After completing a rigorous multi-month training regime, I ventured forth yesterday for my first real kayak river trip. My training included reading countless magazine articles, sleeping while a paddling DVD droned, buying everything that looked remotely outdoorsy and cool, eating a series of marathoner’s breakfasts, an ill advised swim in icy waters and a single trip around the backyard pond with my shifty eyed Labrador in hot pursuit. With my body tuned like an oversized bass fiddle and my mind as sharp as the next bend in a lazy stream, I was ready for the river!
My vehicle is ideally equipped for transporting recreational gear. It has a 5600 pound towing capacity, four wheel drive, traction control suitable for the harshest paved suburban streets, heated leather seats and a really high roof. On top of this roof is a factory rack. On top of this factory rack is an after market rack. On top of this after market rack is a set of tall J cradles to hold my kayak. On top of these J cradles there should be, but isn’t, a rack to hold a 12 foot extension ladder to aid in conveniently tying down my boat. The windage granted by this awesome display of tubular metal is enough to tack comfortably across the highway median in any crosswind.
Knowing that advance preparation is key to an efficient trip, I decided to load the boat the night before my big river adventure. Which is how I found myself clinging to the roof rack at 1 AM down by my pond with the neighbor’s vicious dogs nipping at my heels. The boat lay on the ground where gravity had recently deposited it. Apparently, the racket generated by my late night stealth loading session had awakened all the dogs in the neighborhood, which turned out to be a good thing because, as soon as they appeared, the coyotes slunk back into the forest.
Events beyond my control had conspired to launch the kayak off the rack and cause the racket that woke the village. After all, who can control wind, gravity and yard slope? I had carefully placed the bow of the kayak precariously into the front J cradle and then lifted and twisted the rear of the boat toward, but obviously not onto, the rear cradle. Just as the thought “well, that wasn’t so difficult” passed through my mind, the front of the boat twisted off the rack due to a strap failure and plummeted to the ground with a brief but costly stop at the rear view mirror. Note that straps left on the ground typically fail to hold boats in place. The subsequent coyote yipping, dog nipping and boat tipping caused adrenaline to surge through my clogged arteries and, with the aid of moonlight reflecting off the shiny metal exposed in deep gouges down the side of the vehicle, I heaved and hoed the boat back up onto the rack. Firmly tied down with 347 yards of webbing, I drove back to the driveway and retired for the night. Perhaps I should have retired from the sport.
Dawn’s morning light revealed the ridiculous excess of the night before (I fondly remember when such a line referred to more than a piece of fiberglass), so I bounced the boat off the pavement and spent a hectic hour reattaching everything. With springs groaning under my load of EPG (essential paddling gear), I headed for the river.
There are two schools of thought concerning the need for fore and aft tiedowns when transporting a canoe or kayak on the roof. The first school advocates the use of tiedowns as belt and suspenders protection against air launched boats. The other school has never ridden with me whilst transporting a watercraft. It is true that my first kayak launch occurred near, but not near enough, the Mississippi in St. Paul, MN. I did not intend to launch the boat anywhere near the river and most certainly not three miles from it, but loose screws have a way of generating excitement at highway speeds. Did that come out right?
Firmly tied down, I headed for the put in and clipped no more than two trees en route. The tiedowns came in handy when I calculated, at the last possible second, that I did not have the prescribed seven foot clearance noted on the overhead sign at the gas station. The brakes on my trusty vehicle perform extremely well. Surprisingly, my knots held.
My destination was the Fox River in Wisconsin. For the navigationally challenged, Wisconsin has provided two distinct Fox Rivers so that if you miss one, you still have a chance to save face by stumbling upon the other. By unusual good fortune, I actually arrived at the correct Fox River in the southern half of the state. This location had several unique advantages for discriminating paddlers such as myself. First and foremost, there are Dairy Queens within easy walking distance of both the put in and take out. Second, and far less important, the river is lazy (which is to be expected given the proximity of doze inducing desserts) and winding, perfect for the first time paddler.
I now approached that most crucial phase of a river trip: meeting the new paddling partner. For convenience, I will call this eminent paddler “Phil” since that’s what his parents have called him throughout his life. Several weeks ago I posted a notice on the local paddling board looking for a partner for early season adventures. Phil made the mistake of responding and, given that ours were the only two trucks in the parking lot and they both had kayaks on top, well, it would have been socially awkward for him to back out upon meeting me.
