River Rafting Nightmare – Humor

I did not wake in a cold sweat. I woke incomprehensibly relieved to discover I was in bed. In my own house, next to my blissfully sleeping wife, dry and warm, and not where I had just dreamed I was.

Which, for a river rafting guide, was the equivalent of Dante’s ninth circle of hell.

I was on the bank of a river deep in the bowels of the earth. Upstream and downstream of me were imposing swaths of white water. The white water upstream threatened like it was going to spill over the banks and wash me and all the gear and my boat partner downstream into the hungry turbulence below.

It was formidable white water and I had no recollection as to how I had made it as far as I had.

My raft was old and listless with no kick in the bow or the stern. In my nightmare, it was empty, tethered to something on shore, bobbing slightly in the only calm water that could be seen.

The rapid surging below us reminded me of Ram’s Horn on the Wind River, but the terrain — dark, foreboding, precipitous cliffs blocking out the sunlight — conjured images of Skull Rapid in Westwater Canyon.

My boat buddy, Steve Laboff, seemed unperturbed by our predicament which I was just beginning to grasp.

“That sofa is going to make for a sweet ride,” he said. He plopped down on it and bounced up and down a little.

I looked about the beach and realized that everyone had launched and left us with not just the sofa, but the entire living room set. Loveseat, Ottoman, coffee table. . .

And the bedroom set.

And the dining room table and chairs.

“How in the hell am I going to get all of this on that boat?”

And, in my dream, THAT was my biggest concern. NOT — “How are we going to make it through those rapids with all this stuff?”

Or, “Why do I have a household of furniture on a river trip?”

And then it got worse.

I realized we didn’t have any means to rig any of it onto the flaccid, old boat. We had no webbing, no straps, not even any bungie cords.

As I stood on the bank taking it all in, the pounding of the water on the rocks gnawing at the back of my mind, the thought of balancing sofas and mattresses on each end of the raft and then negotiating boat-dwarfing waves, I could feel my anxiety rising.

That was when my dog, Daisy, jumped up onto the bow of the raft as if announcing that she was ready to go.

And I awoke incomprehensibly relieved I was not where I had dreamed I was. And there was Daisy at the foot of the bed, giving me the stinkeye, making a couple of turns before curling up into a ball of snoring fur.

River Rafting in Washington State

River rafting in Washington state peaks during the month of July, in terms of the number of people getting out and white water rafting. However, every season, regardless of the depth of Washington state’s snowpack, the peak flows happen much earlier.

I have been organizing, leading and rafting rivers in the state of Washington since 1975. I have seen every imaginable description of the snowpack. I have been rafting for so long in the Pacific Northwest, I remember when they changed (read: downgraded) the definition of ‘average’ snowpack in the Cascades because the snowpack was no longer accumulating to the extent it once did in earlier part of the 20th century.

I have also been guiding and rafting for long enough in the Northwest to report that, no matter what the snowpack is in February, or March, you would be presumptuous to state that the white water rafting season is doomed to bad water level conditions. This is because the spring could be colder than normal, drier than normal, wetter than normal or the snowpack could increase due to late snows, or the water content might increase due to cold spring rains, etcetera.

But, I am also aware that, as the recreational white water rafting industry in the state of Washington has matured, river rafting clients, who are averse to donning tight-fitting neoprene suits and layers upon layers of synthetic fabrics, continue to choose to raft when they are nearly guaranteed warmer weather and, hopefully, sunshine. Thus, the great majority of river rafting users journey over the mountains late in the spring, or early in the summer, sometime around the end of June, and what they are likely to find is low water.

That will definitely be the case in 2010.

If you are planning a river rafting trip in the state of Washington this season, and you are hoping for a memorable white water trip, I urge you to reserve your trip for May or early June. Beyond June, the best white water rafting trip will be the Wild & Scenic Sauk River which flows faithfully off the glaciers of Glacier Peak and should be navigable throughout the month of July. Which is another observation I have made over the decades.

A Seattle Times article today states that the snowpack on the western side of the Cascades is appreciably better than the easter side of the mountains.

What Lies Ahead, We Know Not

When John Wesley Powell launched his stolid but, ultimately, fragile boats down the unknown of the Colorado River system in the late 1800′s. The title was a common refrain amongst his hardy adventurers. The same phrase could be muttered about the future of river rafting.

