The Unrelentless Saga of R-TAG

This story is intentionally vague and anonymous and takes place in a (mostly) nondescript place. In it, I paraphrase many stories, email conversations, and hearsay from people who probably all care not to be identified. Names, times, and places may or may not be accurate. I don't even know who has first-hand information for much of this and had to dig considerably to get it.

Around here, the construction of singletrack is not taken lightly by any of the involved parties. Those parties are numerous, believe it or not, and often at odds with each other. Because of this it may not be all that surprising that the largest and longest rogue trail building project ever undertaken in this area, in terms of both time and physical distance, has spawned allegiances as well as divisive rivalries.

A perfect capture of the scene on Humpular

It's called Humpular and it's a truly amazing piece of singletrack trail. It's not done yet, but is quite rideable because it is being built in stages. And, really, is any trail ever complete? As soon as a new stage is ready, it is incorporated into the trail and the loop gets longer. Humpular has changed the physical landscape of a place where mountain bikes have been thrashing for over 30 years and the proverbial landscape of an ever-burgeoning regional sport.

Humpular exists in part because of a series of events that begin in 2009 with the creation of a different trail called 276. More precisely, Humpular is the triumph of a movement that began with 276. (I wrote about 276 here, and while the trail has changed since then it is even better now).

Construction of 276 began in the spring of 2009 by two friends - we'll call them Ralph and Randy -- who don't ride all that much anymore. It was an okay trail at first and the builders admit not knowing what they were doing. By early summer they got sick of building trail and rode their bikes instead of digging. 276 was a complete loop, but still needed work. What happened next might be considered the impetus of the anti-union that would eventually become what I like to call R-TAG. This is the Rogue Trail Advocacy Group, the DIY trail-building non-entity that answers to no one, organizes never, and nevertheless get the sickest job done fast.

In August 2009, a guy we're going to call Ox introduced himself to Ralph, and asked (rather politely and maturely, despite a rude and immature demeanor we all eventually would grow to love), "Would you mind if I worked on your trail, too? I have some ideas." Of course Ralph was happy to have somebody else work on the trail that he'd become largely uninterested in maintaining or improving. But, it inspired Ralph's last push to perfect it, and together, the two built one last stunt: the log ride, a series of slats running the 40-foot length of a 3-foot diameter log. Most of their work was done separately, leaving tools hidden in the woods to be used by whomever happened to have the time to work. Somehow, two more guys -- Putty and Snob -- got into the trail building endeavor, though I'm not sure how they knew either Ralph or Ox before that. Sometimes together, but more often working alone, Ox, Putty, and Snob put in (no exaggeration) several hundred hours into 276 over the next year. By 2011 it was on every local mountain biker's standard loop. Don't thank Ralph or Randy.

A rare impromptu group session on Humpular

Thank Ox, Putty, and Snob. They made it into the trail that it is. They were R-TAG.

Building 276 was illegal. However, it was pretty obvious that the managers of the local park were aware of the trail and they didn't do a thing about it. R-TAG worked quietly, and tried to avoid the times when park employees might be around, but it was in an area of the park where nobody (I mean nobody) ever went. Now they go there, they being bikers, hikers, and dog walkers, but only because there's a trail there.

As 276 gained popularity, a local organization called PTAG became interested in the trail, not because they liked it but because it was a "rogue" trail and PTAG is against rogue trails. PTAG is a bona fide organization and its members build trails legally by working with land managers and using responsible, sustainable practices. R-TAG, which is not an organization by any means and only has a name because I've typed it above for the first time ever, does not. They just build them. No bureaucracy, no red tape, no land managers, no business. Just rakes, hoes, handsaws, and a ton of sweat.

I was lucky to be privy to an email conversation between Ralph and Ox. Ralph said, "I believe that there was never a mtb access issue, certainly not in [the park where 276 lies]. PTAG just convinced everybody that there *might* be one in the future and then pretended to secure access for them. It's a total crock of shit." It may not be far from the truth from what I gather.

     This photo of 276's logride stunt
can be found on PTAG's website

PTAG's opposition to 276 was minimal, though it started sharply and they (at the very least) have legal backing and can write letters. First, they issued a statement on illegal trails and lambasted the trail as illegal with some aggressive discussions on local online forums, Then, PTAG notified the park of 276's existence, and got the head park manager sufficiently fired up that he was (purportedly) ready to destroy it. Then, just in the nick of time, the PTAG stewards of the park pointed out how well designed it was and that it followed all of the sustainable practices that PTAG champions. So, the organization gave in and "adopted" the trail as an official trail. Nobody I have talked to has any idea what that means, but it satisfied the park management. As a bonus and for dramatic effect it revealed the existence of turncoats in the R-TAG/PTAG rivalry. In fact, to the best of my knowledge every single R-TAG builder has worked with PTAG as a volunteer or, in some cases, in an administrative role. I would approximate the membership of R-TAG to be around a dozen guys. Separately, the legal side of PTAG is quite vocally opposed to its members "going rogue," but the practice continues. Or maybe the R-TAG members are infiltrating PTAG, but if they've done that then it may be the only group decision ever made. In any case, it's easy to see why it happens: PTAG members are mountain bikers and they want sweet singletrack.  R-TAG is building it better, faster. Even after PTAG claimed it an official trail, 276 construction continued without any kind of organizational plan.

