Mitigating Risk in the Wake of Tragedy

The Cheoah is a river whose beauty and danger are inextricably intertwined.

I’ve stared down rivers before. Hollow, thousand—yard kind of gazes, checking just one more time for a line that isn’t there, one that I felt like I could live with for a moment. Maybe hoping my patient attendance might compel the river to nudge the conditions in my favor. The river stares back, without acknowledgment, long after I’ve given up and looked away. The river is always honest about its nature, and while too many times it seems as though the water is on our side, sharing the same ride, it’s merely coincidence. Even as we weave ourselves deeper into the fabric with grace and trust, there is no immunity, no loyalty reciprocated. Our familiarity, expectations, and comfort actually change nothing about the river and its potential. Callous one minute, benevolent the next - there is no pattern. There’s an asymmetry between our desire to “understand why” and the continual, indifferent hum of the universe and everything in it. We’re programmed to stare down the threat, and wait for it to look away. Yet this is rendered irrelevant under the simple response of water to gravity. As humans we’ve staked our whole strategy on “why” and “how”. But the river simply “is” - and it’s the things that “are” which can be the hardest to accept.

I haven’t always loved the Cheoah. I still remember the first actual recreational release. Logistics were a bit of a disaster, as paddlers were required to ride to and from the river in buses from Robbinsville. In the midst of the brewing gridlock, we gave up and went to the Ocoee. I took my first run on the Cheoah a while before that though. A big flood had washed out Highway 129 and we were out there the day after, with the river running around 4500 cfs. Young and enamored with a river brimful of crashing water, I paddled the lower two miles, careful to dodge the Komatsu excavator digging rocks out of the entrance to Bear Creek Falls, staying far right on the big drop, and ferrying my slicer hard left with determination through the chaos below, squeezing by a huge hole that covered most of the channel with inches to spare. Below the Tapoco Lodge we all got annihilated in successive, angry holes, before congregating below in the lake. It was a scary, yet inspiring experience.

After paddling the river a few times once releases began, I didn’t quite get the thrill. I was head-over-heels into the world of steep creeking, and the Cheoah just didn’t have enough “drops”. As my skill improved though, I traveled to paddle in other locations and discovered the wide range of styles of whitewater that are available. I started to realize that the Cheoah offered a type of paddling that is hard to find in the south, and that it scratched an itch that a drainage ditch never could. I found in the Cheoah a river that not only you could water-boof to your soul’s delight, but a river you could lean into and become one with. The experience of dropping into big diagonals, using your body to break through features, and pushing through dense water with your head tucked produced a kind of soaking wet flow-state that delivered me into the lake giddy and fuzzy-headed, every time. It was pure action. One lap I was paddling so fast and getting blasted so hard in the face by the river that by the time I hit Tapoco Lodge, I had actually washed away all the tear film from my eyeballs. Floating through Yard Sale with blurred, halo vision was surreal, and I was relieved to discover that it was temporary! Leland Davis was right to compare the Cheoah to the burly, continuous rivers found in Idaho. And we were lucky as southerners to have a little taste of it so close by.

Looking down towards the bottom hole of Python, which may be much more dangerous than we realize. It’s the middle hole in the picture on the right side, just upstream of a mid-stream Sycamore Tree.

Unfortunately there are two sides to every coin, and pushy continuous whitewater is dangerous in a way many of our local creeks are not. Add in the rocky nature of Southern Appalachian rivers, and we’re left with the reality that the Cheoah is a nasty place to be out of your boat. Compounding the risk is a riverbed that was essentially dry for 80 years due to a hydro-diversion, which caused trees to grow throughout the streambed. While many work-days have been organized over the years to remove dangerous trees and stumps from the unnatural places they have resided for so long, there are still hazardous rocks and remnants of trees in the stream bed. It is these realities that have led to the current moment we are in, where since releases have began we have lost four experienced paddlers on the Cheoah, three of which in one rapid. All of these people were highly experienced veterans, and loved by so many, and it’s very difficult to lose them to a river that they and so many others love so much. I did not know any of the wonderful people who passed away on the Cheoah very well, but they were familiar faces in a tight-knit community, and I feel very much for their families, and our small little tribe of river-lovers.

So here we are. Reconciling “why” with “is” will always be painful. But we have to find a way to carry on. Some may decide the Cheoah is just not worth the risk. Others may keep doing it the way they always have, and yet many more I anticipate will try to adapt a way of moving down the river that will mitigate more of the risk. In order to move forward, we must acknowledge and accept what is, and then adapt as individuals to find a way to paddle the Cheoah as safely as possible, if at all. It’s a very personal decision how to proceed. After reading much written by the community in response to the latest drowning, I feel compelled to share my thoughts about what needs to change. I want to stress that I pass absolutely no judgement on anyone who has run the Cheoah and the style with which they have done it. Paddling style is a personal choice and I support the notion of paddling as a sport unchained by convention and externally imposed limits. With that said, I have spent many years now focused on the various methods of safely moving down dangerous rivers, and I wish to not only respond to some of the proposed solutions, but also recommend the changes that I think would be effective at reducing any future toll this great river may take on our community.

We are the solution. Our ability to adapt is our greatest strength. I have heard discussion of filling in hazardous looking voids in rocks with concrete, hiring someone to hang out with a rope, and putting up signs along the river corridor. All of this is passing the buck. If as paddlers we wish to be seen as capable, competent, self-reliant, and accountable as groups and as a community, we need to change our culture of movement down the river.

Early on my friends and I were often out paddling rivers we didn’t necessarily have the skills to complete full descents on. We had no guide, and no free advice. We had to make the right decisions every time. Even if the consequences weren’t as serious as we suspected, we had to operate under the assumption that it could get real. We just didn’t understand enough about whitewater, paddling, and reading the water to be confident. So we scouted. We portaged. We set safety. We threw ropes. If anyone was concerned about a particular spot, we worked together to create support and protection. It didn’t take more than a few years of this constant existence on the edge of our comfort zone, and the critical ingredient - prudent action, that we became confident. Often enough there was one specific rock or feature that was the problem with a section. Easy enough - set a rope, a pair of hands, and protect. But it got complicated when the water got more continuous. Scouting took longer, setting safety could be tedious and time consuming. Portaging took longer. And it was and still always is, tempting to just route it and skip all the work.

I’m seeing lots of searching after this latest accident, and much of it is the desperate hunt for a rock or tree, or static feature, that we can blame for these tragedies. It facilitates a quicker, lower-effort solution, like filling a crack with concrete, or putting up a sign. But the reality is that what makes the Cheoah so dangerous is the same thing that makes it so wonderful - it’s stacked. One drop and rapid after another with no break for hundreds of yards at a time. The river just doesn’t stop, and particularly the section from a few hundred yards above Bear Creek Falls down to several hundred yards below is essentially one single, large, pushy rapid full of drops, holes, ledges, and big waves. It’s my strong inclination to think that the fatalities that have occurred are not from rocks in the river, but the water itself. The truth is that the Cheoah exposes paddlers to a higher risk of flush-drowning than most other rivers in the region.

The solution is to slow down, eddy out, get out, scout, set safety, and portage if necessary. This is the process by which most advanced paddling trips adhere to, particularly exploratory trips. We should be doing this more on our home runs too though. Doesn’t it make sense that if there’s a risk of flushing on a long set of powerful rapids that your group would get out and set a rope? Maybe even multiple ropes?

I’m reminded very much of how rock climbing works.

Take the Grand Teton for example. Mostly just hiking/scrambling, the Grand does have 3 short sections with insane exposure and 5th class moves up to 5.4 (for the layperson, legit vertical climbing with no room for mistake). They are all back to back. If you free-solo, which scores of folks do, quite reasonably, it takes 30 minutes to work through this section. If you use protective gear and a rope to safely belay even just a two-person team through this same stretch, it will probably take two hours or more. The question for any potential climber is: How much extra time is your life worth? For the true experts, it may indeed seem rational to just climb up quickly without protective gear. The moves are pretty easy for anyone with experience, and the extra time to protect the route seems like overkill. Conversely, newer, less experienced climbers would probably do well to just bring the gear, take the extra time, and enjoy the extra layer of safety. Not only that, but they’ll learn a lot more about placing gear, cleaning, building belay stations, rappelling, and the like. Any given summit day on Grand Teton, there’s a mix of folks both free-soloing, and protecting the route. What bothers me when watching others paddle the Cheoah, is that regardless of how a group or person appears to be performing, and the level of experience, it seems like almost everyone is “free-soloing” - to borrow from the climber’s lexicon.

To be as clear as possible, we all need to look at our skill level, group, daily confidence, the water level, and all other conditions, every time we do anything, and decide what kind of protection we need. Maybe some days we’re feeling the fire and decide to rally a solo lap with no eddys. Maybe other times that’s not the call. Maybe sometimes there are externalities we aren’t even responsible for that change what the right decision is, down to the instant. We have an incredible toolkit at our disposal. I’d love to see more people scouting and setting safety everywhere on the Cheoah, but particularly in the area surrounding Bear Creek Falls. That section is just too serious to not see more folks slowing down and placing protection for their group.

Below is a diagram I’ve made of that part of the river that shows many of the primary features, lines, and potential points on the river where safety is a really good idea:

As seen above, there’s three main areas of concern: The entrance to the falls, the falls, and the rapid below. The rope stations listed are not official, or even convenient, but they are located on the map strictly on the basis of where they would be useful.

Rope Station #1 - Because swimming over the actual falls could be and has proven to be life-threatening in the past, it seems wise to have someone get out and hold rope at Rope Station #1. Then the strongest paddler can route down and act as an in-water safety boater ready to provide assistance. This greatly reduces the chances of someone swimming over the falls, which would seem certain to escalate the situation.

Rope Station #2 - Easy spot to walk down and set a rope. A 70 foot rope should reach most swimmers at the base of the falls. This is a critical spot because it keeps swimmers from flushing into the rapid below (Python), which is where 3 fatalities have occurred. A safety boater in-boat (perhaps your most competent team member) could add protection. The person holding rope above the big one at station 1 could easily hop down here for their group and cover both spots. This is a common practice on rivers all over the world. Protect, and then relocate. The logistics for maximum efficiency of course are different in each situation. The point is to be intentional and thoughtful, not impulsive and reactive.

Rope Station #3 - This spot may be difficult to get to, and may add some amount of risk to the person holding rope. I’m not sure anyone has ever held rope here, but I highly suspect that this hole is directly responsible for some drownings. One rafter drowning occurred here for certain, who was miraculously revived. The reality is that swimming into this hole, which is where all the water goes at the end of Python, is very bad news. A machete works wonders on kudzu and blackberry bushes.

A note on diagrams: Make your own. This one took me half an hour to source the satellite imagery, merge the photos, dink around with fonts and paint, etc. In fact, diagram it out on the river. You don’t even need to draw it anywhere other than your mind. It’s this way of thinking that will make the difference.

Here, two kayakers are boofing the safer side of the deadly ledge at the bottom of Python. Notice all the middle flow through the tongue goes into a vicious hydraulic that is backed up by rocks. This is a terminal hole. The options here are sneak down the other side of the island on the West Prong Line, eddy above the ledge on the left and run the line these folks are running, walk it, take out above, or run the dangerous ledge. I’ll leave it up to you as to which of these options require someone to hang out with a rope.

Thanks to Matt Jackson for this photo, which clearly shows what I consider to be the primary hazard in Python.

Look, all of this takes extra time. It requires communication. It requires practice! Maybe you only feel it’s worthwhile to set two ropes. Or one! Or none. But please think about how to best approach it. We have way more tools and options at our disposal than we are taking advantage of. Bring a whistle. Bring a rope. Make a plan, and stick to it. Be patient. When in doubt scout! Watch your friends like a hawk. Speak up when you see something going on that could endanger someone. These rivers do not care. You have to make up the difference, and it takes extra effort - it’s worth it.

Thanks, peace to all reeling after the latest accident, and I hope to see you on the river whenever the time is right.

