I came across the 650 on social media in 2020 and got super fascinated with it,” he says. “When the 2021 race came around I watched every paddler come through the Bay and watched a few finish at Fort Morgan. I have a fixation with gnarly endurance sports and there’s just nothing else like the great Alabama 650 around here.”
This led Clarke to Camp 650. In June of 2024, Wingo and Gillikin hosted the first Camp 650 to give people a chance to learn about the race and bond with other people who love the sport of paddling. Gillikin hosts the participants at her house as they paddle the Delta and Bay. “The Delta is one area where people have had difficulty navigating and going through Bottle Creek in the dark can be very disconcerting, so it is good for them to see it in the daylight,” she says.
The Camp uses a 50-mile section of the course that starts in the upper Delta around Mount Vernon and finishes on the beach of Fairhope, split up over two days along with bonfires, stories, and tent camping. The Camp is open to all paddlers as long as they are capable of paddling distances of 31 miles the first day and 16 miles the next. “Camp 650 was my first organized paddling event,” says Clarke. “As a newbie, it was intimidating pulling up and seeing everyone’s dedicated race vans with their race boats mounted on top, but they were all very welcoming and there to have fun. There was a mix of skill levels there, and it’s a ‘no-drop’ paddle, which means the freaky fast paddlers wait up on the slow paddlers.”
Later in the fall of that year, Joseph Bolton asked Trevor to serve on his crew for a couple of days. Some racers utilize the same crew for the whole race while some use shifts. Shifts were necessary for Bolton’s crew due to everyone’s busy schedules. “I supported Joseph from Selma to the Claiborne Dam, which took two days,” says Clarke. “This area is in the Black Belt region and is very remote. There were not a lot of good river access points or resupply towns, so we had to be very thorough in our planning.”
When one delay could ruin a year of training, it’s critical to have skilled support coordinating the location, timing, and replenishing of gear. “The support crew’s job is to take everything off the paddler’s plate except paddling,” says Clarke. “The crew follows the racer in a vehicle loaded down with anything that could be needed, from nutrition all the way to portable battery banks, backup gear, and First Aid. The crew oversees locating any potential stop points, communicating with the racer about them, and getting there before the racer so that we can have everything ready for them. On average the racers only stop briefly every few hours. When it’s time to rest at night, we’d set up camp and have a hot meal prepared.”
Although the Delta can enchant paddlers with gorgeous primitive scenes, it also presents deadly hurdles. “Logistically, the Delta is challenging due to long stretches of river without access points. Last year the Mount Vernon boat launch was closed for construction and the racers had to essentially paddle a whole day unsupported,” says Clarke.
“During the second year of the race, there was some sort of communications outage that occurred on the fifth day,” says Wingo. “There was literally no cell service or internet anywhere in the state. Gas pumps and store registers didn’t work. I couldn’t track the racers because there was no way to get online. It only lasted for about five to six hours but it was extremely stressful not being able to track or call anyone.”
Getting to the Finish Line
Logan Martin has boat traffic, Wetumpka has rapids, and the remote rivers have their hypnotic mazes, but ultimately Mobile Bay awaits as the final hurdle with its demanding unpredictability. “Crossing Mobile Bay is definitely the most challenging part of the 650,” Gillikin says. “It comes after you have already paddled 600 miles, and you are starting to give out. While the Bay can be slick calm at times, those times are never when I am racing. I have battled 15 to 20 mph winds and waves in the pitch black. Luckily, I live close enough to the Bay to train there often, but it is still a challenge.”
Bolton shares the same advantages and challenges. “Mobile Bay is the only part of the race where conditions can change rapidly. Luckily that is my main training area, so I had it pretty dialed in. Most of the course has no flow except for the rapids around Wetumpka which can vary depending on how much water is being released from Jordan Dam. When I entered Mobile Bay it looked like a reflecting pool. I couldn’t believe my luck. As I approached Montrose, the Bay started picking up and by the time I was in Fairhope we were dealing with getting broad-sided by white caps. The next morning the Bay had calmed down and I paddled to the finish at Fort Morgan.”
And with any sport, hearing the cheers of a crowd can boost morale and shift momentum. Especially for those that have been paddling for hours in dark remote rivers, wrestling with their own psyche. The AL 650 encourages people to come out and cheer on the racers. Crowds are typically larger in the northern parts of the trail where there is convenient access to the smaller river channels and lakes. “But anywhere that is public. On water or off is open for viewing,” says Greg. “We see people on docks, bridges, and boats throughout. For Mobile Bay, the best viewing spots are around Spanish Fort, Daphne, and Point Clear. Also, Fairhope Pier is pretty good too.”
The health of Mobile Bay, and Alabama’s upstream waterways, is extremely important to the racers and the organizers of AL 650. “We want to showcase to these racers and to the world the beauty and uniqueness of our waterways and the lengths we go to take great care of them,” says Wingo. But there are also practical reasons. “By the time a paddler makes it to the Bay they will have cuts and irritated skin so any amount of bacteria can have a huge effect,” adds Bolton.
The health of Mobile Bay is also important for the sport of paddling in general. “I think for overall enjoyment the health of our waterways is paramount,” says Trevor. “Our community can feel when our local ecosystem is doing well and when it is not. It can change our way of life. And there’s nothing better for everyone’s spirits than enjoying beautiful, healthy days outdoors.”
Once the racers exit the Delta, they follow the Eastern Shore on their route to Sailboat Bay and then straight across the ferry dock at Fort Morgan. The finish line is open to the public, and the more people, the merrier the occasion. Cahaba Brewing is routinely one of the sponsors of the race and attends the festivities with a beer tent as the racers paddle in one by one. “My favorite thing I did after I finished was crack open a beer,” says Bolton. “I hadn’t had a beer since the night before that start and that finish-line beer might have been the best beer ever.”
There is an AL 650 live paddle-tracker online that shows the real-time location of each racer, as well as their state and country of origin. “We invite the public to track the racers online and come out when they are finishing,” says Wingo. Despite the global admiration for the AL 650, Wingo notes it has not caught on as much in lower Alabama as other regions. Nonetheless, he welcomes all who want to learn more about this one-of-a-kind race and hopes, as interest grows with more publicity, that the AL 650 will shed more light on our state’s wonderfully unique waterways and the intrinsic fact that we are all connected.