There was plenty of other drama.

Happy rider photo op at one Humpular's biggest drops

In another near-miss, Ox decided to build a stunt on 276 with lumber. Up until that point, all materials were sourced on-site as if the trail builders were localvores. They're not; it is just much easier to drag a 20-foot log a few dozen feet than it is to secretly haul in several 12-foot four-by-fours from the trailhead. Ox's plan was to pull his pickup to the shoulder of the nearest road (which happens to be an Interstate highway), toss a bunch of lumber into the woods, speed off, and hike in later to bring it to the site where it was needed. It seemed like a good plan except for the traffic cameras that nobody thought of. So, minutes after Ox tossed the lumber from his truck and merged back into traffic, the highway was blocked by authorities. Right there in the middle of the highway with hundreds of stopped vehicles around him, Ox was approached by a state trooper and told that he was being cited for dumping. Ox insisted that he was actually dropping the lumber off for a mountain bike trail. "There's a bike trail back there?" asked the interested officer, but before the situation could go any further a more important call came over the cop's radio, the blockade was removed, traffic moved along, and Ox was left counting his blessings.

Rain, Snow. Sleet, or Hail

Before long, Ox and Snob fell in love. Not with each other, and if you knew Ox you'd find this particularly funny, but with building mountain bike trail. Both of them had flexible schedules, sufficient capital to afford some great trail building tools like the invaluable and aptly-named Rogue Hoe, and lots and lots of determination. Ox, also happens to be as strong as . . .well, an ox. Working alone became the R-TAG standard (easier to avoid notice and easier for one person to play stupid if questioned) and the two, along with Putty, worked in parallel with astonishing efficacy. Before long it became clear that 276 was complete and the two were looking around for trail to build. They moved operations across the road.

Riding across the crater

Across the road was a wasteland, an actual man-made mountain of discarded material and Ox and Snob spent about a year perfecting their craft with the Crater Trail, a carefully designed, switch-backed descent down that mountain. Now that R-TAG was building trail out of earshot of the park officials and any goody-two-shoes park users, they graduated to chainsaws, enormous prybars, and come-alongs to build more efficiently and to make bigger, better stunts. Crater's namesake, an inexplicable 25-foot diameter, 5-foot deep crater, has a skinny log bridge across it that nobody sane ever attempt because it is about 10 inches wide. Snob and Ox were outdoing themselves with the Crater and began to unintentionally recruit new R-TAG members. Recruitment was simple; prospective R-TAG members were riding along the trail and came across a guy swinging some kind of heavy tool.

Phil tries to disappear after
obstruction a section of Crater

Ox, Snob, Putty, and the rest of a disaggregated R-TAG were working hard on Crater. Apparently PTAG had given up on bringing them down because drama came from elsewhere. One obstacle was a guy named Phil whose issue, of all things, was parking. Phil lived at the edge of the woods where the trailwork was taking place and so the R-TAG guys were often parking in front of his house. Phil began tailing the guys into the woods, and saw what they were up to. So, he began to disassemble stunts, chop trees down onto the trail, and litter the trail with obstacles and, sometimes, sharp objects. Then, he notified the rightful landowner, which is a non-profit "economic development agency" that had acquired the land, about the trespassing that was taking place. Insular as our region happens to be, Snob received an email about it from a friend who works at the non-profit. Not only did the issue go away, but now R-TAG knew who their trail saboteur was. In a dramatic climax, Ox set up a trail camera and caught Phil in the act."He seems a bit old for an ass whopping," was Ox's reaction. One of the more diplomatic R-TAG members knocked on Phil's door, politely asked him to stop, and promised that nobody would park in front of his house. I secretly was holding out for the ass whooping end to that story.

Humpular's grandest banked switchback, "The Wall"

Within a year, R-TAG's non-leadership of Ox and Snob and to some extent Putty and their new recruits had perfected Crater and were looking for the next project. Just about then, Ralph made a well-calculated reappearance to scout an adjacent hillside with Snob. It held substantial promise in that there was well over a mile of contiguous woods (maybe much more). However, it was steep. Really steep. Contouring the hillside along its length would be the only way to squeeze out the desired trail mileage, and it just didn't seem possible at first. But as the two men continued, they became more interested in at least giving it a shot. The result, now more than two years in the making, is an ever-expanding loop that links in to the Crater Trail, and has become one of the reigning bits of singletrack for any local mountain biker looking to scare themselves into bliss.

These baby doll heads were not
originally stuck in this rusting boxspring

It's called Humpular, and it has a strong following. Two more craters have been exposed, Crater Jr. and Crater Grande. It drops, it jumps, and it sweeps its way along a steep hillside carved by the river below, sometimes so steep that handlebars come uncomfortably close to soil (imagine that) and riders constantly risk flopping all the way down to the railroad tracks at the bottom. And, to add character, a century of discarded material litters the trail. Rusted pickups, mopeds, and SAABs give way to bottles, concrete forms, obsolete construction material, and the heads of countless baby dolls and much it has been incorporated into unique parts of the trail. Feng shui comes to mind.