-Kirk

Something about Solitude: Exploring the Grand Canyon of the Elwha

Looking upstream into the bottom of "Nightmare" - the unscoutable, unportageable, psychological crux to my trip through the Grand Canyon of the Elwha

I was standing precariously on the edge of a 300 foot over-vertical cliff.  A delicate bench-press out onto the trunk of a large Douglas Fir that tilted over the canyon allowed me to pitch my upper body slowly out and into oblivion, all in the service of catching a glimpse of the unseeable.  I was almost in the perfect place for a view, but being on the inside of the bend of a particularly overhung slot canyon, I couldn't get a glimpse of the river below, where a potentially dire collection of logs had supposedly collected.  For a split-second, I weighed the value of utilizing the sound that was hitting my ears from the torrent below, in some desperate hope that through echo-textural analysis, I could divine the shapes below without benefit of sight.  Perhaps the elongate, cylindrical shapes of old growth giants, stripped to their core, would emanate a unique tonal signature.  I presently snapped out of my desperate musing, then stepped back from the edge and realized that I was hosed. 

I had just spent over an hour toiling down through 800 vertical feet of thick under-story rife with bear tracks, flirting repeatedly with a perilous cliff topped with loose scree that promised views it didn't reveal, with the simple goal of being able to see a specific location within the steep confines of the Grand Canyon of the Elwha.  Only just last season, this dark corner was inhabited by a dubious logjam that produced a terrifying experience for a crew of accomplished paddlers.  I could see the canyon downstream, and the rapid above, but the one little spot that had to be checked before committing to the river, had no vantage point.  

I've made a lifelong habit out of stubbornly pursuing my whims, despite the obstacles and the doubters, and somehow have managed to maintain a fairly prolific record of coming out ahead, be it in service of a bold river mission, or simply trying to hit the post office, recycling center, and bank, all 18 minutes before close of business day.  Going for it despite the details often yields less than stellar results for many people, but I just tend to get that lucky, that often.  I'm grateful for the forgiving portfolio of results I've been granted by the universe, but have no expectation of it holding for much longer.  Every new day presents the potential for total implosion, where the bluff gets called and I end up stranded in a river gorge of my own choosing, proverbially or literally.  A self-shuttle, solo mission into the Grand Canyon of the Elwha under complicated circumstances seemed like the perfect setting for things to take a turn for the worse.  One slip, one oversight, one blister, one logjam, and things could immediately and irrevocably become "complicated."  

Despite lining up a good first time flow and a great weather forecast, a weekday mission to a multi-day Class V river with a long hike-in and mandatory whitewater didn't exactly pull folks out of the woodwork.  I checked with a few friends who quickly declined due to obligations, and I balked at the notion of trying too hard to recruit from facebook for a suffer-fest such as this. Additionally, spending the last five weeks with friends and family day in and day out had admittedly left me in need of some personal time.  It was settled.  I'd solo the Elwha for 3 days, and then drive home.  The elephant in the room here was that due to the main entrance road being wiped out by flooding earlier in the year, the otherwise 8.5 mile hike to the put-in had been increased to over 15 miles, since I couldn't drive anywhere near the trailhead.  I needed some portage wheels, and fast.  

Despite bearing accountability for what I consider a substantial increase in division and strife in our world, social media is great for buying used phones, borrowing a shop-vac, or any number of purposes. And it proved just that useful for arranging last minute use of a set of lightweight portage wheels.  Minutes after posting on a local facebook paddling page, Rob Scanlon, someone I had met the month prior on the South Fork of the Salmon in Idaho, piped up that he had something that might work. Rob happened to have the exact set that I thought would work best. When I met him to borrow the cart it was then that he informed me of the experience last year's crew had at Nightmare, the crux of the Grand Canyon.  A quick youtube search uncovered gopro footage of a group paddling through a rowdy boulder field, around a blind corner, and into a pile of trees.  Luckily, they were able to quickly pick the one passable gap through the gruesome collection of logs, but it was a scary thing to watch. Furthermore, since the river spiked to flood stage the following winter from heavy rain on snow, the logjam could have easily flushed or even gotten worse.  Regardless, the river conditions in the Elwha's dark canyons were completely unknowable.  

The rig.  It worked, but was touch and go.  I don't think these wheels are meant to handle 100 pounds of gear.  It's amazing how my carting technique evolved to the demanding washboards and hills along the road to the trailhead.

It seemed like the complications kept stacking up.  After dropping Laura and Alex off at the light rail station in Pioneer Square in order to catch their flight out of Seattle, I quickly skipped down the hill to the ferry terminal and hopped aboard one of WDOT's finest, which was headed for the Olympic Peninsula and a river I'd been dreaming of for the better part of two decades. Once across Puget Sound and on the tail end of a 2 hour drive to Port Angeles, I stopped at an outfitter to get some water purification tablets.  After mentioning that I'd be leaving my car at the Madison Falls Trailhead, the owner stressed that my car WOULD be broken into, and anything of value stolen - Port Angeles is the primary location on the Peninsula for treatment services related to mental illness and heroin addiction, which is an epidemic there.  After a short moment of wondering aloud how to proceed, he was gracious enough to offer for me to park my car at his house.  This generous act wasn't without complication though.  His house was around 15 miles from the trailhead.  After finding out neither Uber nor Lyft operated out that far, I called a cab service and arranged for a pick-up from the kind man's house in 3 hours.  

Three hours sure seems like plenty of time to get ready, but after an hour of waiting in line at the park's backcountry office for a wilderness permit and convincing the ranger I knew what I was doing I had to drive to the trailhead, get my boat installed on the cart, stash and lock it in the woods, drive back to town, shop for a little food, pick up a sub for dinner later that night, then drive to my parking spot, where an old police-issued Crown Victoria turned cabbie waited for me with the engine running.

It was coming together!  I couldn't wait to start walking and leave the outside world behind for a few days.  After a quick ride to the trailhead I retrieved my boat and wheels, geared up, and started up the road. The occasional backpacker and road worker gave me peculiar glances I wish I could say I hadn't seen before.  They weren't sure what I was doing, but generally were sure they didn't want to ask. Eventually, a park geologist couldn't help but inquire on the details.  My cart was listing badly, and he pointed out that the left wheel bearing had come loose and was clanging on the inside of the axle.  After a brief conversation I re-strapped the boat, banged the bearing back in place with a rock, and slung my drybags onto my shoulder, which took a lot of weight out of the boat and seemed to keep the bearing secure.  It was 4pm and I had just started towards the trailhead at Whiskey Bend, some 7 miles and over 1000 feet of elevation ahead.

A few miles into the hike I stopped to look down into Glines Canyon, a defile that just a few years ago was partially submerged under a man-made lake.  The Elwha, formerly home to one of the largest salmon runs in the northwest, made big news a few years ago when plans were revealed for the biggest dam-removal project in US history.   Through the efforts of local tribes, conservationists, and American Whitewater (you're a member, right?), the Elwha now flows free from its headwaters to the ocean, and the salmon runs can begin to recover. Staring down into the darkness below, I felt a sense of gratitude to experience this re-born river, and resumed my walk into the mountains.

Glines Canyon in foreground, where the river was blocked for almost 90 years.  The remains of Lake Mills is in the background, where the river is reclaiming it's course in short order and surrounding vegetation is moving back in.  A win for the Elwha!

My feet were starting to pulse with aching pain around mile six, but I pushed on and made the trailhead at 6:30.  Phase one was successful.  I took a break and then backtracked half a mile with my wheels and hiked down the Lake Mills Trail to stash them near the river, whereupon after finishing the Class V stuff, I would then strap them to the deck of my boat for the paddle out of the park.  Once I had staged the wheels at the river, it was now 7:30.  At this point I was just starting the 8.5 mile hike to the put-in, one that has brutalized a handful of kayakers over the years.  I had lofty plans of making it as far as Lillian River Campground, 5 miles of strenuous hiking ahead, but I didn't have a lot of time.  I didn't have a backpack system, and was just going to alternate carrying my boat and gear on my shoulder and my head.  Not 10 minutes in I started suffering, already at the end of a long and exhausting day. Two miles in I ate a footlong and some cookies, and prepared for the long, dark approach to camp, which I stumbled into around 10pm.  I was completely wrecked after 14 miles of hiking, and went straight to bed.  

Obligatory self-portrait at the Whiskey Bend Trailhead. Seven miles down and seven to go, including dropping the wheels off down by the river.  

Morning came early as I had set my alarm at 6am in anticipation of another long day.  I had plans of finishing the remaining 4 miles of hiking to the put-in, and of paddling the Grand Canyon proper - the longer of the two canyons on this river, before setting up camp in Geyser Valley, an open valley where the river gently meanders two miles before dropping into the second intimidating section, Rica Canyon.   This seemed like a reasonable amount to tackle, but a big question mark surrounded the fact that before any of this I planned to attempt to drop off the trail and down into the heart of the canyon in order to get a view of Nightmare and the spot where the logjam resided.  If this spot was impassable I wouldn't be able to continue, and there was definitely no way it was a good decision to simply drop in sight unseen.  

The climb out of camp at the Lillian River is a steep and relentless slog, but the magic of the early morning light and the promise of an unforgettable adventure kept my spirit sailing.  I hammered out the climb in an hour, and I found the spot where I would drop down to scout Nightmare when a large landslide afforded a glimpse of the canyon far below.  Staying to the right of the bluffs surrounding the landslide, I began toiling down through the thick rain forest, occasionally sneaking out into the open rock to my left to get a glimpse of the river.  I could see upstream where the river came out of a narrow slot canyon that must contain Eskimo Pie, the hardest must-run drop in the Grand, and I could see the two big rapids below, which lead into Nightmare.  After dropping around 600 feet I cornered out onto an airy prow on the left and caught a decent view of Nightmare itself, confirming that the main rapid was clear of any debris, and was able to pick my line out.  I would drop through an entrance slot in the middle, then charge into the burly collection of boulders and holes immediately below. However, I couldn't see the pinch in the turn after that, which is where potential disaster lurked.  I dropped as far as I could to the edge of the overhung canyon, and traversed downstream, hoping a promontory would extend just far enough out into the canyon to give me a view, but the shape of the walls and the bend in the river just weren't going to give me a visual.  I looked across the canyon to the south side, where I could see many rocky points and large trees clinging to the slopes that almost certainly offered a view of the missing piece of the puzzle, but there was no way there from here.  

I can't tell you how often carrying topo maps has payed off for me in situations like this.  I had my phone with me, and always carry downloaded maps of the places I explore.  I pulled up the quad I was in, confirmed my location, and noted that the rocks that offered a view on the other side appeared to be easily reachable if I were to paddle the first mile or so above the canyon, eddy left just above the start of the walled in section, and hike up a gentle ramp a quarter mile and then scale just 50 feet or so up to the divide, which I had just stared at from my first vantage point. With this option, I could continue, though if I discovered an impassable log jam at that point, I'd still have to hike back out and around the Grand Canyon.  This would be beyond miserable, but how could I give up now?  I was optimistic I would like what I saw, so I climbed 800 feet back out of the canyon and up to my boat, and shouldered for the final 3 miles down to the river.  The trail cuts through some of the most enchanting forest I've ever seen, and as the river started to gradually make its voice known, my excitement started really kicking in.  The suffering was potentially over, and I could finally get into the meat of this expedition.  The forest was dazzling, and my approach proved an easy way to lose 7 lbs after eating greasy food at the Banks Cafe for 10 days, but the Elwha itself was obviously the reason I was here.  And here it was!

My put-in, after almost 18 miles of hiking and logistics.  I had the whole day ahead of me, and knew I might need all of it.  

It's impossible to describe the feeling of having hiked your boat many hard earned miles to put in on a special river.  It's never the easiest, most convenient, or expedient way of getting to the put-in, yet there's no other method that produces such gratitude.  I could feel my heartbeat pulsing through every part of me.  Every drop of sweat carried its vibration to the rocks underfoot, and the rocks transmitted their cold indifference to and through me.  I was completely connected.  All that is, is all there was, and being alone with all this reality was just what I had been seeking.  With the gratitude of being there, and the taste of seriousness in my mouth, I peeled out into the Elwha.  