Phil has been kayaking for ten or twelve years, which gives him ten or twelve years more experience than I. Bowing to this experience, I agreed that we should load my boat on his truck and head for the put in. Unfortunately, Phil only has a full size pickup truck so I had to leave half my gear behind. With a total lack of acrobatics and disaster, we placed my boat next to his and headed north.
For quite a ways.
I figured we would round the first bend of the river, find a nice grassy spot and launch. That would give us a difficult, but doable, 30 minute paddle and then we could get on with our day. Phil stuck to our original plan instead and we headed all the way up to Burlington. The drive took a good 20 minutes and by the looks of all the crookedness in that river, it was going to take considerably longer to come back down. I knew I should have packed a trolling motor.
Arriving at a very pleasant park, I scouted the river carefully. I may be a rookie but I have learned a thing or two from books. I looked carefully at the water.
“Which way do you think it’s flowing?” I asked.
“Downstream,” Phil responded.
“Sure, here but what about the other side of the bend there?”
“Still downstream.“
I stuck a weed in the corner of my mouth, looked knowingly at the trees for signs of wind, stretched out my hand to check for rain from the clear blue sky and carefully surveyed the entire park.
“It flows to the right,” Phil stated with the wisdom of years.
“I was just about to guess that,” I responded, at least half truthfully.
Phil prefers to take the kayaks off the truck without dropping them. Since this was our first meeting I agreed to go along with that unusual procedure. I’ll teach him my way next time.
Almost ready to hit the waves, it was time to gear up. I am a traditionalist and I like to keep my gear as light and simple as possible. That starts with clothing. There’s certainly no need to get all fancy with too many technical clothes. I was content to don my meager kit consisting of sou’wester hat, capilene underwear, polypropoline underthere, long sleeved neoprene top, fancy artificial sweatshirt guaranteed not to induce sweating, ear muffs, touchy feely sticky gloves, long neoprene bottoms, splash pants, dry socks, dive boots, fleece jacket, wind shell and PFD. That’s what I wore. I had to stow another complete set of clothing in the boat in case I should fall out and, miraculously, not sink straight to the bottom.
As my core body temperature soared past 106, I attempted to strip off half my clothes. It is quite difficult to move under all those layers and I feared I would have to slice through several layers of high tech fabrics. Alas, I could not reach my always-at-hand knife so I resorted to rolling about on the ground while sweating off ten pounds.
Phil dozed contentedly at a nearby tree dressed in clothes you might expect someone to wear on a mild Spring day. Which, of course, describes the day in question rather well.
Finally free of excess garments, I loaded my faithful watercraft with all the necessary equipment for our half day paddle. I loaded the aforementioned set of dry clothes in a dry bag, put a granola bar in an inconvenient corner of the cockpit and loaded my few remaining essentials. These included: spare paddle, air horn, signal mirror, first aid kit, paddle float, throw line, insect repellent, sunscreen, quick dry towel, whistle, knife, multitool, matches, match carrier, water (5 gallons), silverware, place settings, serrated saw, cable saw, chainsaw, Dutch oven, Belgian stove, flares, fire extinguisher, pots, pans, space blanket, compass, mukluks, sleeping bag, hammock, machete, 300 yards of low stretch rappelling line, crampons, three spare hats, sunglasses, binoculars, camera, spare camera, film (stored separately for safety), portapotti, sunshower, life raft, mobile army surgical hospital, satellite phone, GPS, throwing axe, radar, cell phone, two tin cans connected by string, half cord of oven dried firewood, fly fishing rod, jar of flies, DVD player, charts for the lower Mississippi (in case we got seriously off course), shovel, cot, my teddy bear, toilet paper (biodegradable), anchor (not biodegradable), Tolstoy’s War and Peace, two dozen eggs and a pamphlet entitled “You’re paddling now!”
I left both the ruffed grouse and the fruit bearing tree where I found them.
Phil had a kayak, a paddle and a PFD.
“Phil, what’re you doing?” I asked, incredulous at his lack of rampant consumerism. “Don’t you know you need enough gear to be self reliant out there? Anything could happen!!!”
“Well, to each his own. In place of self reliance gear, I prefer to rely on myself. In a pinch I suppose I could always wade out of the river, up the bank to the nearest house and ask to use the phone.”