As with every formidable group of grown men, a rift began to expose itself shortly after R-TAG began to dig the hillside that would become Humpular. Unfortunately, the group's muscle, Ox, had become disenfranchised with the mission of the group. Such a mission is in truth an organic and unplanned thing, but Ox wasn't into it. As the trail inched its way along the steep terrain, Ox wanted to build stunts just as he had on 276 and on the Crater Trail. Big piles of logs, an enormous teetering log to ride across, skinny bridges like the one across the original crater, and rock gardens had been his signature. Because Humpular was so difficult to build into the hillside and because riding it without tumbling off was challenging enough, Ox's favorite types of stunts just weren't being built. He tried a few times, and the next R-TAG builder would either make it easier or clear it out completely. He described his trail philosophy to me once, "I think a trail should be nearly impossible to clean without a dab." (A "dab" is the act of putting one's foot down to the ground for stability, which mountain bikers try to not do). He went on, "If I can do a trail pretty much every time without dabbing, then it's too easy." Judging by one of his recent side projects, the Qaddafi Rim Trail, he continues to put this philosophy into practice.

Ox would leave the group without a fight. Of course, R-TAG exists only in my mind and isn't actually something to leave. Ox just stopped putting in work on Humpular and instead has built stand-alone stunts elsewhere. It make sense if you know him, and if you know the trails. Humpular flows. 276 does not.

"Stop Digging," warns the sign.

The network now referred to as Humuplar includes but is not limited to the original Crater and Humpular as well as many other sections and stunts including Vertigo, Jumpular, Slabalanche, Lawsuit, V-Tree, and probably many others whose names I haven't discovered. Its construction by R-TAG continues unabaided despite seemingly larger issues. Early in the summer of 2014, another trail saboteur (probably not Phil) tagged the steep cliffs along the trail with spray paint, warning the builders of one or more "slide zones" and to "stop digging." This got the attention of R-TAG for at least 24 hours, while each mulled over what to do about it. Eventually they came to an agreement with their actions: keep digging.

An enormous patch of poison ivy doesn't
stop R-TAG's anonymous members

It's not over. Unrelentless, the trail's newest section, is under construction, and is not a minor addition. It introduces the trail's first traverse underneath precariously overhanging rock and even required the donning of hazmat suits in the sweltering summer heat for poison ivy eradication. Despite further drama including the mysterious disappearance of R-TAG's hidden cache of tools, more sabotage, and evidence along the trail suggesting that the crew is being monitored, progress has solid momentum and improvement can be noticed weekly. The trail itself has drawn serious attention in the wider mountain biking scene and riders are driving hours just to come to our city and enjoy it.

The hidden camera trick perhaps turned on R-TAG?

Unfortunately this story is destined to have a twist at the end. Developers have zoned in on the area at the top of the hillside that Humpular traverses, jeopardizing the trail in its entirety or, at the very least, access to it. But, R-TAG's momentum won't quit because they are, as Snob points out, "not a bunch of HS scofflaws." He is right. R-TAG is comprised of respected local professionals and parents and at various times has represented the industries of engineering, higher education, medicine, IT and systems administration, entertainment, law, organized labor, and, as expected, bicycle retail. Of course there are further questions awaiting answers. If and when the city finds out about it, will action be taken? Will the trail building stop, or will it be recognized for its potential and be encouraged? It will be interesting to see how the Humpular saga, and that of R-TAG as a anti-cohesive group, plays out. In the meantime, we get to ride what is among the best urban singletrack in the country.

Notes on Bicycle Commuting

I've been commuting by bicycle since 1993, when I was a college rower getting from the dorms to the boathouse. That was like 3 miles at 5:30 am. Naturally, I barely remember it, except for one dark morning when turning right onto Grant Ave downtown in a rainstorm. The ornate stone pavers are ultra-slick and I went down and butt-slid all the way across to the far sidewalk. Fortunately no cars were coming at me. Grant Street still gives me the willies when it's wet.

Without a doubt I do my best thinking when I'm riding. Unfortunately a vast majority of those thoughts vanish by the end of the ride. The ones that survive often come back to me incomplete. If only there was some kind of thought-recording device.

You see a lot when you ride on the side roads.