There's no subtle transition from canyon to valley and vice versa here.  After one braided rapid the river dove right into an impressive, narrow canyon.  The walls throughout the Elwha are composed mostly of smooth gray rock that is occasionally packed with thin, white, linear striations.  It is this rock, in combination with the lush vegetation surrounding it, as well as the deep, narrow channel, that give the water the most beautiful electric blue color I've ever seen on a river.  After chasing rivers in the Northwest for years and seeing the wide range of hues conditions can create, from the swollen gray glacial swill of the Elaho, to the magical turquoise elixir of the Ohanapecosh, I think I've found my favorite in the Elwha.  

 

Elwha Blue - if Bob Ross only had that on his palette.

Even in the warm-up canyon there were some spots where I had to make some tight ducks under logs spanning from one wall to the other.  This is pretty typical for the Northwest, but definitely reminded me that downstream it was more likely than not that I would find myself in a no-mistake environment.  

After a mile and a half of splendid Class III-IV boating in a breathtaking canyon, I came around the corner and saw where the river cuts hard right and plummets out of sight into a vertical canyon with walls soaring skyward.  I eddied left, hopped out, and began hiking up the ramp I had seen on my map.  I entered an open forest of ancient Douglas Fir, some specimens of which were as big as I have ever seen.  The comparative quiet of this stoic forest calmed my soul and encouraged my curiosity to keep moving.  Ten minutes of this led me to a steep embankment that took a little creativity to ascend.  Once topped out, I found myself on a narrow knife ridge that dropped 300 feet down to the Elwha straight below.  At first I could get useful views of the canyon downstream but not of the corner I needed to see, but as I worked up the ridge to my right and upstream, I found a prominent tree a ways below that appeared to allow a view down into the canyon right above the pinch.  I tied into another tree further up the slope and carefully descended to the large tree and was able to lean out over the canyon and get a full view of everything.  A huge wave of stoke rolled over me as I discovered that there were only two trees lodged in the canyon, and they made an X from one side to the other, with what looked like plenty of room to paddle underneath.  The other debris had been washed clear of the area, but these two colossal logs remained.  It was quite an affirmation to know that my prudent plan to look before I leaped bore fruit.  It's not convenient, but we have to adapt to the conditions we find and not let our egos or laziness get us into trouble. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass to descend hard rivers with a margin of safety.  What choice do we have though?

For anyone interested in scouting before dropping in, or just map geeks, I've marked my scouting routes for Nightmare in red here.  The map is oriented North up, and the route on the north side didn't allow me to scout the blind turn but gave a good view of the other rapids. The route from the south side was shorter, easier, and gave a better view.  Both require sure footing.

With the discovery that I would be able to paddle safely through Nightmare and the drops above and below, I walked back to my boat, devouring a patch of salmonberries along the way, which are like raspberries but better!  Following a quick scout of the entrance rapid I dropped into the canyon, whose walls soared overhead and almost overlapped, making for an almost subterranean feel.  Right off the bat I encountered what would have been a Class IV drop were it not for the old growth log stuck in the only runnable channel.  A steady touch allowed me to get out on a rock pile in the center.  I held my breath as I carefully entered my boat and seal-launched into the tight, boiling corridor below.  This put me right above Eskimo Pie, the first unportageable Class V in the Grand Canyon.  I could see from my view above that the rapid was free of wood, and knowing the line from a few videos, I went for it, roosting a big air boof 8 feet over a juicy walled in hole.  After bashing through the run-out I eddied below, mesmerized by this canyon, a mere 10 feet wide, with blue fizzing champagne bubbling up, tickling my ear drums with its sonic texture.  I'm not sure I feel more alive than in moments like this, where each breath feels better than the last, as I move through places that require care and attention, humility and respect.  The roar of the gradient downstream echoed violently off the overlapping walls, and I headed on down into the next big set, which consisted of powerful read and run combinations of holes, diagonals, wall shots, and tight boofs.  Paddling around another corner I found myself in the pool above Nightmare.  

Rolling into Nightmare with bonafide knowledge of what was around the corner left me without the slightest concern, and I was able to really soak in the full experience of committing to the drop, entering through the top slot, and then charging through the big holes and laterals above the spot where the river calms and flushes under the logs.  As I rounded the corner, I discovered that the trees were 12-15 feet overhead, completely out of play.  I grabbed an eddy below, and got out to re-energize in the most audacious of cafeterias.

Nightmare from below - you can see the last of several powerful drops, just upstream of the trees.

Once below Nightmare I knew there were more big rapids downstream but that the river would mellow a little until the Lillian River confluence.  It's amazing how efficiently you can move when not distracted by anyone else.  I made quick work of the section below, encountering ultra-classic Class IV-IV+ whitewater with nice holes, boofs, and wall-shots.  After the Lillian River came in on the right, the river amped up again, with some stout rapids increasing in size, eventually to where I had to hop out for a bank-scout.  Not far below, a towering landslide on the left marked the last big rapid, a long Class IV read and run boulder field.  The canyon walls abruptly peeled back below and the river opened up into Geyser Valley.  Not far down I found a perfect flat beach on the right and decided that this was the place to stop for the day.  I crushed the Grand Canyon with time to spare and probably could have pushed through to Rica Canyon and beyond, but sometimes when you have a great camp spot, you don't push your luck!

My own private paradise, Geyser Valley

It was pretty hot at this point, so I built a sunshade with my tarp to hang out under.  For a moment it felt odd to not have anything to do while the sun was yet fairly high overhead, but before long I settled into a groove. I took a nap, listened to an entire album on my phone, then got into a repetitive rhythm of swimming in the frigid water followed by brief tenures sitting in the sun. The numbness of the cold and my weariness from the long days hit me like a drug, and I took another nap.  I couldn't help but wish I had some good friends to share the cheer with when I woke.  There's trade-offs to every experience, but the key is to enjoy every moment for what it is.  My brother-in-law always says "If we had ham we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs."  With this in mind, I got busy with dinner and setting up my bed, and eventually fell asleep before the light fully faded.  I was awoken not much later as the full moon rose into the clear night sky and lit up my world anew.  I took in my silver surroundings, the river a quilt of chrome ribbons before me, and fell back asleep.   

cold and beautiful

my afternoon digs

I can't say exactly how many times I've been woken up by a full moon on a clear night, but I know that in each case I was sleeping on the ground.  Who's to say how many of these distinctly earthen, human experiences we miss out on every day because of all of our "progress".

The next morning I was up early, made coffee, ate some breakfast and hit the water at 7am, which had me floating through Geyser Valley and hitting the entrance to Rica Canyon, known as Goblin's Gate, around 7:30.  Without the sun to cheer my optimism, I took an ominous right turn into the Goblin's Gate, the hardest rapid on the Elwha.  I hopped out to find wood blocking enough of the rapid to not want to run it solo, so I portaged on the left and slid back in for the run-out. The canyon here wasn't as deep, but almost as sheer, and packed full of Class IV-V action for over half a mile.  

Typical Rica Canyon action, with "secret slot" in the foreground - a tight, sweet little line

After another scout I routed through the rest of the hard water and the gradient eased, and soon enough I found myself being whisked through the bathtub ring of Lake Mills and through some more beautiful canyon scenery before opening up into the Mills Valley.  I grabbed my portage wheels that I had stashed, and strapped them to my bow deck, figuring that there wasn't any hard whitewater left.  I then floated 3 miles through what used to be a lake, finding fascination in all the recently disturbed and sorted sediments that had been exposed and rearranged by the river.  Soon enough I could see the remains of Glines Canyon Dam ahead, and a considerable narrows surrounded by 200 foot walls.  I entered the canyon to find that there was indeed one more Class V drop, which I ran with wheels protruding from the deck of my kayak. I couldn't get my forward strokes in at my toes, which was interesting to work with in the turbulent, boulder-filled torrent, and probably looked pretty damn silly. Below, the canyon opened up and I paddled several more miles out of the National Park and down to the Highway 101 bridge.  Immediately I wished I was back up in the Grand Canyon, but it was time to start heading home.  It was 10:30 am.  I had 1% battery and 1 bar of service - just enough to call for a taxi back to my van. Once loaded, I drove down south, hit the ferry to Seattle, and began the drive on I-90, making the Alberton Gorge in Montana before crashing in my van.  

I had dreamed it, fought to make it work, lived it, and just as the rest, it evaporated into the ether of my memory.   I can't recommend solo boating, but then again there's a lot I can't recommend, and there'd be a lot I wouldn't have the ability to have as memories if I wasn't willing to do it.  It's not for everybody, but it's for nobody to judge. I really hope to go back to the Elwha one day - it's too good to only do once, but who knows.

Paddle every river as if it's the only lap you'll ever get.

The Sophisticated Dirtbag: Flying West to Kayak on a Budget - brought to you by Immersion Research

brought to you by IMMERSION RESEARCH

The American Dream with a twist, swap the Leather and Harleys for Goose Down and a Minivan

If you've been paddling for a while, or even if you haven't, it would be hard to notice that while the east coast ain't a bad place at all to live, work and paddle day in and day out, there's no better vacation destination for kayaking in the world than the Western United States.  To not get too sidetracked on this truth, which is easy to do, suffice it to say that if you want to really take a trip to just paddle the highest quality whitewater on earth, in the most dramatic of settings, with some of the most straightforward logistics and lowest dealing factor, the West Coast is simply unrivaled.  

For a good many paddlers though, it seems too complicated and/or expensive to make the long trip west given the short window that most employers expect their subjects to work within.  How can you fly across the country with a kayak, procure a car capable of carrying your stuff, have shuttle for every river sorted out, with consideration that you also aren't earning any money while out there, and not end up spending thousands of dollars?  Most career professionals will find it difficult to break away from work for longer than a week or two at the most, which precludes driving 40 hours to the West Coast.  With this consideration, many other paddlers simply don't have the budget for a trip like this.  

After lots of trips west, I've adapted fairly well to a self-imposed challenge of seeing how low I can get the cost per day of a trip.  Through this thrifty, but necessary approach, I've developed some creative ways of spending as little as possible so I can do as many trips like this as I can.  

STEP 1:  airline credit card

Free tour of Crater Lake, courtesy of Southwest 

Of the last 12-15 flights or so that I've taken with a boat, I've only paid for one.  This is because I use credit cards that give huge sign-up bonuses, usually worth at least a flight, if not TWO round-trip flights. Because they officially take kayaks on the plane, and fly to most of my favorite destinations, Southwest Airlines is the way to go.  You'll still have to pay $75 each way for your boat, but you'll ride for free.  It takes a few months to earn the points, and a few more to get them posted to your account, so you need to start this process at least 8 months before a trip.  And if you have credit issues or lack the ability/means to play by the rules, this won't work for you.  Still, if you're in the position to do this, it's a great way to essentially fly for free.

Other cards like Chase Sapphire or BarclayCard allow you to use your points on other purchases like rental cars or hotels.  The more creative you get, the larger portion of your trip these card programs can end up subsidizing.

Step 2:  minivan

The Nissan Inn & Suites offers a free night's stay for every day of your rental.

Now there are some cases where you'll need a stouter rig, but I find these instances rarely preferential to a cheaper, more fuel efficient rental like a minivan. Most mini's actually have fairly good clearance.  As long as you don't bust the oil pan, who's looking under the car when you turn it in anyways ;-)  

The biggest sell on the minivan is that you can sleep two people in it with a level of comfort you're not going to find in any other vehicle.  Modern stow seating allows for you to fold all the seats down, enabling a cargo-by-day, bed-by-night configuration that is pretty comfy.  And the fact that you are IN the van sleeping unlocks a freedom-to-poach style range of camping locations you'll never get when you have to pitch a tent.  From parking lots to logging roads, you can pitch it anywhere you park it.  

You can also put boats IN the van, greatly simplifying transport if there's just two of you. However, I've found that once you get squared away, having the boats up top allows you to maintain your sleeping quarters during the trip so you don't have to constantly re-build the nighttime set-up.  Which brings us to step 3:
 

step 3:  rack system

2x4 + paracord + adding a new skill to your portfolio = big savings on "rack rental"

I've brought kayaks on/in a variety of rental cars, from trucks, cars, SUV's and Minivans. My recommendation is to reserve an SUV or Minivan.  These almost always come with rails, and sometimes racks.  Rails are the long bars that parallel the roof on either side.  As long as the car has rails, you're gold!  The last thing you want to do is pay $18/day for them to have "racks" on the car. And remember, they're only going to be factory racks, which are sketchily inadequate for the weight of several boats, and also develop a scary bounce and sway when used.  No, you want the rails, and you can attach racks of your own design to the top, by way of around $10-15 spent at a hardware store.  

