GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — It’s been a tough year for former top-ranked women’s kayaker Hanna Farrar of Carbondale, who makes her return to the national stage at this weekend’s U.S. Freestyle Kayak Team Trials in Glenwood following a devastating injury last spring.

In March 2008, Farrar and six friends were on a spring break trip in North Carolina running the Class IV and V rapids on the Green River’s famed Narrows, when she crashed into rock at the bottom of a 12-foot waterfall and broke both of her ankles.

At the time, the Dartmouth College student and 2005 Colorado Rocky Mountain School graduate was preparing for a promising season of competition. A member of the U.S. Freestyle Kayak Team, she was coming off a successful 2007 season that ended with a fifth-place world ranking in the senior women’s division.

Instead, she spent the past year in rehabilitation after surgeries to set and insert multiple screws in the bones of both ankles.

“I’m able to walk now, and every day it seems like life is pretty much back to normal,” she said in a Thursday interview before heading off to the Glenwood Springs Whitewater Park to practice for this weekend’s competition.

Her left ankle is healed for the most part, but she still suffers from arthritis in her right ankle and her motion hasn’t fully returned.

“It’s still pretty painful, especially if I’ve been on my feet all day,” she said.

The year wasn’t totally lost, however. The down time did allow her to focus fully on completing her pre-med studies at Dartmouth.

Now 22 and preparing to graduate in two weeks, her mind is mostly focused on taking her medical school entry exams later this summer and enrolling in med school in the fall.

While the path could include some top-level kayaking competitions, including a possible return to the U.S. team depending on the outcome this weekend, she’s taking a mostly laid-back approach for now.

Her first foray into a boat after her injury was this past April when she was helping to run a kayaking competition back east.

“I got in a boat and paddled across the river to check with the timer on something,” she said.

Later that month, she entered a Triple Crown competition in Connecticut that involved a downriver race, slalom and freestyle events.

“It was all right, but I didn’t take it too seriously,” Farrar said. “I definitely felt like I hadn’t been in a boat for a long time. It was mostly just fun to see a few people I hadn’t seen for a while.”

Her outlook is a little more serious heading into this weekend’s competition on the home front.

“I would like to do well,” she said. “I tend to do better in wave competitions. I feel like it has got to be somewhat like riding a bike.”

The top three senior women in the trials will qualify for the U.S. Team and earn the right to go to the World Championships in Thun, Switzerland, in August. However, one of those spots is already reserved for top-ranked freestyler Emily Jackson, who is prequalified for Worlds but is expected to be on hand for this weekend’s event anyway.

“All of the top boaters in the country will be here, so it will be fun to have some real competition,” Farrar said.

This is also her first time riding the new Glenwood wave, which she and her father, Davis Farrar, helped city officials plan. Davis is one of the event organizers this weekend.

“I spent some time here last summer watching my older brother [Matt] and taking pictures of him in the wave,” Hanna Farrar said. “It’s pretty impressive.”

Contact John Stroud: 384-9160

jstroud@postindependent.com