Growing Pains

Carl Schneider, Mark Hanna, and Don Smith.

These names were in the past 6 months added to an unfortunate list that includes John Nickolas, Scott Hasson, Whitney Shields, Jeff Mayfield, Tim Gavin, and perhaps many others. It's our own regional list, and each mountainous region undoubtedly has its own list to which names are added at varying frequencies. However, to add three names to our local list of Highly Skilled Whitewater Kayakers Who Drowned on a River They Knew Well in such a short amount of time will cause those of us who run the same rivers they paddled regularly to have a deep and reflective look at our priorities.

I have written quite a lot lately about how I now feel while paddling and how my paddling has changed since Carl's demise on Tucker County, WV's Blackwater River (the same river as Tim Gavin, but at a different rapid). Many of our friends have responded similarly and have seen little water time. Since then Don Smith drowned on a solo run of the Blackwater's North Fork, a stretch of whitewater one ridge away that perhaps nobody knew better. When each accident happens, an obsession takes over and I read everything written -- fact or opinion -- about the event. It's my attempt to control the uncontrollable and I'm not the only one. Regional online forums were abuzz for days about Don's accident, just as they had been after Carl and Mark died 9 days apart last October (Mark drowned on the Gauley River, a few hours south).

I think that Don's situation feels the ugliest, though. He was a really freaking good boater and he paddled the North Fork all the freaking time. It's been suggested that Don had more runs on the North Fork than anybody else, anywhere. He was the guy who notified the boating community about shifts in rocks, about down trees blocking passage, about the water level, and about shuttle road conditions. He posted information about his backyard run only a few days before it claimed his life, saying on the online forum BoaterTalk that the "north-fork went to highest level in last 4-5 years today and its likely that there may be some changes, so be heads up on your next run. a number of other northern wv streams also went extremely high and there's likely to be rocks in different places and new wood." He signed the post simply, "d."

I heard more than one boater exclaim, "If I ever decide to run the North Fork, I'd have Don Smith lead me down." Apparently this was the position Tim Gavin held when he drowned on the Upper Blackwater in March,1998, and the gravity of it all feels awful. Others have been affected and wrote about it.

Allow me to amplify this. That Tim Gavin -- who by 1998 knew the Upper Blackwater better than anyone, and who had even designated the slot in which he was to drown "Matter of Time" -- and Don Smith, who virtually lived at the North Fork put-in and who was acutely aware of the new wood danger this week . . . that these two men constituted the first two fatalities on their respective home rivers speaks very strongly about the risks inherent even for the best-informed, most highly skilled among us. - Alden Bird, author of Let It Rain, a whitewater guidebook to the Northeastern US and Eastern Canada.

And this.

"it's miserable to keep losing friends, peers, to what is essentially play. Some people paddle for fun occasionally, some people paddle a lot for the experience and the joy. Some people paddle so much that it's a major, if not THE major component of who they are. . . . is [the coincidence of their fatality] only because they have a higher exposure." - JB Seay, blogger at Creek West Virginia.

Recently, well-known expedition kayaker and author Doug Ammons suggested that 'he died doing what he loved' is a cliche that needs to be retired. As it is certain that none of these guys loved being stuck underwater in a compromised situation, holding their breath and spending every ounce of energy they had trying, unsuccessfully, to free themselves, it is a reasonable proposal. That Don was solo also leaves open the possibility that he was breathing with his head out of water for a long time while he struggled, eventually succumbing to fatigue or hypothermia.

I know that what feels to me like an epidemic of dead boaters is not, and that nobody is out to get us. But, as I process these events, I sometimes think in probabilistic terms. The fact that Don paddled the North Fork as many times as he did may have increased the likelihood that he'd have a fatal accident there. But didn't it also make him better at reacting to accidents when they came? The mind swirls.

They call it Ten-Foot Falls, but it is more like Eight. Laurel Creek, WV

It would be enough to stop boating altogether, but there's just too much in it for me. I've never found an activity to provoke such intense focus as paddling whitewater. The consequences of not initiating the right sequence of precise moves within the setting of roaring whitewater in the bottom of a remote canyon bring on that focus. The world and its responsibilities are, for a moment, not there. In fact, they never were there and never will be. It's living in the present with no past and no future, just doing what I am doing, Zen-style.

When that focus is incomplete, runs are spoiled with swims and nasty inconveniences. I have never been witness to a river fatality and so those inconveniences have at worst been pinned kayaks, broken ankles, bruised elbows, and broken boats or paddles. But, what can possibly replace the intensely profound place I find myself when I'm queued up to run, and then running, a big drop on a steep creek? Somewhere between quitting altogether and arrogantly ignoring the risks there must exist something. Something that can invoke the intensity of an all-day creeking expedition on a snowy February day or the controlled chaos of a big-water river run after a summer downpour.

Each year, just before the annual Cheat River downriver race, my approach to boating undergoes a temporary change. I may pass up a trip down a juicy creek for a flatwater workout. Or, better yet, I might paddle upstream through some gentle, class 1 whitewater. With a few of these training runs under my belt, I usually feel ready enough to race. Even though this spring has been the best creeking season in more than five years, I still passed up my pick of any local intense runs for gentle streams twice this week in the name of training. The Cheat Race is next Friday and I wanted to get in some extended workouts. I feel that I got the training I needed, but I also have been discovering something else. The focus may be there, too.