All you have to do is drop by your local Home Depot or mom 'n' pop hardware store, and get a 10 foot long 2x4.  Have them cut it in half.  Then while you're there buy 100 feet of paracord, which is cheap, compact, but strong enough to hold the 2x4's on the rails.  

Then comes the part your inner boy scout has been waiting for -

Lashing and Frapping!

I learned this trick from the Ace Kayaking School man and Eagle Scout himself, Joe Gudger, and it only took a few tries to dial in my technique.  Yes, becoming a dirtbag also means you get to learn some new skills!  

Furthermore, this really begs the question of why we need to spend $400-$700 for a rack system on our personal vehicles to carry boats around.  Replace the lashings with U-bolts and you've circumvented the rack industry.  Just think, saving $600 on a rack install frees up your hard-earned cash for other more enjoyable expenditures, like taking an extra trip out west to paddle!  Spend less, experience more.  

step 4:  shuttle

Lil' Red - I miss this sweet little bike.

The "Purpletrator" as we called it, was not without flaws, but it got me through some big Wyoming shuttles.

Of course don't forget that you're going to need a way to run shuttle.  Sometimes knowing someone who is local to your destination can be invaluable, or other times it's easy enough to hook up with other paddlers.  However in general, it's hard to hook up with random trips out west. And of course it's quite an expense to rent two cars instead of one, just for shuttle. Some areas like the Sierra Nevada, almost mandate a second car, but the Northern California Coast Range, the Pacific Northwest, and much of the Rockies, have pretty simple shuttles that are often roadside or close to it.  In these instances, you really just need a bicycle.  

Simple enough, right?  Just go to walmart, pick out a $100 or less bicycle and load up. Not so fast!  I would avoid buying a cheap walmart bike like the plague.  The one time I tried this route, I burned through 5 bicycles just riding through the toy aisle, with none of them lasting more than a few seconds before something dreadful happened in the drivetrain, or I noticed a flaw that was a dealbreaker.  You're actually a lot better off going to either an antique shop or a pawn shop. Just ask a local where to go.  

I've had luck buying used bikes several times now.  In Redding, CA this summer, I picked up a sweet older bicycle that had 5 gears and a comfortable ride, for $40.  That bike got us 5 shuttles, which is a pretty cheap rate per day.  And even in the middle of nowhere in Walden, CO later this summer, I picked up a nice 21 speed for $60.  After noticing a few nuts were loose, I got the guy at the outdoor flea market to throw in a crescent wrench to sweeten the deal.  I won't get into those RPM's he was selling for $100, or the like-new Werner Player I snatched for another $20!

At the end of your trip, give your bike as a gift to someone who's helped you out on your journey, or as a random act of kindness for a perfect stranger.  It's a fun way to say goodbye to your trusty shuttle steed.  

---

So that does it for some tips on running a cheap West Coast trip.  For reference, Laura and I spent 10 days in California this past June.  We flew free, had a free rental minivan, and other than around $250 in gas, and $150 each roundtrip to get our boats out there, we didn't really spend much money.  AND, I got to ride a rather classy bicycle on California's highways.  Next time I'll find a good pennyfarthing!  If you're gonna do it, you might as well do it right.

Uh yeah, look at those handlebars.  I could seriously kill it at the local farmer's market with this thing.  Don't hurt your eyes.

Immersion Research's Devil's Club Drysuit

Finally, I'd like to give a shout out to Immersion Research, for making the best drysuit I've ever owned.  This season I crawled through the jungle in Mexico, explored the dark gorges of the Northwest, pushed through epic off-trail hike-ins to desert slot canyons, braved the frigid snowmelt of the Colorado Rockies, paddled subzero days in the Mid-atlantic and at home in the Southern Appalachians, and survived rainy overnighters in California/Oregon Coast Range thanks to this most important of river-garments.  The Devil's Club drysuit, a new, incredibly durable and robust design by IR, not only kept me warm, dry, and comfortable on all these adventures, but promises to do so for some time to come, thanks to the tough build. Despite it's utilitarian appeal, comfort was not lost on IR during the development of the suit. It's a pleasure to wear, and I'm digging the new style as well.  If I could think of a way to make it better, I'd bring it up, but I'm at a loss.  Thanks to IR for making such quality gear and standing behind it.  It's hard to find passionate folks who are as dedicated to supporting paddlers as IR, and their expertise in producing top-quality gear is unmatched.

Loving the Devils Club Drysuit.  I was a lot dryer than Laura on our multi-day trip down the Illinois River in Oregon.  She's up next for an upgrade!

The Sophisticated Dirtbag Defined

recognizing dirtbaggery as the philosophy it is; one based on the process of self-realization, personal adaptation, optimization, and ultimate freedom

Ben sprinkled a little dirt on the roof to play by the rules.  Extra point for the pillow.

What does it mean to be a dirtbag?  Certainly one of the most socially relevant, but baggage-heavy terms in paddling, "dirtbag" seems to mean whatever folks want it to mean.  Can you be a dirtbag when your every move is funded by family trust?  Can you really be a dirtbag if you drive a $55,000 truck or Sprinter Van you paid for by working for the man?  Conversely, do you have to truly live at poverty level, or grovel and sleep in the dirt on a daily basis to keep your official dirt card?  

We've all seen folks at the river here and there that seem to do the term justice, easily woftable in their eschewance of proper hygiene, for example (It's possible I'm referring in the third person here)*.  And proud is the young soil-dweller who is riding in style behind the wheel of a metallic blue 1985 Mazda 626 with 461K miles on it - is it such a sin to be a single-feature auto buyer?  And what else really matters besides rain gutters anyway? 

Undeniably, "dirtbag" has even evolved into an identity itself - not just a style of doing certain things, or philosophy, but a fashion that has been processed and packaged into good honest product by our capitalist economy. Oh the irony, since this overstep betrays the ideals behind the very term itself. Good ideas become movements. Alas movements catch the all seeing eye of marketing experts, who then tap them for marketing plans, and thus the cycle repeats; ahem,  #vanlife.

So everyone's understanding of what it means to be dirtbag is going to vary of course.  To me, dirtbag describes a particular method of facilitating a desired behavior or circumstance. It's a way of getting what we want and to where we want to be that requires less participation in the excessive, materialistic, growth-at-any-costs consumer economy.  Now, no man/woman is an island, and as many already suspect, we have little wiggle room on how much we choose to participate in the economy that surrounds us. This is a zero-sum game, and you're going to spend all of your dollars at the company store whether you like it or not.  But it's not a matter of if, but how, you do so.  For example, the tendency for our economy to develop a product for every single little nuanced situation in our daily lives is a reality we have to step out of the box to notice (Note the Banana Slicer). 

The more the economy adapts to our needs, the less WE adapt, and the less creativity we use to overcome our own daily challenges.  If you have a device for slicing each little thing you might slice, how good at slicing are you going to be?  I'm probably preaching to the choir with many readers here, who have already taken steps well beyond those I have developed, in order to minimize their impact, lower their dependency on buying stuff, and live a more purpose-driven, intentional life.   

Steel Reserve, West Coast style.  Back home these may not deliver, but out west, they run 24 ounces at 8.8% ABV for a buck eighty.  These men should be commended for their thrifty fix, even if it tastes nasty.

I frankly don't have the real answers to the underlying questions behind our need to seek the inner dirtbag.  Yet we seek it, whether out of principle or sheer prudence.  I ashamedly admit that though I value the former, it is the latter that motivates change in my behavior.  We only have so much money and so much time.  Wasting either is one and the same.  

If you've got nothing, and are just getting by, you're already a dirtbag.  From Ketchup soup to hitching rides to the river, you're flying the flag.  If you're wealthy and don't have a worry in the world, it's easy enough to deck out a Sprinter and hit the road, with a romantic aire the likes of which may or may not be emulated within the pages of the latest Patagonia catalog, you dirtbag, you.  However, for the majority of us, who are somewhere in the middle, it can be pretty hard to live dirtbag by choice, even if under the most occasional, token circumstance. And it's at this surficial, first-step level, that I'd like to, on occasion, share some tricks I've picked up along the way that assist in the realization of personal goals, by way of taking a little less of the "bundle" that our corporate handlers would prefer us to take.  They just want us to be thoughtless, happy consumers, not self-realized, adaptable beings.  Not as a DIY guru, but as a fellow victim of the machine, I welcome you to use any or none of these silly little tricks to disentangle yourself, if only in spirit, a tad bit more from having all of your decisions made for you.  It is in this light that I present The Sophisticated Dirtbag.  

Stay tuned for the next post, where the Sophisticated Dirtbag takes a look at how we can embark upon a week-long paddling trip to the west coast on a budget, and some of the tricks that make it possible.  

 

The Wind Up: Powering Strokes With Your Core + Mexico Trip Report!

Kirk Eddlemon post-wind-up on the Seven Sisters in Veracruz, MX, photo by Tom Janney

I remember the first time I was given a watch as a kid.  My Grandpa, or simply "Ed" as he preferred to be called, gave me an old watch which had long laid with neglect in his basement. I was just as quick to make him aware that it didn't work as I was to thank him for it. Of course he demonstrated that all this old timepiece needed after all was a quick little wind of a knob, and it would rotate it's spindly hands slowly but perceptibly, seemingly forever.  I was not yet privy to the complex gearing inside that would convert the kinetic energy from winding the watch to potential energy, only to release it incrementally, one second at a time, for months to come.  I was mesmerized by the magic of such a device.  

This ability to store potential energy is not merely limited to machines, but actually plays out in our bodies at scores of different levels.  Specifically with respect to our muscles, this energy storage/release system is a fundamental component of what it means to be an efficient paddler.  When we wind up by rotating our upper torso on the axial plane, this lengthens the muscles on one side of our body more than the other. This stored energy can then be released, which helps power our stroke, and also lowers the amount of energy required to generate "the wind-up" for the next stroke on the other side.   

Each vertebrae can rotate just a little bit. But many vertebrae working together can create a startling amount of rotation, which stores large amounts of energy!

Think about your core muscle group as an interconnected system of rubber bands.  The more we can stretch those rubber bands, i.e. the more muscle-lengthening load we can induce, the more potential energy we have available to assist in our stroke, which in turn means less work for other muscles in our body, like our arms.  Ideally, we should use our arms as little as possible, and build a paddling style that depends primarily on torso-rotation.  Not only are these muscles large and powerful, but the specific movement associated with torso-rotation creates an effective, powerful stroke technique that enables us to get the most out of paddling.  

So if you want to stretch your rubber bands as much as you can, in order to gain as much power assist from your core as possible, you need to reach for each stroke with your core, through coiling of your torso, not by reaching with only your arms.  By their very existence, the combination of your paddle and arm create an apparatus that has quite a bit of reach. However, when sitting with your upper torso facing the bow of your kayak, your arms and paddle should naturally reach out to both sides of your boat, not the bow.  Many paddlers make the mistake of reaching for their forward stroke by pitching forward from the waist and reaching only with their arms, and maybe at the most with their shoulders.  Instead, initiate rotation from the belly-button, and allow it to propagate from there through your vertebral column to your shoulders.  Think of a spiral staircase.  Each step can only rotate a minute amount with respect to the last, yet the cumulative rotation from bottom to top is dramatic.  

Where is your lower torso in all of this?  Well, other than the subtle pelvic rotation to be gained from pushing with your feet (another post altogether!) your lower torso is locked into facing where your bow faces at all times, because you are locked in via the outfitting on your feet, butt, back, hips, and thighs/knees.  (You have properly outfitted your boat, right?)

An easy way to measure how much potential energy is stored in your core muscles during rotation is to note how much your upper torso rotates off of the center-line of our boat.  A simple metric is to notice how much your PFD rotates in relation to your skirt, since the skirt doesn't move.  Since the PFD is attached to your chest, it is a good measure of how much your upper torso has rotated.  Keep in mind that for some paddlers this metric may not work well due to PFD fit and other details.  