I could see clearly now that I would have to keep a close eye on my partner to make sure he remained safe and dry. With that thought in mind, we were ready to board the boats.
The conniving current of the mighty Fox River threatened to tear my kayak from my grip before I even got it in the water. I felt the tug tug tug of nature on the boat as I desperately wrestled her to the ground.
“What’re you doing?” Phil enquired.
I turned quickly and saw that Phil was the source of all that tugging as he carried my boat to the riverbank with me more or less in tow.
“Just set it down here and get in,” he wisely counseled.
I searched my mental archives for all the special contortions required to properly seat myself in the cockpit. I placed my paddle behind my back, put it in front again and assembled the two pieces, put it behind again, leaned on the paddle towards shore, slid onto the back of the boat and ... slipped.
My catlike reflexes quickly compensated for the slip and then overcompensated for the compensation. Before I could say wet exit, I was rocking like a baby. I quickly squared my shoulders, looked toward the horizon and the rocking ceased! Absolutely amazing! The books and videos were right! Turning towards shore to share my revelation with Phil, I suddenly noticed that he was right next to my boat. So close, in fact, that he had no trouble keeping both his hands firmly planted on the gunwales where, apparently, they’d been for the past several minutes.
“Might want to work on that entry a bit, Skipper. I might not be so near next time,” he informed me. How do you figure he knew I was a skipper?
“I’ve never seen someone rock the boat so treacherously while still firmly ashore. You’ll need to shove off a bit to float. You’re pretty heavily ballasted.”
“I prefer the term ‘Rubenesque’. Would you like some help getting into your kayak?” I offered.
“Sure,” Phil replied, looking around. “But who…oh, you mean YOUR help, er…I’m fine on my own. Thanks just the same,” he replied before nimbly sliding into his boat.
And so came the moment of truth. Once I shoved off into Ma Nature’s grasp there would be no turning back. I would be swept along like a boat in a current with no more control over fate than a newbie has over his kayak. I savored the moment and thought sorrowfully of those unfortunate men and women confined by circumstances to dull lives ashore. I then seal launched myself off the two inch mudbank
I stunned even myself with my immediate grace and style as I pirouetted to the middle of the river. Like the nimblest ballet dancer, I spun in ever tighter circles to the amazement of all on shore. Feeling a bit dizzy, I finally dipped my paddle on the other side to try and halt the dance. The ballet devolved into a slam dance as my boat (not I, you understand, but my boat) tripped over the paddle and nearly sent me into the drink. I recovered and began the day’s long paddle. I then turned around and headed downstream, a navigational trick that would undoubtedly shorten the day’s paddle a bit.
As we rounded the first bend (one of us a bit more roundly than the other), a roar filled my ears. Not until the truck passed by and silence returned did I notice the real danger ahead. Whitewater! Churning, leaping, frothing, boiling, dancing, screaming, gurgling water stretched across the river! How had this rapid escaped the notice of the guidebook author? More importantly, how would we escape the cauldron?
An island blocked the center of the river just upstream of a railroad bridge. To the left, nothing but spume. To the right, uninterrupted churning. Since my mother raised a polite son, I allowed Phil to go first. When he disappeared downriver, I knew my obligation and gave chase, ready to rescue my fellow boatman.
I paddled furiously through thundering waves, over vertigo inducing vertical drops, across bottomless holes and near dangerous cross currents. After ten yards of this living hell, I shot out the other side, caromed off the bridge abutment and dug deeply for the freedom of quiet water beyond. I dug so deep that I nearly left my paddle behind as it sank into the river bottom three inches below my keel.
Thankfully, I saw Phil bobbing ahead of me staring downstream, obviously in shock.
“What did you think of THAT?” I asked.
“Of what?” he wondered, obviously suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome.
As Phil continued paddling downstream, I paused to make notes for future paddlers. I consulted my handy “Canoee Louee’s Guide to Rivers, Rapids and the Rats that Run Them” for a precise classification of the violence we had paddled through, over and under. Canoee Louee defined Class VI rapids as suicidal and run only by lunatics. That seemed to describe paddlers more than water so I continued down the list. At last I found a precise description of the conditions prevailing on the river that day. BEWARE fellow paddlers! The section of the Fox River just downstream of Burlington contains a short but violent section of RIFFLES. My duty is done, you have been warned.
I put away my reference library and resumed paddling.