• I bought a Specialized Allez road bike in August of 1994 with the paycheck from my summer job as a camp counselor. I rode that bike out and back on Skyline Drive in VA when it was less than a month old. Over the past 20 years I've replaced parts on that bike, including the frame, and now the only remaining original part is the handlebar. It's bent but I resist replacing it. Those are the handlebars I have held onto day after day for two decades.
• Commuting via trails is a nice and pleasant way to start the day but it doesn't really wake me up. However, a 7-mile road race against city buses, big SUVs, erratic drivers, and slowly morphing clouds of college students and business people is a seriously intense way to start the day. I prefer the latter, hands down. 
• I've been hit by cars exactly three times. The first was the worst because it totaled that road bike I bought in 1994. The thing was only a few months old. The other two times I didn't even get knocked off my bike.
• I've figured out most of the traffic signals I ride through each day. So I know what's going on as I approach (this is particularly useful if you intend to run the red light). Some of them have 4-way walk signals, some have walk signals that only correspond to the green light. However, pedestrians are my eyes and ears. If I see pedestrians crossing that means that there are no cars coming that way. It's like a green light. The scariest traffic signal I know of from a bicycling perspective is the one at Dallas and Forbes, when I'm riding down Forbes away from Sq. Hill.
• In 1996 I took a job as a bike messenger downtown. I was new, and I was working for a brand new messenger service. I had a cyclometer on my bike, and was able to see that I was averaging 75 miles daily. Asking around, I discovered that I was naively being taken advantage of. Everybody else was riding less than 30 miles a day. I lasted two months, and was cheated out of $50 on my last paycheck that I haven't forgotten.
• I get a lot of hot air from drivers for running red lights and skipping ahead of sitting cars in traffic (which I admit are not legal and ill-advised for most). I don't pretend to be entitled to it, and it annoys me when I'm driving too, but I have a response to those who don't like it. Here goes: if there was essentially zero likelihood that you'd get in trouble for disobeying traffic laws, you'd do it in your car. But, you can't because a car is too big and because the likelihood is substantially greater than zero. So, please try to understand that I, just like every other human, strive to take the path of least resistance (like the path between lanes of cars sitting in traffic), or get on a bike yourself. At least I'm not taking up a coveted parking spot.
• I was yielded the right of way appropriately by a bus exactly one time in 20 years. Thanks to the driver of PatTransit #67 who was coming up 5th Ave through the Hill District at about 8:30 am on a Tuesday in March of 2014.
• I've had several bikes stolen in my life, but only one really hurt. It was very special to me because it was the bike I rode from DC to LA in 1995 and then from Oregon to Delaware in 1999. It was locked to a fence under the Star City bridge outside of Morgantown, and I had left it there for an entire weekend. The frame was given to me by a friend after mine was destroyed after being hit by a car (see above).
• In the week after September 11, 2001 I was commuting from Alexandria, VA to northwest DC where I was in grad school. I hung an American flag from my bike and for a short time it felt good to be patriotic as I rode past the Pentagon and the National Mall.  It's the only time I made any kind of statement while riding. I have a feeling that I was the only one who noticed.
• Trucks idle entirely too much. It chokes us up, and uses up resources that are limited. http://www.edf.org/transportation/reports/idling
• There's an lady in Squirrel Hill who is out nearly every single morning, in all kinds of weather, cleaning up litter off the sidewalks. She wears rubber gloves and carries a fistful of plastic grocery bags for the trash. It strikes me as a superb way to (1) productively spend your retirement, (2) get outside, (3) get some exercise, and (4) use up an old grocery bag. 
• We're lucky to have all these new bike lanes here in Pittsburgh, but there are some unexpected problems. First of all, many of them appear to not be serviceable by a snow plow. We'll have to see what happens, I suppose. Similarly, the bike path that I use regularly (Pocusset) was formerly a road. However, now it's exclusively a bike path and the street sweeper never cleans it. Because of that, the sharper turns are now dangerously caked with mud, leaves, and debris.

Git r dun.

Petawawa (wawawawawa)

Night falls before our first day on the water

Lucky me. After a decade of paddling whitewater in many corners of my backyard mountains, I finally am in in a position to take it on the road . . . well, at least once per annum.

A splendid site

It was the spring of 2014. The one-day adventures that end with beers at the take out followed by a comfy bed are wonderful, but I'm not that old yet and can handle more. And while boating a steep, narrow line with little margin for error is a rush, I have more on the line and am not young enough to be doing that all the time. I was chasing something that would really stand out. An overnighter with good whitewater, but even more than that: To be dropped off in the middle of nowhere with a few days' worth of food and gear; to see nobody other than my own crew; to have no way out other than paddling the river for days; to see little sign of the hands of man; to camp wherever it felt right, just pull over to the the riverbank and set up; and even to paddle quietly across water so calm that I could watch rings originate from the drips of water off my paddle blades. For miles.

One of the many rapids

It is in Canada, on the Petawawa River in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park.

Sunset on Cedar Lake

I teamed up with two competent outdoorsmen and boaters for the trip. This was a very deliberately formed team. For one thing, Joe can build a fire in the middle of heavy sleet with nothing but his teeth. Oh, and he offered to drive. Brian's role on the team was equally important. He is an amateur astrologer. We didn't tell him that celestial navigation is actually astronomy and that you don't need it when you just point your boat downstream. He happens to be able to get rid of tendonitis, too. My role? I'm not sure, but the guys sure were appreciative when I agreed to carry a case of beer in my boat.

The Petawawa flows like a typical Canadian river. Between vacant miles-long lakes are long, powerful and thundering rapids. Most of those rapids are friendly enough, some of them are worth a look, and then there are the ones that are too dangerous to paddle, especially when all the gear you need to survive is weighing down your boat. But most of them are just plain beautiful and fun. A perfect river for my first-time expedition style trip.

A sneak

Our hired shuttle driver brought us deep into Algonquin Park to the edge of spectacular Cedar Lake, one of the few lakes in the park accessible by vehicle. The next morning we paddled away from the few trucks, trailers, and bass boats we saw until they were nothing but specks behind us. We were totally alone as the mirrored lake water transformed into a rushing torrent over the Cedar Lake Dam.