More Upper Torso Rotation = More Power!

VISUAL MECHANICS OF THE WIND UP

photo by Tom Janney

Let's take a look at what winding our core looks like from overhead.  These shots are from the Rio Alseseca in Veracruz, Mexico -  I describe our trip there this January a few paragraphs down.  The Alseseca is a playground best realized through aggressive torso-rotation, and Tom Janney captured a great moment on the Roadside Alseseca where I'm sliding down a narrow passage into a large curling pillow deflecting off the river-right wall.  In order to not let the pillow throw me too far to the left, and to keep my momentum and angle, I need a strong left stroke to counter the deflection and accelerate my boat into the bottom of the rapid where a ledge hole awaits. If I simply take a stroke with my arms, I will have a limited amount of power behind the stroke, and I also won't be able to rotate the boat's edge into the pillow as well.  Both of these serve to limit the pillow's ability to throw me off course to the left.   

Now let's diagram this photo in order to understand the mechanics of what I'm doing with my body:

photo by Tom Janney

This shot was taken a split-second before my blade catches at the front of the boat for a sweep stroke. My angle and vision are looking down my line, as they should be.  Note that I am less reaching with my arm (my leading elbow is still bent, not locked straight), but am instead reaching toward my toes by rotating my core to the right of where my vision/angle are oriented.  My chest/shoulders are parallel to my paddle-shaft, and each arm to one another, making a box shape.  This box-shape is the connective structure that transfers the rotational power behind the stroke movement into the hull of the boat.  The rotation of this assembly swings the blade up to where I want to catch at my toes with little arm extension. Additionally, with my torso rotated roughly 45 degrees to the right of the centerline of my boat, I have created potential energy in my core through muscle lengthening, which will be the prime source of energy behind my sweep stroke.  The rubber bands are wound up, now I can let 'er rip!

photo by Nate Herbeck/Sheer Madness Productions

In this shot, by stellar photographer Nate Herbeck, I am finishing the sweep stroke, and though the pillow has invariably affected me, the degree of deflection has been minimized, and hanging on the finish position of my sweep has allowed me to redirect some of that deflective energy through the connective structure (the blade, my arms, and trunk) down to the inside rail of my boat, which redirects it as acceleration in the direction my boat is pointing.  

Not only was I able to prevent the feature from hijacking me, and not only was I also able to use some of it's power to accelerate my boat through my line, but I powered the entire move by winding up and releasing the energy from my core, instead of cranking with arm muscles.

The edging required in this move was ALSO informed by upper torso-rotation!  Note in the above photo that as I'm rotating through my sweep, my connective structure (chest-shoulders + arms) is rotating to the left.  Not only does this power the stroke, but it causes my right knee to lift, which allows my boat to edge to the inside of the turn.  In turn, this allows my hull to soak up the energy of the pillow instead of my deck.  Getting hit from the side on the deck causes flipping, whereas receiving that impact on the hull adds momentum and control.    

So, rotation powers our stroke, AND informs proper edging on turns, AND allows us to embrace the energy of the river in order to re-purpose it to our own end.  Because we don't use our arms (they are merely connecting rods) we can do this as many times as is required on a hard day of paddling, without the fatigue that would set in all too soon if we are only depending on our arms.  To be fair, we use our arms.  But the foundation is core rotation. As illustrated above, this is not merely for the sake of efficiency, but is fundamental to how we engage our edges, channel energy, and execute our lines.

Finally, if you want to make the most of rotation and your core muscle group, cross-training that focuses on increasing flexibility and strength in these particular areas will go a long way.
 

boofing into the Seventh Sister of the Tomata Gorge, Rio Alseseca, photo by Tom Janney

VIVA LA MEXICO! PADDLING THROUGH THE JUNGLE PARADISE OF THE RIO ALSESECA

To wrap up this technique article, I have to speak to the beauty and quality of rivers, as well as people, that we encountered on our recent trip to Tlapacoyan, Mexico, this past January.  

Ixtaccihuatl, third highest in Mexico

Ive always wanted to check out the Alseseca River drainage, which in the last 10 years, thanks to the exploratory efforts of Ben Stookesberry and team, has exploded as a classic international destination.  This season we thought we'd head down there and see for ourselves.  While December may be the better time to go for ample water, Jim and Tom Janney, and Steve Krajewski had a window in early January, so after the hustle of Christmas died down, we headed south, with perfect timing, as a snow-storm was buffeting Tennessee on our drive to the airport.  Knock on wood, but we're approaching mid-February, and so far, I've missed the coldest weather of winter!

After touching down in the biggest city I've ever been in, we spent the night in a hotel and then loaded into a van for a five hour ride east towards the coast.  During the drive we bore witness to the reason for all the spectacular basaltic gorges and waterfalls of the Alseseca - giant volcanoes abound in Mexico, including Citlaltepetl, the third highest mountain in North America.  These beasts have, over the millennia, spewed unfathomable volumes of lava eastward and down into the Gulf of Mexico. Rivers like the Alseseca begin in the drier Altiplano at the base of these volcanoes, and burrow through almost 10,000 vertical feet of basalt on their way to the Gulf. For this reason, the eastern slope of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt holds some of the highest quality and most sustained basaltic river gorges for kayaking.  While there is undoubtedly more superlative canyon systems yet to be explored, the Alseseca is the centerpiece to this region, where several sections of river link up to create one of the most stacked, relentlessly vertical rivers in the world.  

Tom Janney penitently passing through the Gates of Mordor

While many of the sections and tributaries of the Alseseca are too steep and riddled with unscoutable, unportageable, unrunnable gorges to be fodder for good winter vacation paddling, there are a handful of classic sections, including the Big Banana, Roadside, Seven Sisters, and a tributary, the Rio Jalacingo.  All of these stellar runs are an hour or less from Tlapacoyan, a vibrant town that our kind hosts at Aventurec call home.  

Aventurec provides the best accommodations a kayaker could want.  We stayed in a clean cabana with shower/bath, took advantage of all-you-can-eat breakfast and dinner buffets with great food, and got shuttled around every day, for 8 days straight, for roughly the cost of a new paddle.  I can't think of anywhere else that you'll be better treated than Aventurec. The best part is the people, who are incredibly helpful, always have a smile on their faces, and just really seem to care that you've come to enjoy their home.  This facet of travel often gets left at the door on paddling blogs, but it's really the best part.  To be welcomed so warmly sweetened every part of our experience in Mexico. We also made some great new friends from all over the world, with whom we can't wait to share future adventures with.  The best part of travel is the unexpected gifts along the way.  We all left a part of ourselves there, and I'm already scheming the next opportunity to head south.  

Here's a link to my flickr page highlighting some of our experiences while paddling the Alseseca and its tributaries, which also benefit from a race that we stumbled into - it ended up being a big deal for Tlapacoyan and other riverside communities, and a load of fun too!  Just click on the photo of the Gates of Mordor above to access my Flickr album.

THIS ARTICLE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY IMMERSION RESEARCH!

Going to Mexico in the winter is still winter paddling.  Sure it's warmer - quite a bit warmer at times, but it also gets rainy and misty, and fog prevails most mornings.  Combine that with predictions of highs in the low to mid-50's a few days, and it was a little guess-work on whether a dry top would be sufficient.  

Enter the Devil's Club dry top from Immersion Research.  Not only do I want something that will keep me dry and not wet through, but the particular style of paddling we were going to be doing in Mexico requires lots of bushwhacking through the jungle, which means lots of abuse and sweating.  The thought behind the Devil's Club is to take the same degree of waterproofness and breathability that IR's top garments are known for, and increase the durability on top of that.  After 8 days of crawling through the jungle, the top is as dry as brand new, and I feel like IR really has hit the sweet spot on all fronts, making a dry top that is waterproof, breathable, durable, light, and form-fitted.  These traits can be somewhat mutually exclusive without the experience that IR brings to the table, but they've found a magical intersection of all these virtues with the Devil's Club.  I'm using this top on days I would have normally only used a dry suit, because it does it's job so well, as exemplified by the fact that even upon my return from Mexico, I've used it many more times during cold January days, while creeking in Tennessee.

Thanks for reading, I hope this article has inspired you to seek continuous improvement.  Get out on the flats and dial it in!  

Until Next Time,
Kirk

Follow Me Down The Pigeon Dries - Working With Turns

Imagine a rapid with lots of cross-currents, or even just one big curling cross-current.  Maybe it's Broken Nose on the Ocoee.  You're coming down the entrance, heading in the direction you want to go, but there's this big current pushing hard to river-right into the rocks on the bank.  The river is dealing us a turn.  It's there, whether we like it or not, and we're going to have to do something if we don't want things to go south.  So what are our options?  Do we work hard with left angle and fight our way through?  Where are we going now with this strong new angle once we make it through?  The only other option is to let this cross-current hi-jack our line, sending us crashing into the rocks on the bank, right?  It's fight or flight, right?

No, it's not.  There's another option.  We can accept the turn, and channel it's power to our own end.  Read on for some ideas on how to turn these turns into solid river-running gold.

It took me a long time to develop my way of looking at rivers, and to understand how to work with the dynamic powers they present to us as paddlers.  Rivers move but for one force - Gravity. How this force gives the river energy, and how that energy reflects and diffracts into a beautiful, readable quilt-work of power is based on the shapes of the earth over which it flows.  These are the reasons for the story, simple and unchanging, yet oh how the yarn is spun, with impermanent intricacy, forever dynamic, from one river to the next and one split-second to the other. 

While every feature is forever unique in it's own moment, larger patterns soon emerge the longer you stare into the intoxicating language of moving water.  Through the speed, the topography, the areas of high and low pressure and general chaos, it can be overwhelming to parse out an understanding of how to not only live with the torrent for a while, but actually speak the language and engage in meaningful dialogue with such a nameless energy. 

No matter how much we understand through experience, it's all just a model, our cognitive way of crunching the data of good and bad experiences into a workable, survivable mode of operation.  In this way we all develop our own way of speaking with the river.  

In the parlance of conversation with the river, I would have to say that the words spoken are in fact, turns.  All things considered, it will never be just turns that we focus on, but the reality is that the river presents us turns constantly - they are an irrevocably big part of the conversation.  Complexity is a direct function of the amount of turns the river lays in front of our line.  We cannot deny the turns, only take them as they come, and provide our input as to how much they affect us.  Our line dictates the answer to the question of how much we want a turn to affect us.  How we create our lines though may be in spite of the turns, or even in celebration of them, thanks to our freedom of being able to choose our way at any moment. Regardless, the river presents us with turns.  

In this video, see if you can identify all the turns.  Some turns are obvious, because you see them take me into a new direction.  The boat turns in this case.  In other circumstances though, you may not notice a turn because my boat doesn't turn.  In this case I have acknowledged the turn, but do not wish to accept it's new direction, and an intentional stroke keeps me on my line.  In this case, it may be easier to identify a turn by seeing my boat cross the boundary between two pieces of water moving in different directions.  This is the very essence of the turn, and exists whether or not we ourselves turn or not.  In fact, it's important to make the distinction between turns the river gives, and turns we take.

As paddlers, we have to move beyond seeing turns as just peeling out of an eddy into the flow, and leaving the flow to catch an eddy at the bottom of a rapid.  This conventional view reminds me of the start/stop American Football style campaign of controlled-interval progress downstream.  But the fact is that in between peeling out into a long, complex rapid, and eddying out at the bottom, we encounter many more turns along the way, which are just as important as our start and finish, and there is no blow of the whistle after first down.  To begin to view our lines down the river more as a seamlessly flowing game of Soccer, instead of the start/stop nature of Football, is to acknowledge that paddling isn't a disjunct, step by step affair.  It's an infinitely continuous Flow-State of Mind.  The longer we can stay in that focused, flow-state, the greater experience.  To stay there, we use speed, focus on our line, and channel the energy of turns.  

Throughout this blog's activity, we'll expand on many of these concepts, but here the three basic principles of working with turns:

1)  Look with your head where you are wanting to go.

2) Look with your body INTO the turn.

3) Always Stroke on the inside of the turn.  