By this time, Phil was a good ways downstream. I studied his style and technique with an eye towards improving my own. Phil had a very workmanlike forward stroke. First one side, then the other in an uninterrupted binary pattern. Gentle strokes with little noise propelled him straight down the middle of the stream. His boat glided effortlessly.
Poor Phil. With that technique he would never appreciate the river the way that I did. Zig zagging from shore to shore brought me close to all of nature’s endless buffet of delights. I visited snags, sinkers, sweepers, strainers and mudbanks aplenty. I reveled in the fragrance of new leaves on delicate braches as they scraped across my nose. I explored previously un-run sloughs, ditches and dead ends. I accomplished all of this with no intentional effort whatsoever. A true natural explorer.
My technique also afforded me much more exercise. Lifting copious amounts of water with each stroke strained my shoulders and gave abundant warning of my approach to creekside wildlife. The strength of my stroke quickly became evident as each dig into the water would powerfully crab the bow of the boat one way or the other, and sometimes both ways at the same time. To prevent overuse injuries, I also varied my stroke pattern. Whereas Phil would paddle forward stroke right, forward stroke left a hundred times without interruption, I devised a more freeform rhythm. Forward stroke left, sweep right, sweep right, sweep right, back stroke left, forward stroke right, sweep right, sweep left, brace right, reverse paddle to try powerface on the other side.
Likewise, Phil tended to keep his hands in the same place at all times with a gentle grip and rhythmic rotations of the shaft. I knew that the paddle engineers didn’t make these shafts out of Kevlar for nothing so I applied a lot of force with my grip. Even modern materials have their limits, however, so I kept my hands dancing along the shaft like a cellist who doesn’t want to wear out his instrument or play the same notes too often.
I hesitate to mention this for fear of embarrassing my paddling partner, but Phil also apparently misread the instructions for assembling his paddle. The two blades weren’t even closely aligned. At a rest stop, I thought of gently correcting his error but, before I could raise the issue, he suggested I feather my paddle in the same manner. He claimed it would increase my efficiency, encourage straighter tracking and make a lot less noise. Perhaps, but what good things would it do? In the name of waterborne amity, I twisted my paddle out of line and tried it out. I honestly don’t understand where the efficiency gains are supposed to come from. The airborne blade presented full resistance to the wind while the wet blade skimmed along parallel to the surface. Not much power there. I returned to my tried and true splash bang method of paddling and resumed my scenic route downstream, across stream and, occasionally, upstream.
I glimpsed Phil around a distant bend in the river. As he seemed to be tiring, I shouted out a suggestion for a full rest stop and lunch break. He gratefully agreed and with little force left in his arms, Phil glided to a stop alongshore. Still full of verve, I slammed into a tree.
Even I will admit that it felt good to stop. My feet had fallen asleep and their snoring had awoken my stomach. Time to get some well earned chow and stretch the toes a bit.
After disentangling myself from the tree, I prepared to disembark. At this point I noticed some irritating details of river life. First, every place the river water touches is wet. That wouldn’t be a big deal if the riverbanks were made of synthetic pool liner material but they are not. Instead, someone has seen fit to line the rivers with dirt which, when mixed with water, turns to mud. Second, there are no dock cleats to be found anywhere along a dockless river. If I had remembered a bow line that omission would have been all the more irritating. Finally, disembarkation ladders are apparently too new fangled for the river crowds.
Fortunately, I am an outdoorsman so I easily overcame these inconveniences. In order to keep my lovely kayak clean, I kept it a couple feet offshore. I then looked into the muddy water and determined the depth must be only an inch or so since that was as far as I could see. With all in order, I braced with my paddle, slid up onto the aft deck and solidly stepped ashore.
Into a foot of muddy water. And an additional foot of muddy mud.
With one foot firmly stuck in the muck and the other gyrating wildly in the air (and both feet soundly asleep), I performed several new dance steps as my kayak drifted gently away. (In sailing circles this is known as “doing a half Brennan”)
Phil suggested I retrieve the boat before it tasted saltwater 1500 miles downstream. I lunged for it using my paddle as a spear, sunk my other foot down a deep in the mud and snagged it. As I pulled it towards shore, I lost my balance and quickly retired to a sitting position on the rather muddy bank. The total effect of all these shenanigans did not result in a clean boat.