In the few decades I have been floating rivers, inflatable rafts have not changed substantially from the military-issue models that I rafted the Green and Colorado Rivers with Prescott College in 1974. The military gave you the option of black, black or black. Self-bailing models arrived in the late ’80s and our Project RAFT Orion team was sponsored by Maravia to the use of a hot-pink Williwaw I during the competitive events at Nantahala Outdoor Center.

Inflatable manufacturers have experimented with boat designs — diminishing bow and sterns rather than symmetrical or asymmetrical, building boats with internal bladders as AIRE does and making rafts out of polymers (the movie The Graduate warned us in the ’60s — “One word. Plastics.”) instead of just rubber but, in general, rafts have evolved little. Of course, that one great leap forward, self-bailing floors, was a very significant step and led to the navigability of all sorts of rivers once deemed ‘unraftable’.

One constant seems to be that river running craft are being designed shorter and shorter, whether it is rafts or kayaks. Kayaks, especially, have changed significantly, with the reduction of their keel length. Waves that were once impossible to surf are now within easy grasp of the most wet-behind-the-ears kayaker with the right size boat and with the will to give it a try.

About ten years ago, some were experimenting with an inflated transparent ball that you climbed inside, like a hamster with a wheel, and used it to travel down a river. I think it was called a ‘Bronco’ ball, or something of the sort, and, even though you could float outrageous whitewater, control of the ball was minimal and the possibility of winding up in a hydraulic in perpetuity was high. I never saw them on a Washington river, so I imagine they have lost their cachet as far as whitewater goes.

On the other hand, ‘Creature Craft’ are now all the rage. Interestingly, Creature Craft have many similarities to the homemade monstrosities that used to come out of the Soviet Union. Basically, they are modified and fortified rafts with roll bars, seats and seat belts. Seat belts would normally be anathema to river rafting but, since they are ‘breakaway’ and since you are navigating water that is relentlessly white and churning, being separated from the craft is not an option.

These hybrid river rafting crafts are showing up at put-ins throughout the western United States and they are being launched down rivers that a majority of river guides would not wish to have anything to do with except in their dreams or nightmares. I am certain ‘Creature Craft’, unlike the Bronco Ball (which I seem to recall was hawked on late night television for a while), will continue to capture bold boaters’ imaginations. And so they will become a part of the long anthology of river running.

Where I have my doubts is whether or not they have a commercially viable future. There is no need for them in the usual whitewater tackled by most commercial boaters and how many outfitters want to send fleets of strapped down customers on incessant Class V-VI waters?

However, like Powell’s fellow intrepid adventurers, when it comes to the future of river running, “what lies ahead, we know not.”

The Story of Orion – Part 4

Change.

I am uncomfortable with change.

I wear the same clothes day after day, haunt the same haunts, perform the same routine over and over. Amongst the instructors, during guide training, the common refrain goes, “. . . but, we always do it that way!” And yet, between 1974 and 1976, I careened from one of the smallest colleges in the universe, to one of the largest universities ever built, to a state college in the farthest reaches of the continental United States.

In suburban north Dallas, my life was so free of change I attended elementary through high school without ever leaving one street! Arapaho was the name of the residential street where Arapaho Elementary, West Junior High and Richardson High School were located one after the other like some sort of meat processing facility or car manufacturing assembly line.

Arapahos were nomadic Plains Indians who never set foot in north Texas. I was a sedentary suburbanite who had hardly set foot outside of Texas. I love to observe the irony in these things.

In any case. . . change.

I landed in Bellingham and enrolled at Western for my third institution of higher learning in the same number of years. I expected my friend from Prescott, Bob Ratcliffe, to also be enrolled, but I learned belatedly from his (former, but unbeknownst to her) girlfriend, Marcy, that he had taken one of life’s little detours. She had no clear idea what his plans were but he hadn’t enrolled at Evergreen State either, which had been his first option. It must have caught her by surprise, as much as it had thrown me for a loop, because, within a quarter, she recollected her backpack and returned to Colorado.

I remained at Western on my own. I imagined Western, being a state college, would be filled to overflowing with local yokels. Hundreds of in-state students who hadn’t been accepted at the larger universities. Students whose grade points were not worth getting worked up over. Community college graduates climbing the academic ladder.

Imagine my surprise when the first dozen people I met were from out-of-state. And then the next two dozen people I met were from out-of-state. There were so many of us we formed our own little clique. I encountered Washingtonians who reinforced my stereotypical image and many who shattered it, but the cadre of folks I hung with were predominantly transplants.