Looking with our head where we want to go keeps our line in sight and in focus.  Looking with our body into the turn (think of looking with your chest and your shoulders) regardless of whether you wish to turn or not, allows the hull to soak up the energy of the turning force, and lets us re-purpose it in any way we desire. This also ensures edge stability and maintains momentum. Finally, we can create any turn we want(broad, tight, anywhere in between, or no turn at all) by using the correct stroke on the inside of the turn.  Because the river is pushing from the outside of the turn, we stroke on the inside.  This creates an opposite force, which gives our stroke leverage, and maintains driving momentum.  We can use a variety of strokes to magnify the turn, diminish it, or cancel it out.  You might imagine that a stern-draw or sweep on the inside of the turn, which counters the turning force, will broaden the turn, and that a bow-draw to the inside will exaggerate, or tighten it.  Sometimes the river is giving us the very turn we wish to have, in which case, we may plant a forward stroke to keep the energy focused in the exact direction we're planning on traveling.  

In this way we aren't fighting the turns.  We're taking the energy the turns give us, and are channeling it into a future we've created.  We are not the engine, the river is.   And just as a sailboat harnesses the wind's energy with a sail, we use our paddle to refine the crude power of the river's turns into driving momentum in the direction of our line, with grace and precision.

On a river like the Pigeon Dries, there is no way to draw a bunch of straight lines and miss all these "problematic" turns.  Even if it was possible, it would be so much work, and we'd miss all the opportunities to let the river do the talking.  If we want our ride to push beyond the typical and into the extraordinary, we must listen to what the river has to say, and our hull is our ears.

Enjoy the video!   

Methods of Generating Lift: Deflection

Caleb Paquette using deflection from a rock to generate lift - shot by Jim Janney

Deflection - Using River Features to Lift the Bow

When we use deflection to generate lift, we are taking advantage of shapes, features, and directional changes found on the river to give our boat lift.  Rocks, logs, diagonal waves/holes, curlers, pillows, and other features have the innate potential to deflect our momentum into a new direction.  Deflection can occur in any direction, but for the purpose of generating lift, a feature typically is either going to deflect our boat to one side or the other, or directly upwards.  Many features only provide the potential for deflection in one direction - often to one side or the other.  Others though, such as a rounded rock with a thin veil of water flowing over the middle and more water flowing off to both sides, exhibits all directions of deflection, which luckily allows us to choose which part of the feature to use.  Which direction of deflection we choose to use is often a function of where we want to be going below the feature.  

Identifying Deflective Features

Develop the habit of identifying deflective features on the river - it's one of the key steps in finding an optimum line through a rapid.  Try to identify the deflective feature (water, rock, or both) and the direction of deflection (river-right, river-left, or upwards) in the following shots, and see how your answers stack up with mine:

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Answers

1. water + rock deflecting to river-right

2. rock deflecting upwards

3. rock deflecting to river-left

4. water deflecting to river-left

5. rock deflecting to river-right

6. water + rock deflecting to river-left

7. water deflecting upwards

8. water deflecting to river-left

9. water deflecting to river-left

How to Transform Deflection into Lift

Deflection on its own is a raw, uncontrolled energy that, unless properly routed, will not only prove useless, but actually threaten our line and our stability.  So how do we tap into the benefits of deflection?  Let's understand deflections as the turns that they actually are.  A deflection, whether rock or water, is a point at which the flow is changing direction.  If the water hits the feature and deflects to the right, then essentially you have a right turn, vice-versa on the left.  There are a few key principles to make sure we cover if we're to take advantage of deflection.  Luckily they should be familiar to most paddlers, as since deflections are turns, we approach them in the same way we would approach an eddy-turn.  The four things you'll need to channel deflection to your advantage are:

• SPEED - Speed gives us stability and control through engaging our edges, and increases the energy potential of our encounter with a deflective feature.

• ANGLE - Angling as squarely as possible towards the grain of the deflection will help maximize the energy we harness from the deflection (up to 90 degrees when appropriate).

• EDGE - Looking with our body to the inside of the turn when we hit the deflection allows our hull to slide high onto the deflection and then harness the deflection's energy.  Note that we don't need to edge directly.  Edge is merely the product of rotating our bodies into the turn.  Looking with our body is enough!

• STROKE - A stroke on the inside of the turn allows us to meter/limit the effect of the deflection and re-route its energy in an upward direction, thus lifting the bow.  The stroke and the deflection almost always should be timed to occur simultaneously for the best control.

Let's dissect some case studies in boof.  In both of these sequences of shots, I have drawn lines that indicate the grain and flow direction of the water.  I have drawn a thicker line with arrow marks that indicates the deflective feature as well as the direction of deflection.  

First we've got a nice sequence of Mike Patterson boofing over the nasty hole at Body Snatcher in the Doe River Gorge.  

Case Study #1 - The Body Snatcher!

Note that Mike is in the water that is heading to the center of the channel from river-right.  He has added his own speed on top of the water's speed, and is angled almost 90 degrees into the deflection.  Squaring up the deflection ensures that he will milk the maximal amount of energy out of the deflection and into his hull.  He's got the first two ingredients required - angle and speed! In this shot he's focusing on his approach, and ready to time his next move - looking into the turn with his chest and stroking on the inside of the turn.  

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In this shot, Mike is a split-second from hitting the deflective feature (in this case a curler) and will be re-directed to river-right. If he does nothing, the curler will hit his deck and try to roll him to the outside of the turn. However, he'll treat it the same as he would any right turn, by looking to the inside of the turn with his torso, which raises his outside knee and drops his inside edge.  This will expose his hull to the curler, which will then absorb the curler's energy.  Also, because he is on edge, his stroke will be able to lift his bow more effectively. So, immediately after this shot was taken, Mike looked to the inside and placed a stroke on the inside.

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With angle, speed, and edge, we are set up to maximize the energy of the turn, and harness it with our hull, not our deck.  But what's to stop the deflection from pushing us too far?  How do we limit the deflection based on our goal, and also create lift?  We do this with the fourth crucial element - a stroke on the inside of the turn.  Any type of power stroke - forward, sweep, or stern-draw, will limit the ability of a deflection to turn us.  It helps us straighten the turn.  Think of the placement of a power-stroke as an equal force applied opposite the deflective force.  Though the curler in this case is pushing Mike's bow to the right, his stroke is pushing his bow to the left.  This combination of forces does two things:

1.  It limits the degree of lateral deflection to the desired amount.

2.  Through book-ending all of the energy between the deflection and the stroke, the energy has nowhere to go but up - Lift is generated!  

Note:  Technically, two opposing forces of purely horizontal direction can produce no vertical force (lift).  But remember that the stroke is taken while our boat is on edge.  That means that the stroke has a vertical component of force as well as horizontal, which in addition to the deflective force, will produce some amount of vertical force.  Remember that the amount of lift we are generating is small and quick to fade.  We're relying on timing to milk the most of that lift.

Here's a diagram that might make some sense of the different forces at play, and how they can produce lift in the bow:

This force diagram is a very rough representation/oversimplification, but illustrates the idea behind adding a stroke to deflection in order to generate lift. I'd love some input from any physicist kayakers out there!

photo by Kevin Hancock

Let's look at another example.  Here we have Caleb Paquette boofing twice through a difficult rapid on Rutherford Creek in British Columbia.

Case Study #2 - Double Lefties!

Here, Caleb has driven towards river-right from behind the boulder and into a curler that is deflecting back towards river-left.  So we've got a left turn.  Here we catch the moment of truth, where the deflective energy is being absorbed by Caleb's hull and re-purposed into lift.  He came in with speed and angle.  He looked into the turn and edged aggressively, which allowed his hull to receive the deflection, not his deck.  At that same time, he's put in a powerful stroke on the inside of the turn that counters the left-ward deflection.  Not only does the stroke push his bow to the right, against the deflection, but his edge, or camber, ensures that some of that force will lift the bow as well, as the hull is climbing up the side of the curler.  So how did it work for Caleb?

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Stellar!  Look at that detachment!  

However this is not a single-move rapid. Caleb has work to do just below, as there's another hole that he needs to lift over in order to carry his momentum further downstream.  This requires him to have a new angle and speed, and to use a new deflective feature.  As Caleb lands the first drop, he will switch his edging to carry momentum back to the right again, for the next left-ward deflection! 

Lined up once again!  Caleb has speed, angle, and is getting ready to, as his bow hits the deflection, rotate to the inside, edge, and take a stroke to channel the deflective energy upwards.  

Here we see that the deflective curler has already redirected Caleb's hull, and he is limiting and controlling the deflection by hanging on his stroke.  The water he'll land in is pushing hard back to the right, but he'll keep his angle towards the left - there's a river-wide strainer just downstream!  So deflection allows us to lift our bow, but we have a choice of how much of the turn to take.  Compared to the first boof, Caleb takes more of the turn here instead of continuing straight, because of circumstances downstream.    

Rock Deflection vs. Water Deflection

What about the difference between rocks and water?  How are their deflective forces different and how should we adjust our plan accordingly?  

For the most part, our strategy for channeling the deflective forces of rock and water into the vertical direction are the same.  We approach with speed and angle towards the deflection.  We then look into the turn and stroke on the inside to control deflection and re-channel for lift.

There are some notable differences between these two types of deflective features though. Water's shape is dynamic.  The features it supports surge and writhe with seemingly chaotic, polyrhythmic oscillations.  Water can be pushed aside, or can push back more strongly than expected at any given moment.  Due to water's dynamic, mushy nature, the window of time that our boat is being actively deflected by the feature tends to last for a longer duration than with the same shape we would see that was made of rock. This is because the energy transfer occurs over a longer period of time with water.  When we hit a curler with angle and speed, there is usually a little bit of give where the water rebounds away from the impact zone before pushing back -  that buys us a little room for error on our edge/stroke timing.  In a sense, the deflection from a water feature takes a second to load, ramp up to maximum energy, and then subside.

Rock on the other hand, is for the most part, completely static.  It's shape is solid, and is unlikely to flex, fragment, or be brushed aside from the momentum our boats carry.  Energy travels faster through rock, and is more concentrated. There is less energy loss since our hull can't displace rock and splash it to the side.  This tends to cause the redirection of our momentum to be more abrupt or harsh, which has a distinct effect on the character of our deflective experience.  Think of comparing how a basketball bounces on concrete as opposed to a swimming pool.  Rocks reduce the room for error on our timing, and deflection is experienced in more of an on/off way.  There is no ramping up to maximum deflection as with our dynamic interactions with water; instead the split-second your boat hits the rock, a harsh, ballistic-like rebound occurs.  This means it's critical to time our edging and stroke correctly for the exact moment we hit the rock, as the full deflective force will play out instantly. 

While this may seem to make working with rock deflections more touch and go, there is one caveat about rock deflections that seem to speak to the masses.  They are commonly the easiest types of deflections for less experienced paddlers to identify.  They're just easier to spot, and it's fairly straight-forward to visualize the direction and intensity of deflection.  Before a paddler learns to read water, their eyes really only see two things - rocks, and water.  For this reason, rock boofs seem to stick out to novice boofers, as their ability to differentiate one piece of water from the next, which is key for water-boofing, is not developed.  Starting with rocks is how most everyone does it, but once water-reading skills improve to where a paddler can start to identify turns and deflection in the water, mastering the lift with water is the next step.

What About Upward Deflection?

Here I'm getting deflected straight up, with little redirection to the side - photo by Jeff Moore

All the examples we've described thus far have focused on side to side deflection, which we have to redirect in order to generate lift.  At the beginning of the article though, note that I mentioned upward lift too.  Both water and rock can create deflective features that focus most of the energy straight up from the get go.  With these features we can spend less of our effort on limiting the side to side deflection and rerouting it upward, and really just dial in our approach (speed & angle).  The photo above is a great example of upward deflection generated from a rock.  This drop on the Upper Rocky Broad has a sliding bedrock approach with a kicker at the lip of the drop.  Hitting the middle of this flake of rock that juts up guarantees what is often called an "auto-boof."  An auto-boof has come about to describe any boof that is a guaranteed success, irregardless of boofing skills.  Auto-boofs are almost always associated with upward deflective rocks.  These are the easiest boofs to hit, as we really only need speed and angle, the first part of the lift equation, to make them work.  The timing of aggressive edging and counter-stroking is unnecessary to produce results, so these boofs are favorites among the majority of paddlers.  Examples in the Southeast would be:

• Middle Ledge, Upper Tellico

• Tanner's Boof, Tallulah Gorge

• Groove Tube, Middle Line, Green Narrows

These drops are too much fun, and will allow any paddler to get a feeling for the sensation of launching a sweet boof.  Other than lining them up though, there's not much else to it.  Neither of these drops require a stroke if lined up correctly.  These drops are great locales to practice The Stomp, a finishing technique for boofs, since the other portion of the process is somewhat automatic.