Looking for a line

Flat

As it turns out, the dam is runnable and not even much of a challenge. And so are many of the other "unrunnable" rapids on the Pet. That very first rapid set the stage for most of the rapids we encountered. We thought that our detailed guidebook would allow us to run most rapids without scouting unless a portage was necessary. Unfortunately, the book was usually wrong, either downplaying a rapid with monster holes worthy of a scout or overblowing a really great drop as being "deadly." Truthfully, we would have been better off without it. Any detailed map of the park would have have been sufficient.

A pool at a spectacular spot called The Natch

Our expectations of this kind of trip were also way off.  On our first day, we paddled about 25 miles which included two lakes, much less than I thought we'd get in. Getting out to scout took time, and while it was necessary, we didn't walk any of the rapids, even the mile-long set of rapids called McDonald that contained several "unrunnable" falls (Note: McDonald is outstanding and would be worth carrying upstream 8 km from the Lake Travers access just to get it, and all of its successors, into a super day trip).

Lake McManus: The third and final night

Camping the second night at the foot of "Portage Falls," the three of us examined the rapid for hours. There had to be a line. We had left our boats above the falls and carried our camping gear below so that in the morning we could attempt the drop with no gear in our craft. It worked well; we all dropped over three successive cascades with only one minor incident (but no yard sale!) and came back to our site to break it down and move on. It went on to be our eventual fall back plan: get the gear out and I might consider running a rapid that I wouldn't touch otherwise.

Run out of a long rapid

By 4:30 pm on the second day we had made our way a grand total of 3.5 miles for the day. Rather than paddling, we spent the day bushwacking, scouting, attaining back to a better vantage point, bushwacking again, dragging boats across islands, wading across tiny channels that are typically dry, repeat, bushwack to the portage trail, repeat, go back for a dropped paddle, repeat. It was a memorable day. Brian missed a ferry and we didn't see him for an incredibly long 20 minutes. Brian and Joe foolishly followed my instincts (or followed my foolish instincts) and went down the wrong channel. Twice.

Kayakers call those "holes."

The truth is that we didn't even SEE the biggest whitewater on the Pet up close, Poplar Rapids. We definitely heard it on that second day, and we all saw the pool below it from above as we got too close for comfort, but you can't see a waterfall from above. By the time we were in the woods dragging our gear-laden kayaks toward the bottom, the idea of getting back to the river so we could look at a rapid that we could hear and clearly not run was too much for any of us. When we got back to the water we were at the point where the Pet's current ends at Lake Travers. We paddled more mileage in the next hour across that lake than we had in the previous eight. But we didn't come for a picnic, right?

My friends are so ugly, they have to wear bags over their heads

By the third day of paddling we had settled into our routine. Mental inventories of gear location (surprisingly elaborate given that anything is either in the bow or in the stern) as well as understanding of the river itself had materialized. We got out to scout only once we heard the roar of whitewater, rather than where the guidebook suggested. We didn't spend time pondering. We ran it or we walked, efficiently, and we got through 30 miles of river by mid-afternoon. One of the rapids we portaged, the Crooked Chute, gave us a glimpse of what the Pet could dish out, and what Poplar Rapids may have looked like. We all saw the line. We all considered going for it for about 0.15 seconds. Then we all dragged our boats.

While I have some normal friends, others are not so much

We passed through an amazing gorge at a place called the Natch. Looking back on the trip now, it was the moment I fell in love with paddling multi-day trips. Thoreau would have been proud. There was perfect harmony in the scenery, the boat's motion across the water, and my mentality. I was buzzing from three days in the wilderness, continuous all-day effort, sleeping like a hibernating bear at night, and eating everything I could consume. I had become desensitized to how badly I smelled. Unfortunately it didn't last long and for the first time on trip I started to really miss my family.

When we camped that night on Lake McManus, a whippoorwill irritated us all night long. I've never had a better excuse for a lousy night sleep.

The final morning on McManus

Upon reaching the car the next morning, we had several days left before we had to head home. Our next destination, the Adirondacks on New York, would wait a day as we drove further down the Pet to attempt the "town section" through the city of Petawawa. Our shuttle driver from above brought us to the launch and described the line through the first rapid. "Everybody I've seen runs it on the right," he confidently told us as we peered downstream. There was nothing for us to see but whitecaps and disappearing water, but we took his word for it and foolishly shoved into the current. It was a mistake. As the river swept me down, I stayed right as I was told. Before long I was going uphill. This particularly unique scenario -- uphill, downstream motion -- is not anything to ponder for long. It means one thing: there is some really huge feature just over the hump of water. At the apex, I looked down through about 15 feet of vertical space into a very wide and supremely powerful hole. I screamed out loud.

After working to exhaustion for a few seconds, I found my way out of a vicious side-surf. Feeling victorious, I hollered out some kind of war cry and then felt that awful feeling again. I was rising. At the top of the next hump I looked down into an even worse looking V-shaped hole and just about puked at the sight of it.

Several minutes later, as I hugged the rocks along the mighty Petawawa adjacent to a huge, swirling eddy, both my kayak and my paddle obediently swirled over to me. It was like my dog had come over for another walk around the block after mauling me. I was bloody and coughing, and just as I would have done with the dog, I said "no more today, buddy." We all walked the next big rapid and headed back across the border.

