Tales From The River
This morning I wrote an email to friend describing my day of whitewater kayaking yesterday on Washougal River about an hours drive from Portland. I’ve decided to put my experience up here too. So here’s how it went:
On Saturday I was whitewater kayaking and it kicked my arse. I hadn’t realized it while on the river but after 10-15 mins after take-out I was knackered. Two weeks ago I’d spent a Saturday & Sunday kayaking with a group of people. We were all beginners in an intro class of whitewater kayaking. For those two days we spent were on the Clackamas River for a 5 mile stretch which is pretty basic. During the weekend I flipped my boat once and had to swim with my boat till I could get ashore. But this weekends class we needed to do more technical maneuvers and go through harder rapids, but our options for local rivers were severely hampered by recent hot weather which has caused the snow on nearby mountains to melt fast resulting in high, fast flowing water on all rivers around here. Our best choice was the Washougal River in Washington, about 45 mins from downtown Portland, so we headed there. We were going to run about 4 miles but after 3 miles Paul, our incredibly patient and all round excellent instructor, thought we should stop for the day as some of us had spent entirely too much time in the water and we were getting tired.
I spent way too much time upside down in the river. It goes like this; I paddle but not not very well, I just thrash the paddle left & right and try to go in a straight line. Going in a straight line usually, but not always, occurs in slow flowing water. In water with waves anything can happen and invariably I will at some point be heading backwards (which is what happened as soon as I got in the water on Saturday) if I haven’t already fallen over. Imagine some guy in a boat with his paddle going apeshit, the boat bobbing from side to side, spinning round and round while saying to himself “whoa, whoa, whoaaa!” and then he’s suddenly upside down in the water.. That’s me. After one fall where I was swept downstream upside down inside my boat I got out of the boat held on to it and the paddle and waited for calmer water as Paul came racing up to rescue me, again. Though in reality I can always handle the situation and wait for calm water to get to the river edge it is good to have the help. I don’t ever feel a need to be “rescued”. So I scrambled to the river edge, got the water out of my boat and climbed back in. I’d just started to paddle again when Paul gave my boat a shove from behind to help me along and immediately I was upside down again. Damn. That was my day Saturday, though I did successfully navigate the hardest section of the river, a class 3, without any problem. We postponed Sunday’s outing because water was still too highso will do it in a couple of weeks. In the meantime I have to get into a pool and practice my rolls.