Remember that every drop is unique, so even while the cleanest upward deflective rocks may not require a stroke, using a stroke still might be helpful.  Most upward deflective rocks introduce a potentially perceptible amount of redirection to the side, so having a stroke to counter might be a safe call. 

To accentuate an auto-boof, or "pop-up boof" as they are also called, one can shift their weight forward slightly at the moment of contact in order to put the maximum amount of force into the rock, which will increase the lift.  Note that in order to move your weight forward, it can't ALREADY be forward prior to contact with the rock!  Sit up straight, shoulders-back/chest-out in your approach, and only as you contact the rock will you thrust your upper body forward.  Resist the urge to simply lever your upper body down onto the deck; instead, push your chest forward and keep your posture.  The two shot sequence below illustrates this nicely.

The rapid shown above is on Upper Tremont in the Smokies, and is called "The Tooth."  In the first shot, Nick Barron is in the exact moment of impacting the feature that gives the rapid its name, an upward jutting kicker at the end of a bedrock ramp.  You can see Nick thrusting his weight forward while still sitting up with good posture.  Now this kicker does kick slightly to river-left, so Nick has put in a stroke on that side to keep the side-to-side deflection to a minimum.  The stroke really isn't generating lift as much as it is maintaining his downstream angle.  In the second shot you can see Nick savoring his well earned auto-boof!

So upward deflective rocks make for auto-boofs, but what about upward deflective features made of water? Take a look at the sequence below and note the upward deflective feature in the middle of the ledge.  

Here Laura Eddlemon comes in with speed and angle, and the water does most of the work of lifting her.  However, without any action on her part, her bow would simply fall with the backside of the uplift and pencil into the water.  Here she uses a stroke to prolong the lift that the water has given her so that she can skip through the water below the drop and carry momentum downstream.   

Take a second look at the deflective feature.  It's really just a wave, isn't it.  So we can boof waves?  Yes.  Yes, we can.  

Here's the rub on boofing waves:  If there's a feature like a curler on the wave, that is deflecting to the side, it is essentially a turn, and we have a feature that creates an opposite force to our stroke, and the combination of these forces through the lift equation gives us a loud pancake into the trough of the next wave, right?  But what if there's no side to side deflection on a wave?  Without some type of feature pushing against your stroke, won't your boof stroke simply turn your boat to the side at the crest of the wave instead of lifting the bow and maintaining your angle?  

Maybe the solution to this is to get some edge for that stroke.  You can see Laura doing that in the image above.  Engaging the edge on the side of her stroke should help the boat track and resist the urge to simply slide when she pulls on her stroke.  You'll note she also has her stroke vertical and keeps the blade close to the boat.  This minimizes yaw (veer) and let's the power of her stroke propel her forward.  All these things are nice, but is a slight edge and a proper forward stroke enough to resist spinning the boat?

There's something more profound that Laura did, and it's in her approach.  Note in the first shot that she is angled towards river-left, but in the last she is pointed straight at the camera.  Laura intentionally came into the wave angled left, instead of squared up to it.  She then moved into her forward stroke position by slicing up to the bow with a draw.  This draw initiated a turn back to the center to square up the feature just when her bow was reaching the peak of the wave.  And her stroke generated lift.  Her stroke generated lift on top of what the wave had already given her, without deflection from the side, and without a "kicker" just under the surface.   

How can you generate lift without deflection???

CAN you generate lift without deflection?

If you could, wouldn't that mean you could do it anywhere?

Yes, it would.  

Stay tuned, and we'll break into the magical world of creating lift through using the powerful combination of spin-momentum and leverage!

Cheers,
Kirk  

The Purpose of the Boof: Generating Lift

Steve Krajewski generating lift on Little Brush Creek, Sequatchie Valley, TN

Why Boof?

What's all the fuss about boofing?  What is it good for anyways?  The standard claim for the use of the boof is to keep the bow of the boat on the surface of the water when landing a drop, which keeps the kayak out of the reach of sticky hydraulics and dangerous sub-surface features.  Beyond the traditional utility of avoiding nasty holes/getting pinned under the water, and the sensation of flying through the air though, the boof has over the years come to take on broader meaning, as skills and technique have advanced.  Click through the two scrolls of photos below.  Which set appears to represent environments where boofing is more useful?  

Early in my development as a paddler, I would have immediately chosen the first series of photos as those that clearly show more boof-intensive environments.  This seems obvious.  Streams with lots of ledges, waterfalls, and other vertical drops are clearly the arena of boof, right?  Of course!  But it took me a long time to learn that in fact the type of environments shown in the second series of photos reward good boofing skills just as much, if not more in certain instances, than the more classically considered boofing grounds.  The boof has evolved into a philosophy of river-running that has allowed paddlers to progress beyond what was considered possible.  Instead of plotting a line down a pushy river solely constructed to avoid all the holes, the ability to boof water, waves, and holes, allows paddlers to build lines that are more efficient and to more effectively tap into the river's energy.  Being able to skip over any feature without losing momentum allows the spectrum of possible lines on a given rapid to broaden tremendously.  Instead of being stifled by off-limits features within a rapid, boofing liberates us to create lines that serve higher-end goals like being efficient, conserving momentum, setting up for the next rapid, and our pursuit of grace and style.  

Potential Misnomer?

The word boof originally was coined to describe the sound a boat makes when it lands a drop flat, but I think the name sells the technique short..  For a long time it has been an auditory affirmation that we just greased our move.  However with the expansion of the idea behind the boof and its utility, I would wager that a majority of "boofs" used on the river by paddlers today make little to no sound at all.  What is this sound after all, but the audible indication that energy is being squandered,  released recklessly to the atmosphere, not to be salvaged?  

Paddling is a freedom sport - make all the noise you want, if it feels good, it is good, right? Certainly!  But beyond the occasional glory boof here and there, the ability to lift our bow over features serves the ultimate, central goal in kayaking of maintaining momentum.  If we're focused on keeping the momentum the river has given us, then why would we want to constantly give it away by pancaking and over-boofing every single feature on our trip down the river?  

When I started learning to boof, I charged every rock and 6-inch pourover I could find, and I recommend everyone do the same when experimenting with the boof.  Physical exploration of the technique is essential, and it's fun after all!  In time though, it will become apparent that boofing is a means to a greater end - the goal of conserving momentum.  Boofing for the sake of boofing, or letting each boof explode as if in a vaccum, will seem to undermine the true value of the boof in more and more scenarios.  A this point the boof will begin to  smooth in nature to fit the broader context of what the river demands at the given moment, only to exist as a functional component of a seamless series of movements with the water .  

So whether your boof-stroke should result in the boof-sound or not depends on how focused you are on conserving momentum.  Don't get hung up on the name!  Some of the most important "boof-strokes" of your life in fact will elicit nothing but silence from the water's surface.  

Air Time

It's also important to note that air time is not always a product of boofing, though it's implied in the contemporary understanding of the term.  A boof-stroke simply raises the bow slightly (a few inches or so) for a very brief period of time.  With proper timing, this stroke won't necessarily generate air time, but will skip the bow over a feature that it would have otherwise pierced into.  The increase in bow-height required to cleanly skip over a feature as opposed to bury through it is very minimal.  If this stroke is taken at the precipice of any sizable vertical drop, though, air time will be an added product of the boof-stroke.  

While airtime can be fun, how you'll need to manage it depends very much on the circumstances the river presents to you.  Air time without purpose can be detrimental to your line, and your health!  Downhill skiers try to minimize air time for the sake of reducing drag, all in the name of speed.   Atmospheric drag isn't nearly as in play for our comparatively slow sport, but we still want to manage our time in the air wisely.  If we at all wish to carry speed away from a drop and into the next feature, we'll need to not just savor air time, but use the time it gives us to set our landing angle to best conserve momentum.  We'll discuss these techniques (the stomp) later on.  For now, just know that air time isn't always a result of boof-strokes, nor is it often the goal.

Boofing in a vaccum - Intoxicated with air, I boof into oblivion, and a little back pain, photo by Nick Wigston

The Lift: Channeling Momentum into the Third Dimension

Irrespective of the result of our boof-stroke - sound or silence, air time or not, pancake, plug or watermelon seed, our boof-stroke really boils down to generating lift.  The need for generating lift on the river is constant, and lift helps us channel momentum not just fore, aft, and side to side, but in a vertical direction.  It sets us free by taking our paddling to the third dimension.  The boof has been in a box far too long.  Boofing is just lifting.  The virtues of lifting our bow on the river are endless.  Your stroke cadence on any given river should be laden with lifting strokes.  In this way, you'll not only boof ledges, rocks and curlers, but also holes, waves, pillows, eddylines, and every type of water feature in between.  

So let's get into the nitty-gritty of just how exactly we go about creating lift.  There's features in our environment we can use, which help generate lift through deflection, and there's a way of generating lift completely on our own through the use of leverage.  The next post is really going to get into the physics and methods behind using deflection to generate lift.  Enjoy!                                                        

 

More to the Dip than Meets the Ear: Kids These Days and Why Flashy is Way Beyond Functional

It's usually simple enough to examine any technique or design in its current state, and trace backwards in time a very logical, step by step progression, from the very beginning all the way to contemporary design, shapes, and attitudes.  However, why is it so daunting to try and anticipate how design and performance will be optimized in the future?  Strangely enough, while we can be fairly certain of how we got to where we are from positions past, to project where we're going can often end up a fool's task.  

In some fields, particularly more cerebral ones like computer technology, it takes a visionary, or legion of visionaries, to, with an open mind, look to the future for new perspectives.  Innovation can certainly happen by arbitrary mistake - science history is full of these Eureka! moments, but by and large, much of our advancement in human history is intellectual in nature, sourcing from the mind, often on an emergent, collective scale.  

This seems less so the case in whitewater, where from the perspective of the individual, gains are made through the simple mathematics of hours on task.  While guidance from professionals and awareness of the breadth of current knowledge help expedite a person's ability to hone in on what is understood as the best style and technique, it ultimately boils down to letting our bodies do what they do best - optimization through hours and hours of repetition and muscle-memory refinement.  Simply put, in a sport like whitewater, much of our learning consists of subconscious processing in the background, between body and mind, often even while we're fast asleep.  This means we can do very well at something while not having a cognisant, academic understanding of it at all.  This can make elevating the collective technical progress of a paddling group cumbersome, as the more experienced paddlers in the group will describe the motion of their body to explain a skill, rather than the true mechanics and theory driving the motion.  

Despite the idea that any person's progress in whitewater largely depends on the amount of time devoted to practice though, we still heavily rely on the free dissemination of information on new techniques and best practice.   Imagine if you were to give a full set of gear to someone that had never seen paddling in any capacity, and also gave gear to another person but also shared instructional videos, modern kayak videos, and writing on paddling.  Assuming each person had similar physical ability and coordination, the person with exposure to the current state of the art would be able to see from their position as a beginner, far off to the edge of the envelope as currently known.  The person with these resources would immediately have a visual understanding of how the best paddlers in the world look when they paddle, and more importantly, how they don't look.  The person without connection to these resources would be in for a wandering, torturous path beset with digression.  To take an instrument designed to perform in a certain way, and attempt to find a purpose for it without knowledge of the purpose might be a worthwhile endeavor, and could produce some creative results, but is unlikely to lead to a quick and substantial growth in ability to use the instrument.  

