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.”

River Rafting Pastimes

No reason to be thinking about rafting with fresh snowfall on the ground in Leavenworth, except I just received an invitation to compete in a nationally-sanctioned horseshoe tournament to be held in Petaluma, California, in the spring after finishing third in my division at the World Senior Games in St. George, Utah.

I started throwing ‘shoes on a Green River raft trip in the mid-80s.  The Green is a tributary of the Colorado, and this was one of those “busman’s holidays” river trips where guides come together following a season of harrowing, heart-warming and hubristic experiences to . . . unwind.  Despite being an expatriate Texan living in the Northwest, I had never thrown a horseshoe in my life.  As a matter of public record, the only horse I ever rode I paid twenty dollars an hour for the privilege to do so.

I cottoned to throwing horseshoes from the outset.

Unlike slow pitch softball, you could be competitive in horseshoes with a beer in hand.  Now, I don’t consume alcohol to excess, but I have attempted to play third base with a buzz and that has to rank fairly high as one of the dumbest things I have ever done.

Horseshoes is competitive, but it is also very social.

I liked the heft of the shoe in my hand and I liked the concentration required to be competitive.  It helped that I pitched on my slow pitch coed softball team, since the motion is similar and the official distance is almost identical.  I was pre-accustomed to trying to drop an object close to another object at forty feet.

Of course, what really sealed the deal for me was the ease with which horseshoes could be packed up and carried along on a river trip.  The shoes and the posts are as heavy as cast iron metal, but — hey! — river rafters cart cast iron Dutch Ovens down the gnarliest of rivers as our primary means of cooking.  Another heap of metal is not an issue.

Other than horseshoes, I suggest a game I learned long ago — from the era of Stewart Brand and the age of New Games — called Hunker Hawser.  All you need is a forty foot length of dry tubular webbing, two stable objects to stand on and two willing competitors.  Place the “platforms” fifteen feet from one another, or so, have the participants start with each holding the webbing in hand while mounted on the “platforms” (which on a river trip could be ammo cans or buckets).  Each contestant should have an equal amount of excess webbing to be fair.

The objective is to pull one another off their platform by tugging or releasing.  It is similar to the technique you might use fishing and like fishing you don’t fully let go of the webbing as you wouldn’t fully let go of your fishing rod.

In any event, I was the master of this riverside game with its combination of balance and sly cunning, until I ran into Jasper Hickman.  A former All-State lineman and a bear of a man, Jasper was an immovable object on a bucket and coupled that with a fine sense of how to ‘play’ his opponent.  Suffice it to say, if Washington river runners had their own All-State accolades to hand out in regards to Hunker Hawser, Jasper would earn one without any doubt.  He was unbeatable.

Consequently, on a river trip, I am going to stick with horseshoes.