Chapter 1 - Welcome to the Sport     Chapter 2 - The Addiction Begins     Chapter 3 - Can You Say Kaituna    
Chapter 4 - So You Want to Roll     Chapter 5 - The Accelerated Course     Chapter 6 - The Legend Begins
Chapter 7 - Fear and Other Thoughts     Chapter 8 - Spring 2007 - What a Disappointment

CHAPTER NINE:
JUST LIKE STARTING OVER...

Hip, Hip, Hooray!  After a 3-month hiatus, I finally got back on the water and it felt like I was starting all over again.  Bruce and I had been planning a trip on the Middle Yough to help me work on skills such as ferrying and catching eddies.  Although I definitely need to work on these things, we weren’t really looking forward to having to paddle “the doldrums.”  Fortunately for us, it rained enough to bring the Cheat Narrows up to a runnable level and we jumped at the opportunity.  I was really excited about this turn of events because the Narrows was the one river I felt most comfortable on last year.  It was also one of the few rivers that I didn’t swim on and was hopeful that would carry over to this season.  We met Zeth at the take-out around 12:15 PM to set shuttle.  While getting ready I started to get really nervous.  I hadn’t paddled any whitewater since a class I-II run on Mill Creek in March and I hadn’t been that successful on that.  I tried my best to calm down by reminding myself of the great line I had through “Calamity” last year and assuring myself that I had the necessary skills to run this river.  I finally got myself together enough to put on.

The plan was to work on ferrying and eddy hopping skills the whole way down the river.  Unfortunately, that is not how it turned out.  I put on and ferried across to a large eddy to wait for Bruce.  At this point I was still calm and ready to go.  We started through the first rapid and eddied out on river left.  This is where plans changed.  Bruce wanted me to practice ferrying across the riffles and current here.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Well, this is where my irrational fears took over and literally paralyzed me.  My entire face and both arms up to my elbows became numb!  I couldn’t believe it.  How can you want something so bad and have that happen?  I just can’t figure it out.  I sat in the eddy for a while trying to stop the numbness.  I knew I needed to practice but knew I couldn’t do it where Bruce wanted me to.  I finally regained a little composure.  I paddled down the eddy some to a place where the current wasn’t as strong and ferried back and forth there trying to relax.  After a while we headed down stream.  I could tell Bruce was disappointed because he wants to help me and I’m not really giving him the chance.  He pretty much left me alone so that I could try and get comfortable and loosen up some before the big drops.  I followed Bruce and Zeth through the remaining class II rapids before “Calamity” seriously questioning whether I should even be on the water at all.  The answer to that question came at “Calamity”.”

The previous two times I ran “Calamity” I just followed Dave down the left without eddying out anywhere above the drop.  Bruce had never run this line.  Because of this and because he wanted me to scout it, we eddied out above the lead in on river right.  After taking a long look, we decided to run it down the line I had followed Dave through.  Down the inside of the wavetrain on the left and then cut right and clip the hole above the rock, angled left.  To do this, we would have to ferry to river left and peel out to make sure we were lined up.  Seeing my obvious anxiety, Bruce gave me the option of helping me portage.  I was determined not to do that.  I took a few minutes to get myself together and began my ferry.  I started out high in the eddy, paddled hard and successfully made it across the eddy line behind a large rock halfway across.  I made the decision to just continue ferrying across but didn’t lean the right way crossing the eddy line into the current and almost flipped but managed to pull it off and get to the eddy on river right.  Bruce felt I needed to be further up in the eddy for my peel out.  I tried paddling up but couldn’t fight the current so instead I got out and dragged my boat up to where I wanted to be.  Bruce peeled out first with me following.  I managed to be where I was supposed to be but I got to the rock a lot quicker than I thought I would and went into the hole still angled right instead of straight on.  This caused me to flip and I ended up pulling the skirt and swimming while Bruce saved my boat.  After a nice climb over many rocks & boulders, I caught up to Bruce and my boat where I was able to take a break and ready myself for “Wind” and “Rocking Horse.”  Paddling the flat stretch before “Wind” I started to get severe pain in my back whenever I took a stroke.  I must’ve pulled something during my swim at “Calamity.”  I seriously considered taking out but determined it would probably be more painful trying to haul the boat up the hill than it would to paddle the rest of the way down.  So I continued on.

I know what both of these rapids look like and usually try to take the easiest route through them.  This time I tried to follow Bruce through the beefier waves of “Wind” staying slightly more to the right than he did and then avoided the big hole at the bottom.  What a fun ride.  I do like riding the waves.  Next came “Rocking Horse.”  He usually has me eddy out river left above the large hole but because I was still having the sharp pain I was unsure I would have enough strength to ferry across to avoid the hole so I took the easier route straight down the right into the big eddy.  Definitely wimped out on this one but that hole just scares me.  I took the right hand line through the next rapid avoiding some rocks along the way eddying out near a nice surf wave.  I sat in the eddy watching Zeth and Bruce surf this wave and actually decided to give it a try just as Bruce started yelling for me to “get up on that wave.”  He was shocked when I said OK.  Normally I would’ve just ignored him and kept on paddling!  I gave it my best shot but never did get on the wave.  Nonetheless, I was proud of my effort.  At least I tried this time.  From here on down we did what we had intended from the start.  We eddy hopped the rest of the way down only missing one.  I also tried to get up on another wave!  Can you believe it?  Didn’t make it once again.  I’ll just have to keep trying.

I was definitely more relaxed the second half of the run and my enjoyment level soared.  I need to find a way to get comfortable more quickly so that I can enjoy the entire run.  I think it will really help my confidence if I can get to know this river and practice on it often.  I look forward to running this river a couple more time this summer, levels permitting.  It’s raining now.   Who knows, maybe this weekend…

Page design by:

Send mail to riverrat1969@comcast.net with questions or comments about this website.