If you are a boater and are looking for an introduction to multi-day kayak excursions, definitely consider the Petawawa. May is a bit early in the season, though in most of the rapids we did not feel that we were being pushed around. However, whenever the river is channelized and steep, you're looking at big water.

And don't trust the guidebook.

All That

Trail junction, Bear Run Nature Preserve, PA

A long time ago, when Molly and I were dating, she wrote a story about me . . . er, about kayaking . . . er, about relationships. Okay, so maybe it was about how I was a lousy boyfriend every time it rained. The story appeared in the My Turn column in NEWSWEEK, a periodical you may have heard of. Unfortunately, NEWSWEEK doesn't keep its all of its content archived online. Never fear; it can be found here.

So, maybe it's my turn now.


Some random yet noteworthy details: We once went on a trip that included a rustic cabin and a 7-mile moonlight hike. Toward the end she was really looking forward to the hike being over so she invited me to run with her. It was 2 am and we ran 2 miles in boots through the woods. That was the night we met, and it kind of sealed the deal.

Indie, one week in

She loves sleeping in a tent, far more than I do. And campfires.
A branch used as a support in our hoopah later became a walking stick which now hangs in our home. When I gave it to her after finishing it as a walking stick, she asked that if there is ever a fire in our home, that I save that first. (We've had kids since then so I'm guessing she'd make the stick my third retrieval.) Instead of those professional photos that people take of their babies, Molly stuck our first kid into the boots I have used on many of our adventures.She passed that around to our family.

We're kind of perfect for each other.

Molly and I have established a semi-annual tradition where we rough it for a couple days with no kids or phones. It's a breather, a chance to reconnect and take stock. The trips are often a bit on the masochistic side (long days packing, jogging the river shuttle, etc.), probably so we don't slip into boredom and start to miss our kids. And the kids don't even miss us because their uncles, aunts, and grandparents engage in attempts to undo all of our parenting by busting out all their ammunition: unlimited sweets, junk food, dollar store toys, and relaxed rules.

Along Big Sandy

Otter Creek Wilderness, WV

We're racking up quite a list, and this is just the beginning. We've packed into and out of the Otter Creek and Dolly Sods Wilderness Areas, Bear Run Nature Preserve, spots in the PA state forests and parks that shoulder the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail, and WV's North Fork Mt. Trail. We "found" Indie Falls on an unnamed tributary of French Creek as well as the Otis Rocks outcropping at the top of the French Creek canyon. We've bushwhacked through areas where no trail exists to find National Falls on the Upper Yough and the entire stretch of the Lower Big Sandy. We've discovered that we prefer a "base camp" loop itinerary to increase mileage on pack trips. She's not so much into boating (I know, a shocker given the article above) but we've managed to find our way onto the Casselman, Yough, Indian, and French and she might even admit that she has enjoyed several snowstorms on the water. In general we avoid campgrounds, especially if they include mini-golf.

Like I said, perfect.

Now, what could be better than marrying your adventure partner? That's easy: kids that can't wait to come along for the next trip!

Limekiln Falls

Up high on the S. Branch Moose

Limekiln Falls is the most scenic spot on the beautiful South Branch of the Moose River in New York's Adirondack Mountains. The lucky people who have the legal right to see it fall into two categories: members of the Adirondack League Club (ALC) and boaters who paddle a 25-mile stretch of the river. To become a member of the ALC, one must be a property owner on the club's 50,000+ acre property. Current sales of those properties have all been well over $2.5M and the club by-laws prohibit mortgages. In other words, Limekiln provides yet another illumination of the economic dichotomy we live in -- 1% of us could potentially join the club and see it, while the other 99% of us must posses the equipment and skill to paddle the river.

The Rules

I was lucky to see it in May 2014. However, just getting there was not only an arduous undertaking on my part, and the part of my boating friends, it was also the result of a years-long struggle that involved various conservation and recreational organizations, the ALC, and ultimately the New York Supreme Court.

That struggle is outlined very well in this NY Times Article, but I will paraphrase here.

The ALC for years used their own security detail to arrest any boater who was caught paddling the South Branch, who would end up at the Old Forge police station facing trespassing charges. Skeptical of the legality of this, the Sierra Club joined with a local conservation movement and publicized a trip down the river in 1991. Armed with photos of that important boat ride, the ALC sued the Sierra Club for millions, and a court battle began. 

Several years later after belaboring over the definition of "navigable", access was upheld by the NY State Supreme Court, and two decades after that, I found myself signing my name to a roster. My signature on that roster, a clipboard chained to a signpost where the pavement ends just outside the town of Inlet, indicated that I would follow the policy set forth by the court agreement. Essentially, I agreed to not get out of my boat unless absolutely necessary for my own safety for 15 miles as the river passes through the ALC property.To do that, though, we had to paddle a total of 25.