I clearly remember the day I remarked to a table of new friends at a Fairhaven District teahouse that “I wouldn’t be surprised to look up one day and it will be six years later and I will still be in Washington.” It seemed incredible to be imagining such a long span of time in such a strange land. My comment was spoken after my first quarter of homesickness because I also remember re-packing my Pinto for Christmas break fully intending to return forever to the Lone Star State.

However, a sudden relationship with an erudite, environmentally sensitive blond sprite from Ohio brought me back to Bellingham. I say ‘sudden’ because it unfolded and sprung to life only a week before I packed to head home. We had been ‘study hall’ friends throughout my first fall in the Northwest, but intimacy had not surfaced until the eleventh hour. Our relationship didn’t survive the summer of 1977, but it served as the bridge between Texas and Washington that helped me to leave behind the past and begin to concentrate on my very own future.

Talk about a simple twist of fate. I have no idea what path I would be traveling if I had returned to Texas. Odds are, however, I would not know anyone in the Northwest that I know today. Once I arrived back in Bellingham I committed myself to the half-baked idea of pursuing a degree combining recreation and counseling.

But first I had to figure out how to survive monetarily. I enrolled in the work-study program and landed a job with Bellingham Parks and Recreation. What I loved most about my job with park maintenance was the carte blanche to drive a city vehicle with impunity — across park grounds, double parking in the roadway, driving the wrong way on a one-way street. In the fall of 1977, I scored a coveted position as a Resident Aide for the Fairhaven complex on the south end of the campus.

The Fairhaven R.A.s convened in early August and determined that the twelve ‘stacks’, or apartment buildings, at Fairhaven would each be given a theme and we would try and match the incoming students to the ‘theme’ of that dorm. I opted for the ‘Outdoor Recreation’ and ‘Environmental’ stacks.

Meanwhile, from the moment I drove back to WWU, I immersed myself in outdoor activities by proposing and leading river trips on the Skagit River through the college’s Outdoor Program. I was amazed at the ease with which I could check rafts out from the Outdoor Program on my flimsy credentials. It would not be inaccurate to say, after my brief apprenticeship on the Colorado River with Prescott, that I ‘cut my teeth’ refining my rafting skills on the mighty, ‘Magic Skagit’.

A spring trip in 1977 was an eye-opener for me. Michael Bellert and Linda Zimmerman, two new friends who recently moved from Chicago, and my high school sweetheart, Jill Jeanes, who had flown to the Northwest for a visit, suffered an icy dunking in the S-Turn when the hysterically historic raft we were paddling, known as a “World Famous”, stood on its hindquarters (if rafts had hindquarters to stand on) and the four of us unceremoniously slid into the frigid, emerald waters. No neoprene in miles, of course. Lots of New Zealand wool, however.

The “World Famous”, of unknown vintage and origin, was equipped with wooden slats for seats, instead of thwarts. To compound the hilarity of its design, the seats were varnished and the front end bulged like a snake in half-swallow. Additionally, the “World Famous” was as substantial as a gas station vending machine condom.

As we dropped into the entry of the S-Turn, and the bow bucked high toward the sky, Linda, Michael, Jill and I all slipped off of the seats like pats of butter on a hot roll. To be fair, the “World Famous” wasn’t meant to be a whitewater raft. But, also to be fair, we were, generally, clueless. When we returned our bedraggled selves to Goodell Creek Campground, we met an outfitter from Alaska who showed us what a real raft was supposed to look like and taught us our first drinking game. He and his wife also introduced us to a blended whiskey we were unfamiliar with. . . the drink of choice on hoary winter nights by gold-addled prospectors and wild-eyed river runners…Yukon Jack.

The Story of Orion – Part 3

Sometime during my first collegiate year, Prescott College, mired in financial hot water, lost its academic accreditation. Significantly, the staff of twenty-four professors, despite being booted off their remote, wilderness-like campus, and in spite of a loss of accreditation, chose to conduct their seminars and classes right out of their homes.

I returned to Prescott after Christmas break, and though I admired the professors’ temerity, I did not return to take classes. I couldn’t see spending perfectly good money on an education that wouldn’t transfer to any other university program. I spent the winter and spring of 1975 umpiring volleyball games, trying to commit suicide by instructing myself in skiing techniques like negotiating moguls (the knee-pounding humps, not the rich fat cats), and hiking in the Grand Canyon with my Prescott College friends.