If it seems like I'm stating the obvious, I am.  But on our endeavor towards personal growth, it's worthwhile to remind ourselves that we owe most all of our specialized abilities and competencies to the generations who have come before us.  Think of the number of hours humans have spent figuring out the best way to peel out of an eddy, skim on through the next one, and pivot turn into the eddy on the other side.  In a sense, on any given Summer Saturday at a crowded river, there is a bounty of research being conducted on how to best get things done.  It's been going on for decades and will continue on into the future.  As individuals we benefit from the hours of repetition, the subconscious learning of the body.  And as groups of friends, we undoubtedly cross-reference our findings and pick winners for best practice.  We learn, and our ability evolves.  We take the work of those in the past, add ours to it, and push on in the pursuit of understanding and performance.  And it often doesn't even seem like work.  It's kayaking after all!  What could be more instantly satisfying?

Could practicing your boof be more enchanting than on Dog Slaughter Creek?

We all want to be the best paddlers we can be.  We see where it all started, we see ourselves as beneficiaries of that developmental path, and hold much respect for those who have given us so much.  We are in the moment and focused on the move, but are we spotting our landing?  Are we scanning the next horizon line for clues about where our paddling style will be in the future?    

I think to look into the future and discover where our skills are headed,  we need only to watch the best paddlers in the world.  In the digital age the excuses for not knowing what it really looks like to be the best are few.  Imagine putting a group of promising youths in the hands of the best paddlers in the world.  Give these new paddlers the privilege and opportunity to put in an amount of hours a week paddling that most most other folks don't even put into their work week, for years on end, on a stage that covers planet Earth, with every sub-discipline of paddling available to them.  Give them the tools, the support, and the encouragement, and see what they will do.  Allow them to feed off one another, and refine technique as a group, as a family, for the pursuit of pure aquatic joy.  Then let the desire to share it grow inside them to the point at which they are compelled to share it with all of us, for example, by creating beautiful videos that show what they're doing.  These folks are out there doing just that, right now.  Whether you, the reader, just got your first boat and are chomping at the bit to get your driver's license to drive to the Ocoee every weekend, or are a veteran who's paddled over 30 years with a wooden 60 degree stick, these kids are out there, doing the best kayaking that the world has ever seen.  We can ooh, and ahh at the beauty of a smooth line.  We can guffaw and retort "kids these days" and other cliche remarks when we see someone bounce down a marginable cascade in Gnarjikistan on the latest new video.  We can and we in fact do.  But are we really paying attention?  Are we watching every second as an eager apprentice?  Or do we discount it as youthful growing pains and the ego-driven stunts of a crowd that hasn't yet grasped their own mortality?  

Here's the rub - no matter how we look at it, these kids are prototyping what will become the foundation for the way the next generation paddles.  What looks flashy and loose now is the groundwork for the solid standards of tomorrow.  So it has been in the past.  

Take the cover of the Summer 1973 American Whitewater Journal for example, which showed a paddler braving Potter Falls on the Crooked Fork in Tennessee.  This article generated much controversy.  Many thought the picture and short blurb accompanying it should not have even been printed, for fear that it would lead a whole generation of new paddlers astray and to their early death.  This was prior to the development of the proto-boof, also known at the time as the "ski-jump."  Basic techniques we take for granted today sourced from the era when these brave paddlers started testing Potter Falls.  They were labeled risk-takers, and any role they had in creeking development was completely minimized at the time.  The folks who wanted to suppress that this activity was going on were unintentionally keeping the state of the art from being absorbed by the larger boating public.  Take a look at the links below:

Controversial Cover 
Blurb for Cover Shot

Winter 1973 issue  - check the letters from readers section a few pages in 

Responses to the letter in the May/June 1974 Journal (read through page 98) 

This drop now gets regularly run by first year paddlers - it's an introduction to waterfalls. I doubt anyone's ever gotten hurt there.  This same type of criticism has occurred following every waterfall record since, with every new height achieved being discounted by many as bad for the sport and marginalized as simply a stunt.  I'm not trying to argue whether it's bad for the sport, but only that at any given time, the people pushing the envelope are the ones progressing the range of what's possible in a kayak, and if we would watch, they're also showing us how to do it best.  With the proper skill-set, it is now reasonable to consistently run 50-70 foot waterfalls with precision and acceptable risk.  How could this have come about without us taking note of those pushing through barriers?

 What does this mean for those of us who will never run a drop over 20 feet?  It means a lot!  The most fit techniques for doing what all of us do have developed from the best paddlers continuing to get better, and I try to get the most out of it personally by emulating what they are doing in my own paddling.  

The state of the art when it comes to whitewater kayaking is right in front of us.  My advice is to get in on the ground floor with the latest techniques, and learn as much as you can.  Watch and learn!  
 

Taking an earful at Baby Falls - photo by Brian Payne

The Ear Dip - A Celebration of CHARC and the Water Boof

So let's take a look at the Ear Dip.  If you haven't seen one already, start by checking out Substantial Media House’s VIMEO CHANNEL.  The paddlers in Substantial's videos are the highest end paddlers in the world, in particular with respect to expeditionary kayaking and big drops, and they also run the biggest, hardest whitewater on the planet.  It's these folks who are leading the way in the development of river-running and creeking technique, and the Ear Dip is one of the latest phenomenons to gain notice.   

It may be readily apparent that the Ear Dip isn't necessary in order to get a sufficient or even stylish boof on most drops, but this flashy move is an instance of artful hyperbole nodding to a somewhat recent embrace of using increasingly aggressive edging and Charc in suite with deflective features to generate lift when there's no eminent rock contact to do the work for us.  The Ear Dip is a celebration that the concept of the boof has expanded territory beyond the realm of rocks and into the medium of water.  This expansion, to be clear, is not new.  However the true mastery of it in my opinion is fairly recent, and is certainly a 21st century development.  

Folks have been "water boofing" for a while now, but typically, nailing a water boof takes more skill and experience than it does to boof a rock.  This is because in the instance of rock boofing, we have a immovable, stiff, hard material creating a deflective feature that gives our boat lift.  It's fixed, predictable, and we just need momentum.  The rock will give us lift at exactly the correct time.  In water boofing, we use more impermanent, dynamic features in the water itself to generate lift, such as pillows, curlers, diagonals, waves and holes, where timing can be more complicated.  In the case that the lift generated from one of these features is insufficient, we have to create additional lift through the use of leverage.  

Water Boof - Jim Janney on the Clarks Fork Author Rock Boofing in NC, by Jeff Moore

By far the best way to create leverage with our boat is to use momentum and edge to create a charging arc, or "Charc."  Any stroke taken on the inside of the Charc will have leverage that is capable of lifting the bow without any help from water features, rocks or anything else external.  So here it's leverage that allows us to lift our bow, instead of the boat's momentum hitting a rock and redirecting the energy upwards.   Whether the lift we create is all Charc-based leverage, or deflection based from rock, water, or a combination thereof, this lift creates a fleeting window where the bow is rising up.  In that moment, if we were in outer space, that new direction of momentum would continue into eternity, for a galactic boof that Neil De Grasse Tyson would be short on words to describe.  But because we are on Earth, and are forever subject to the downward force of gravity, that lift-induced raising of the bow quickly becomes overpowered and vanishes.   A beautiful thing about a tiny split-second of lift, though, is that if we time it just right, it can give us a magical ride through the air - a moment where it all slows down and makes sense.  It's making something great out of something small.  Beyond the sensation though, it's utility at it's finest.  It's the foundation of creeking.  

So the Ear Dip might be seen as a piece of performance art in tribute to this discovery, a revelation by no one person, but the cream of the renaissance of so many generations of paddlers working together in the effort to paddle with grace.  And that is why the boof is so much more than is being conveyed in traditional instruction and tutorials of late.  The boof can happen with the help of rocks, and it can happen with the help of water, but the potential to boof is within the paddler and their craft alone.  Those on the envelope have returned with riches, and now we too can now generate lift without external deflective features.  We do this through the leverage that Charc gives us.  

In the next section, we'll start the process of understanding the many ways we can generate lift in greater detail.  I realize it took me a while to get to a more technical conversation on this post, but I feel that to take full advantage of the knowledge and experience out there, we need to look at the right source and point our personal path in the right direction.  We have to look to the best modern artists and try to see what it is they're doing.  We also have to give great thanks to those in the past who were willing to go out into the unknown and find their own way of understanding.  We can thank legendary squirt boater and creek explorer Jim Snyder for the term Charc.  It's a simple idea that can lead to beautiful things, and in my eyes, is the most fundamental principle behind whitewater kayaking.  If the boys dropping Potter Falls in 1973 got the ball rolling on the boof, Charc has undoubtedly set it free!

40 years and we're still following in the footsteps of the mentally imbalanced - Potter Falls

Cheers,
Kirk

Learn to Boof in Three Easy Steps! just kidding.

photo by Kevin Hancock of Hancock Photography

I'm going to be perfectly honest - it took me a very long time to really learn how to boof.  It took years of penciling, pitoning, hole-surfing, and general frustration, before I gradually found enlightenment on the path towards boofmaster status. Perfection is always out of reach.  That keeps us young, and keeps us tenacious and honest.  I've come a long way, and though I feel I truly understand the boof on an experiential level, trying to figure out how to share my understanding in an absorbable medium for others has proven challenging.  

As a teacher explaining any technique, it's important to first understand the basic concept of what use it serves, and to be able to pare it down and simplify it, and present it in a few clear, concise, key points.  This is fairly reasonable for many paddling techniques, and though I do indeed hope that there is a way to make boofing so simple as to be clarified through a short step by step process, I frankly believe that it's too complicated a subject to confine to such simple terms.  I've always had a hard time processing the typical explanations given for how the boof works, which often have broken the technique down to 1) reaching over the lip of a drop, 2) implementation of some kind of ab crunch/hip thrust and 3) bringing your weight forward/leaning forward/recovery, etc.  I've also seen lots of folks out on the river who appear to be trying these same general steps, often with seemingly little success/improvement.   I personally learned the most from just watching high-end paddlers do their thing, from early in my days of pushing the rewind button on the VCR to scrolling back the bar on youtube on the latest online videos, to having the luck to paddle with the world's best kayakers.  And what I see in the playful movement and geometries that these paddlers create with their boats hardly emulates the instructions I've heard on the topic of how to boof.    

So is there some secret new way of boofing that just emerged from the depths at some point in the recent past that I've been informed of?  Not necessarily.  Technique doesn't progress with the flip of a switch.  It evolves, somewhat seamlessly, but also in punctuated bursts of advancement.  The cutting edge in paddling ability is an emergent line, defined and bent by the explorers and  perfectionists that inhabit the fringe of all directions of the sport.  Whether searching for downtime in a fiberglass wing, maximizing the pop of a blunt on a glassy shoulder, or finding a perfect mindful eternity within 70 vertical feet of freefall, we're all working towards not just understanding, but because paddling is an actively participatory pursuit, matching our energies as boat riders with the energy of the water.  Not only do we fill the voids of knowledge and ability through diligence and the help of others, but we come to find that there are after all, so many more facets of our movement with water that need further exploration.  All horizons melt away if you chase them long enough.

So it's no surprise that the boof is not what it appeared to be 20 years ago.  And unlike more static, chunky shifts in operability like which version of iOS you're running on your phone, the evolution of boof technique has been very gradual and piecemeal.  I'm not going to try to define boof 2.0, but I do wish to describe the leading edge of the concept as I know it today.  There are no doubt many paddlers who understand it more than I do, but I see a divergence, a gap, between the pushers, and the everyday boater with respect to the understanding of, and the ability to execute any boof the river requires.  It's my humble opinion that to fill this gap, we need to move to a new and more holistic understanding of the boof.  If I can set the stage well enough, and build it from the ground up, I think that it's possible that the beautiful, advanced boofing techniques that we see the sport's best athletes using can truly be appreciated and implemented by any weekend warrior.  

I still remember how it felt when I started to understand the boof in a more complete way, and for anyone in search of technical mastery, truly hard whitewater, or full development as a paddler, it's extremely integral to the whole paddling process.  Given the lack of public discussion on the topic, I think that the conversation needs to begin. Stay tuned to this blog for the first in several installations where we will slowly start to decode the boof.  

Cheers!

Kirk