Our particular struggle for access stemmed from a handful of situational issues: (1) we had only one car, (2) it was Memorial Day weekend and all the local outfitters were too busy with their regular business to be hired as our shuttle, (3) the put-in for the river is at the end of a rough road which is in turn many miles from the main road and the outiftters' storefronts, and (4) the shuttle itself is far too long for even the most ambitious boaters to do on foot. Because of this confluence of problems, after spending about four hours in Old Forge trying to convince anybody we found to "give us a ride down the road," we came up empty. So, we had to take our best offer. We set up a campsite at the take-out, drove to the put-in, and launched. An employee of Mountain Man Outfitters agreed to pick us up the following morning and drive us as close to our car as possible before getting to work at 8 am. After running the river, we were picked up at 6 am the following day and by 7:15 we were still 5 miles from the car. So, we got out and ran the remainder of the shuttle on foot so our driver wasn't late for work.

At the put-in

We began our trip down the South Branch of the Moose where it is a small stream above the ALC property, at a place deep in the Moose River Plains Wild Forest that locals called the "Million Dollar Bridge." For a few miles it meanders through thick marshy terrain with little gradient and mild current. After passing though a rapid at a place marked on topographic maps as "rock dam," we became fully aware of our newly constrained legal rights. You're in ALC land now, said the countless signs posted on the trunks of the thousands of riverside trees. 

Printing 50,000 of these must have been a substantial tab at Kinko's

Looking upstream at Limekiln Falls

This is a real adventurer's river. The mileage alone make it a heavy commitment for your run-of-the-mill canoeists not able to make it an overnighter (though I suppose one could try sleeping in their boat). It is also in prime whitewater country so it is passed up by thrill seeking kayakers. Those guys could get in three runs on more challenging rivers in the same time. Thus, for the first 20 of the 25 miles our party saw not a single person, neither boater nor ALC member. We paddled the river through steep gorge sections, around pristine mid-stream islands and through rough water and flat mirrored pools. There were rapids, but none warranting anything beyond a boat scout.

Which brings us this narrative's namesake: Limekiln. After many miles of our incredible Adirondack wild river, the river took a strange 90-degree left turn and all of its flow passed through a space of about 15 feet between two large boulders. There was no gradient, though, so the current simply picked up and rushed through the space without much turbulence. Then, after a short, flat pool of no more than 50 feet, Limekiln Falls dropped out of sight.

Brian drops into Limekiln

It would be the only time we got out of our boats to scout. The scene was dramatic: a 50-foot long chute down a 20-degree slope. A hole here or there, but nothing to be concerned about. Like all rapids it was very loud. Eddies at the bottom gave us the chance to stop, turn around, and take it in before paddling through the run-out to a point too far downstream to be really in it. On the left bank, a branchless trunk reached skyward like the creepy finger of Death and just before the tip sat an enormous Osprey's nest. The resident bird swooped and chattered at us, reminding us that we were just visitors to its home.

Below Limekiln, an Osprey nest

Lucky ALC members could enjoy the scene from a beautifully built timber frame shelter and freshly-mowed picnic spot just above the falls, but just like every other ALC structure we saw all day long, it was empty. Remembering that this was Memorial Day weekend, I told myself that all the ALC members were working overtime at their Manhattan jobs, unable to enjoy their seven-figure salaries. Of course I was probably wrong, that they were sipping top-shelf liquor on the deck of some monstrous lodge just out of view, but this five-figure guy needs to feel like he's got it better than those guys once in awhile.

Just out of the ALC property, an enormous pan

Before long we had left the protected land of the Adirondack League Club. When you get to know rivers, you begin to be able to feel the gradient relax beneath you. The character of the river changes along with the steepness of the canyon walls, the eroded banks look like they're a  bit less mauled by spring runoff, and the sky opens broadly. Kayakers can tell when the rapids are done. We had just begun to relax in our boats and unsnapped our helmets when we heard, "Hey! You guys need a beer?"

An extended family of men, sans spouses and daughters, were camping on the riverbank. We pulled over and met the antithesis of the prototypical ALC member we'd been thinking about all day. In fact we met about 20 of them. Their family tradition goes back over 60 years, and these guys are serious. They have crafted their own rickshaws that they use to carry in ridiculous amounts of bacon and lousy beer for their 3-day trip. They have several shelters, an eternal campfire, plenty of whiskey, a devoted hole in the ground for pissing, another for other unspeakables, and the most enormous cast iron pan allowable by the physical properties of cast iron. The irony of the dramatic disparity between the pretty little empty shelter at Limkiln and this rif-raf Appalachain camp was beautiful.

Boaters: go to New York and run the South Branch of the Moose. Bring your long boats. Not for any singular reason but for many. This is a victory lap for river access. The 99% won this battle, and we don't win many battles. If you do it on Memorial Day weekend, you'll be treated to the most hospitable group of guys I've met (we're not talking rednecks -- though it takes a while to realize it), who guaranteed that they'll be there, and they'll invite you to stay all weekend ("don't sweat it, guys, we have lots of extra sleeping bags!"). Lastly, unless you're a multimillionaire, you're the only one with the skills to allow you get to a good look at the beautiful Limekiln Falls.

The Last Run

In the spring of 2011, after the third whitewater kayaker I knew drowned in action in less than a year, I wrote the following story. It was all I could do in my attempt to reason through the pain and fear. When I was done with it, I felt like a real writer. I had put all of my emotion into words. Proud of what I'd created, I shopped it around for a bit and to my surprise it was picked up by a regional outdoors magazine. Unfortunately after six months went by and the editor said it was ready to go into the magazine, the publisher decided that it was too "dark" to include in the issue. I was paid half of what they promised me, and never heard from them again.