I researched alternative colleges throughout the Midwest and West — Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio(!), Colorado College, Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri(!!), Jordan College in Minnesota(!!?) and the University of Santa Cruz in California. But, in a sudden schizophrenic direction change, I opted to enroll at the University of Texas’ Honors College — theoretically, a college within a college — 200 undergraduate students selected out of an enrollment of 50,000. But the main attraction for me to attend the University of Texas was the reunion with my high school friends and the proximity of three siblings — my two brothers and a sister.

Though I was enrolled in the Honors College for Liberal Arts, all that I remember from the entirety of those two semesters, was playing intramural sports. My brothers and I, along with my high school buddies, organized teams for everything — football, coed football, basketball, coed basketball, soccer, softball, volleyball, badminton and racquetball. Looking back, I have no idea how I found time to study. Perhaps I didn’t. I mean, we played sports and organized pickup games, even when we were not involved in our intramural games.

But the ‘outdoor bug’ had bit me. The trouble was that Texas didn’t feel like it had an ‘outdoors’.

There was, however, one notable exception.

It was during my University of Texas stint when my brother-in-law, Ed, hired a kayaking instructor who guided Ed, my brother, Mike, my father and I on a three-day whitewater kayaking trip on the Guadalupe River outside of Austin, Texas. He tried futilely to teach us to kayak from scratch. Teaching a mule to bake cornbread from scratch would have been easier. At least, the mule would have been less stubborn and would surely have bellyached less.

I think you can describe our experience as ‘fun’, but we spent most of our time swimming to shore with kayak in tow, or refusing to make any maneuver that might jeopardize our upright, above water, natural air-breathing position. I distinctly remember being exhausted from doing the one-armed crawl-stroke in my stone-washed denims.

None of us reminisce about our kayaking adventure, without recalling our physical exhaustion, Mike’s ability to avoid turning over (which either stemmed from his low center of gravity or a well-honed sense of survival) and our incredulity that Dad managed to clamber out of his sleeping bag on that first morning following a day of ingesting water and dragging his ass back to shore. But, clamber he did. And he kayaked with us two out of the three days. On the third morning he wised up and ran the shuttle.

Afterward, I invested a fair amount of time perfecting my roll in a swimming pool, but it was a few years before I ventured onto moving water in a kayak again. Of course, for a Texas boy, the ice baths of the rivers in the Northwest were never as enticing as the bath tub water of the Southwest.

The whole time in Texas I dreamed and schemed of returning to the West. I imagined a program and a university degree entitled ‘Wilderness Education and Counseling Psychology’. I had visions of a life of therapeutic outdoor recreation. In fact, Boston College offered a program along those lines, but Massachusetts was a long way from my ideal setting.

My Dad rode to the rescue again. An old friend of his was the Dean of Recreation at San Francisco State. Dad suggested I pick his brain in regards to wilderness recreation programs in the West. I phoned him and got his list of recommendations.

San Francisco State topped his list, of course, but he also plugged the University of Oregon and Western Washington State College. My best friend from Prescott, Bob Ratcliffe, tried steering me toward Evergreen State College in Olympia where we could create our own program and wouldn’t have to deal with grades and a traditional education.

I met Bob during my wilderness orientation and admired his outdoor savvy which was light-years beyond mine, but I was impatient to be finished with public schooling. The small taste of freedom that accompanied the unexpected turn-of-events at Prescott primed me to get on with joining the ‘workforce’. The thought of attending a school, which required critical thinking in order to emerge with a degree, seemed overwhelming and daunting. I wanted a ticket out of school.

In the end, I selected Western because the Recreation program included an emphasis on outdoor recreation, their classes were bunched together in what they called ‘phases’ — similar to Prescott’s intensive one or two subjects at a time in month-long ‘blocks’ — the campus was lovely with red brick paths and towering evergreens and, as a bonus, the wilderness reaches of western Canada were a mere hop, skip and a jump away.

I toiled through the scalding hot and blistering dry Dallas summer laboring as a nursery worker unloading semi-truck loads of fresh, chlorophyll-laden plants imported from British Columbia. Each time I climbed on board to start the unloading process, I would take a deep breath and the lure of the verdant Northwest grew more and more irresistible.

It was September of 1976. With just a week to go before classes were in session, I packed every possession possible into my 1972 pastel-blue Ford Pinto, the interior crammed full except for the driver’s seat, and set out on the interstate for one of the farthest corners of the lower 48 states — a sleepy little burg at the end of the interstate called Bellingham.