We shared a companionable lunch of granola bars and Snickers as I reconsidered my recent retirement from the sport of sailing. Although I recalled several instances of sinking masts (upside down) into the mud, I could not recall getting myself covered in primordial ooze. Of course, that stumble through the ice and into the eight foot hole several years ago didn’t count because the mud was frozen rather than oozy. No, I was not iceboating at the time. Sort of. Perhaps all sports have such endearing moments, at least for me.
As we took to the water again (I won’t bother to tell you about the re-embarkation process), I became a little concerned with navigation. As I zigged past Phil, I asked if he had brought a chart. When I zagged past again, he replied no but he thought it best we simply head for the takeout where we had left my car.
“What if you fall behind and I zoom right past the takeout? How will I know?” I asked.
“Well, there’s a dam about 28 miles downstream. If you go over it, you’ve gone too far.”
“Is the dam river left or river right?”
“Yes, yes and river middle. Just follow me and you’ll be fine.”
I had really been worried that Phil might fade in the home stretch but he seemed to keep pace with me so I grew less concerned that he would get lost. Even so, there were details about our float plan that really bothered me.
“The river sure does get twisty through here. Just like we saw from the road, right?” I queried.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s changed much in the past few hours. Except for that bank erosion where you came ashore.”
“Been out here a few hours already, huh? Doesn’t seem that long because, well, it seems a lot longer.”
“Just say it,” Phil suggested.
“What?”
“You know what you want to say, just spit it out.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, “but only because you are a family man and I want you to feel at home.”
“Get on with it already!”
“Ok, ok. ARE WE THERE YET??? HOW MUCH FARTHER??? I HAVE TO GO WEE WEE! I WANT ICE CREAM!! I WANNA GO HOME! ARE WE THERE YET?????????”
“No.”
“Ok. I’ll just keep checking back every three minutes or so to make sure.”
And I did.
Farther downstream, I truly began to feel like a professional athlete. Even though I had trained very little for this particular trip, I knew I could now swap locker room tales with the best ball players because I had a finely tuned sense of my body. I now knew precisely where my rotator cuff was and precisely how many tendons and ligaments were in my arms. I could see most of them as they glowed red through my skin. Surprisingly, I felt no muscle soreness whatsoever. But then, shoulders, elbows, wrists and knuckles are not commonly referred to as muscles.
Phil mistook my grim determination for a grimace of pain and asked if I was feeling all right.
“Never better,” I muttered.
“It might help if you used a little torso rotation. Really takes the strain off the arms.”
“Well, that’s easy for you to do because you are constantly rotating your torso to look back in my direction. You have lots of practice. I have to keep an eye out for you up front.”
“You can take the lead,” he offered.
“I would but I’m not sure you could follow my wake.”
“A snake couldn’t follow your wake. Nonetheless, feel free to pass on by anytime. Just keep twisting your torso and you’ll feel better. Might even help you go straighter.”
I tried a test twist on the off chance that he had learned something in 12 years that my 12 minute video had not covered. Several internal pieces of my anatomy came apart in response. I resumed my gravedigger forward stroke.
As my body shut down, I turned on a dim light in my brain and performed some mental gymnastics to keep my mind sharp. I computed the distance from put in to take out (if it really existed at all and not been washed away hours ago) as 13.8 miles. By the time we arrived, Phil would have paddled 13.8 miles. I, on the other hand, according to my GPS and boat odometer, would have paddled precisely 86.70796 miles. That number seemed hauntingly familiar. I quickly divided it by 13.8 and again by 2. Sure enough, the result came in at 3.141593. Pi. This was amazing. On my very first trip out, I had paddled circles around my partner! Not only that, some inner calculator had constantly adjusted my direction and stroke rate so that I would arrive at precisely the same time as Phil even though I had paddled all over the state! Shackleton, Bligh and Cook had nothing on me when it came to precise, real time navigation calculations.
As I complimented myself on my various amazing feats, I floated sideways under a bridge and nearly missed the take out. Only a last minute power stroke (and a handy grab of the bow by Phil) prevented me from being swept clear to the Mississippi 400 hundred miles away.
I stumbled out of the kayak, kissed the ground, swore off boating forevermore and fell at the feet of a stranger. A stranger in a strange hat. The hat was about 14 feet long, dayglo orange and pointed in the ends.
“How was your paddle?” the bright eyed kayaker asked as he approached the river bank.
“Perfect!” I sang .
“Now that it’s over,” I muttered under my breath.
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