Attaining is good for you

Going downstream on class 4 or 5 water and going upstream ("attaining") in class 1 or 2 water have more in common that I remembered. A requisite sequence of precise moves. Complete boat control. Intense focus. A beautiful canyon. And, to spice things up, I paddled creeks I'd never been on before. So, the exploratory nature was there (kind of). The more I attained this week, the more I realized that there are only a few things that the two styles do not have in common. The roar is subdued and the power of the water diminished, but the risk -- THE RISK -- is reduced dramatically. I'd do it alone without even thinking twice, and there's no need for a shuttle!

Attaining is a more intense workout than paddling downstream, and the consequences of a missed line are obvious. I simply drift back and try again. Ultimately it's not going to replace river running or creeking, but it just might get me what I need on the water while I contemplate the risks of paddling the way I used to.

Git r dun.

***Note: There's a longer and more unfortunate list that includes many more names, including the recent deaths of Isaac Ludwig and Ed Gaker. These guys happened to pay the ultimate price on a stream they didn't know well, but were elite boaters nonetheless and were not attempting the impossible.

***A little self-promotion: In 2008 I wrote an article titled The Upstream Afterthought for the American Whitewater Journal after I'd competed in my first attainment race.

IV

As if it was some kind of strange sarcastic twist on our personalities, Molly and I met in a McDonald's.

Molly and Me in the Tulip Tree, no idea of what lie ahead

The context of that chance meeting makes the scenario more relevant to who we are. A friend had organized a night hike trip up Old Rag Mountain in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. Our lodging for the weekend was a rustic hike-in cabin called the Tulip Tree and so our large group needed to meet someplace. With a large lot, bathrooms, and hot food, McDonald's in New Market, VA was the best rendezvous we could come up with.

In a completely un-romantic scene, I walked out of the McDonald's men's room shaking my hands dry and was introduced to the woman I would eventually marry. It was Friday, April 6, 2007.

Four cruises around the sun and now we're in a wildly different scenario.

Yesterday I was able to pull off an evening not unlike something I'd be doing four years ago. As if I had all the time in the world and nobody waiting for me at home, I rushed off to go paddling right after teaching a 3:30 lecture. It was just me, and when I got to the take-out of Fike Run just north of the WV border, I met up with essential strangers. I'd communicated with two of my partners for the day via email/facebook, nothing more. After quick salutations we loaded boats to a single vehicle and off we went. "Fikes" is a very tight but gentle stream with a handful of steep rapids worthy of a class 4 rating. It's particularly beautiful, lined with rhododendron and evergreens; a lush, green corridor within the morose brown-black woods of the PA winter. A short time after putting on the creek, we were hit with a short, powerful snowstorm, and within an hour of that, the sun was out, brightly reflecting off the riffles and blinding us. The contrasts remarkably gave me a taste of many of the finer moments that paddling secluded stretches of whitewater can provide, and more so than I'd expected in a single river trip. 

It wasn't perfect, though. The incredible place where I'd found myself on Fike Run yesterday evening would not have been possible without scores of strategically more difficult river trips over several years, as well as thousands of dollars in gear and the logistical planning of several other similarly equipped boaters. I even had to carry my heavy boat a half-mile through the woods. But, in a complicated mess of emotions, responsibilities, and conflicts, it just wasn't perfect. I though of Otis and Indie asleep in their cribs at home. I reminisced about Sugar Creek, the class 1 stream I paddled with Molly a few weeks ago, and considered this coming weekend's canoeing opportunities. I remembered Carl, my friend who drowned six months ago while paddling a different remote stream. Because of Carl's incident, I admired the water,

Hiking into Fikes

boulders and trees for their entrapment potential, and then had to remind myself to admire them for their perfect natural coexistence. I ran the creek twice, got off the river just as visibility was fading for the evening, and was changed into my street clothes before anybody else had even unzipped their drysuits.

I remember boating with people like me, when I was more like them. I told myself that my priorities would never change, that exploring the natural world and the human capacity within that world would always remain at the top of my list. What I didn't know, however, was that a few years of maturity and experiences doing the exploring with a partner would change the definition. Now I have three partners. The priority is still there. It just happens differently now. And, I won't stop paddling whitewater, it's just that my style has changed.

When addressing the Old Rag hiking group four years ago, our organizer for the weekend had

Mid-hike transfer, Red Creek/Rorbaugh Plains, Dolly Sods, 2009

referred to me as "Moses" since I was going to be leading the group of young Jews on the night hike.

There is no bad weather: Pulling Indie in her sled.

The only trace of my existence Molly had been made aware of before that meeting was through two emails that I'd sent to the entire group. In one of those emails, I mentioned that "There is no bad weather; only bad clothing," a line that has stuck with us.

Despite being imperfect, my day on Fike Run was instead perfectly timed. It was a gentle reminder of what life was like "living the dream," a bachelor's life in the whitewater Mecca of Morgantown, WV, exploring the rivers and mountains nearly every day of the week. This time I drove home to my family, and that beats the pants off my lonely loft apartment in Morgantown.

This morning, I presented Molly with her anniversary gift. It is the anniversary of a wonderful coincidental meeting that changed both of our lives forever. It wasn't a date we picked because it was best for a wedding venue or for guests' schedules; it was chance. The gift was a canoe paddle that she'll use on Sunday and on every other canoe trip we take and embossed on the blade, next to her initials, is the leaf of the Tulip Tree.

Git r dun