White water and death

The moon was nearing climax, casting a blue glow over the faces in the circle of chairs. The sloping walls of the canyon appeared pale and ghostly. My feet were warm buried deep in the still searing sand. In front of me sat the people I had just met only a day ago, who were now allowing me to guide them down the Lower Salmon river. As with the previous trips I had run, one of the other guides had brought up my Class V kayaking experience at some point during the trip. Now the inevitable had happened. I was asked to tell a few stories about some close calls or near misses. With a very relaxed tone, I would recount the time I got a concussion on Clear Creek, or when my paddling buddy and I collided in the large hole in Cascade. Succumbing to the pain of a few dislocated ribs, I passed out doing limp body cartwheels in the the violent froth. The white of their ever widening eyes would contrast the black back lighting of the beach. Feet would shift nervously sifting sand between toes in anticipation. Gasps would slip out of unsuspecting mouths. The same questions would always resonate in my ears after the story would end, "Are you afraid to die?" "How can you be so calm about it?" "You must have some balls." My answers "No" "No" and "nah they are about average" needed more explanation each time those words tumbled from my chapped lips. I am not afraid to die. This is not hubris. This has come from a few close calls. Most I walk away from unscathed, a few with just minor dings, but all with a greater understanding of "the end."

I love kayaking. It allows me to focus, the world to slow, and peace to flood within. The moment before a boof, the lip of a waterfall, and cartwheeling in a hole, are all the quietest the world can be. No sound can pierce those moments. No fear can steal them away. Nothing matters but the next second. This allows me to live in that moment. To realize it for its beauty. To notice every bubble in the water, every heave of my lungs, every crease in the rock, and really see its purity. It is as though I see the secret to life, the key to the universe. If I need to put myself in a situation where I might have a few scrapes with death, then the risk is definitely worth the reward. The pure nature of kayaking forces me to be calm. On the other hand the dangers of Class V kayaking are greatly exaggerated. You are more likely to have a serious car accident then drown kayaking. All kayakers weigh risk with reward. Sometimes the calcuation doesn't work out. Sometimes freak accidents happen, but from experience, there are more close calls than direct hits. 

The Avenue of the Giant Beatdowns

The air seemed warm, not usual for the elevation we were at. Around me the thundering of water finding its way around rocks and crashing into sieves complemented by siphons echoed in my helmeted ears. My kayak bobbed unhurried in a small eddy. I had been in this same situation before only a day earlier. The water was half the flow, but still made for an intense class V run. "The Avenue of the Giant Boulders" the old fading wooden sign had read on the short hike in "Class V, experts only." I always laughed at the sense of urgency behind the word "expert." I was by no stretch an expert. For the past three months I had been guiding in Idaho, which didn't allow time for Class V kayaking. Now only a week after being back, and only kayaking a handful of times in the summer, I was about to re-attempt my run of the triple drop, which I had styled at half today's flow. I took a couple strokes and turned out of the eddy. The surging turbulent clear water reached out and grabbed my kayak. Its pull drug me through the first two moves. I made both moves just like yesterday, but I could feel the slightly increased timing of the water. I came to the move just above the second drop in the triple drop. I realized I was two far left. I used the hole above the s-shaped drop to surf myself back right, and avoid a sieve that hungered for my bright yellow kayak. As I was swept into the top move I took my boof stroke and tried to rotate onto my right edge so I could land and make the right turning drop below. As my muscles contracted pulling the beaten blue blade of my paddle purposefully backward, I had a horrible moment of realization. It was a though the world had stopped turning and I was suspended in mid air, small droplets of water languidly flowing past my ever widening eyes. In that moment I knew I was about to piton the large sieve-like rock wall in front of me. Plastic and rock collided with a violent crack which indented the nose of my boat, and sent my head whiplashing into my spraydeck. With no forward momentum, my face was forced into the thirty degree water, and the waterboarding started. I missed my first to rolls, then felt a rock hit my hand. I grabbed the edge of the boulder and rolled up. Jared and Hunter, my two paddling buddies, sat in the eddy opposite me with smiles on the their faces. We launched into the next few drops which all seemed to flow together much like a symphonies's different movements. I came sweeping off a drop straight towards the next one, which I knew was a must make drop. I rotated onto my edge to boof then it happened. Rather than feel the familiar balance point and boof, my boat continued to rotate off the rock ledge. This put my body between me and a few very hard rocks, and a two sticky holes. I hit the rocks and tucked as I was swept through the next two holes. I knew I needed to roll, and roll quickly. If I did not eddy out immediately after this drop, then I would be swept off a rock ledge onto a rock, then subsequently into a very convenient sieve. I rolled just above the ledge somehow managing to catch the eddy. "Ok" I told myself "This is the last of the carnage today." It wasn't. As we came bouncing, turning, and sweeping through the last boulder garden, I took a right boof stroke off a fun looking boulder. Rather and think "heh, that was fun" I gained enough speed from the boof to slide out of control over some rocks straight into a nasty siphon. "Shit, shit, shit" came some breathless words as my forward velocity continued. At the last moment I grabbed two rocks next to me stopping my forward progress. There I held myself, bobbing above a sieve, beat up, and out of  breath. My buddy Mikey who was shooting a picture of my line down the Avenue, snapped a picture of my boof then looked away. As his eyes moved back up the boulder infested creek, he noticed I was nowhere to be seen. "JON WENT RIGHT! GET OUT OF YOUR BOAT!" he yelled at Hunter. Jared ferried to a different eddy to see if he could get a visual on me. Between the house sized boulders our eyes met and I gave him a wave. I climbed out of my boat, walked around the siphon, and finished the run with no more issues. It is not often in Kayaking a kayaker can really fuck up as much as I did and come out unscathed. Its all a mental game, and while I had some close calls, I never noticed until later, didn't realized the consequences that I almost incurred. The Avenue of the Giant Boulders has only been run by a handful of people. While I have successfully banged my way down it twice, I do not feel I conquered it, but instead just had enough mental game to be dumb enough to even sit in the eddy above the triple drop, visualizing success.