Ironically, in the writing business, they say that my story was "killed."

I've updated it a bit here for the 4th anniversary of the drowning of my friend Carl, which comes in on October 1.

=================================

A year after his accident, friends and family members of Carl Schneider congregate for a memorial paddle down the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. Schneider’s mother, Lynne, is in jeans on the left side of the photo (Eric Martin)

The Last Run

The overwhelming majority of drownings on US lakes and rivers involve novice boaters, fishermen, and swimmers. It is no different in whitewater, where accidents typically occur due to inexperience, substances or insufficient safety equipment. Drownings among expert whitewater paddlers on well-known rivers and creeks are extremely rare. So, how, after decades of infrequent fatalities among Central Appalachia’s whitewater elite, could three of its members defy classical statistics by drowning on rivers they knew well in a span of six months? It is not an easy question to answer.

The dark hollows of Central Appalachia are dense with over half a century of whitewater history. Pioneers of whitewater kayaking dug their roots here in the famous watersheds of the Cheat, Youghiogheny, Potomac, Gauley, and New rivers and many of them still call the area home. The East coast’s first commercial whitewater rafting operation, Wilderness Voyageurs, run by a former US National team kayaker, has thrived here for over 40 years. Dozens of outfitters have followed in the vibrant whitewater towns of Ohiopyle, PA, Friendsville, MD and Fayetteville, WV. In these towns, local kayakers can live a whitewater lifestyle by working as guides or instructors or by selling or manufacturing gear. The boaters here developed paddling and exploration techniques known and used world-wide. Boat and gear designs as well as safety and rescue techniques and accessories were developed and tested on these creeks and rivers. And Central Appalachia continues to develop some of the whitewater world’s most influential figures from safety officials to gear manufacturers and hundreds of professionally sponsored boaters.

The prolificacy of the sport in the area hasn’t come without a cost. On October 1, 2010, Carl Schneider drowned after being trapped mid-rapid in his kayak on West Virginia’s Blackwater River, a rite of passage run (locally one is either a Blackwater boater, or not). Nine days later, Mark Hanna drowned in full view of frightened friends and commercial rafters on West Virginia’s world-famous Gauley River at Pillow, the river’s biggest and most powerful rapid. Then, in April, Don Smith drowned on the Blackwater’s North Fork, a steep and dangerous, but commonly run creeking adventure.  The short amount of time between these incidents caused those of us who run these rivers to look deeply and reflectively at our priorities.

Schneider taught Italian at a small private school in Pittsburgh’s East End and was known for his jovial personality. When his wife left him in 2007, he escaped to the water. Within a few seasons, he had established a mountain sport lifestyle. When school was in session, he spent the weekends chasing water or, if the rivers were frozen, snowboarding at local resorts. Before long he was working the river all summer long as a professional raft guide and kayak instructor and the slopes on winter weekends as a safety ranger.

Schneider just above the famous 18-foot Ohiopyle Falls on the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. (Jeff Macklin)

Carl’s presence on the river was legendary. His relaxed style was comforting to his kayaking students, and his larger-than-life personality infectious. However, he had a history of getting himself into trouble, earning him the nickname, “Carnage Carl.” Consider for example that after scouting out a blind drop on class 5 Drake Run outside Confluence, PA, I watched him unintentionally kick his boat down a snowy slope into the creek. He instinctively dove into the icy water, swimming through rapids after the loose kayak, and it nearly cost him his life. When the boat lodged on a rock, he was swept under it. Seconds later he resurfaced in a pool below.

Despite his reputation for close calls, Schneider paddled at an expert level and by the time he drowned he was among the top of the region’s heap of river rats. He logged countless runs on the area’s most notorious rapids and continued to ramp up the fear factor by paddling at night or in high water, or sometimes both. Because of this, even though the incidents came less frequently, the nickname stuck.

I paddled with Carl nearly every weekend for several years and we were also neighbors and close friends. After one of his near-misses on Big Sandy Creek near Bruceton Mills, WV, I had told him that I wished he’d use more caution. I explained that if he drowned it would have a tremendous negative effect on me. I never actually expected it to happen but when it did, paddling whitewater was the last thing I wanted to do for some time. Many of our friends were also impacted and responded by seeing little water time. Nick Yourd, one of Schnieder’s fellow raft guides, expressed it well in 2011: “shit that never has scared me is stopping me from boating. I would run Meadow, Sandy, Upper at any level last year. But I’m scared now to get on anything.”

Carl Schneider’s death was the second ever by a kayaker on the Upper Blackwater. It was an ideal day with his boating crew: off-duty raft guides capitalizing on some overnight rain. Beau Smith, a friend of Carl’s, was leading a separate crew and was in an eddy above Flatliner Falls when Carl paddled over to say a quick hello before dropping over the relatively small 4-foot falls. It would be the last time anybody saw Carl’s notorious smile and signature handlebar mustache. Within seconds he was wedged upside-down between boulders with thousands of pounds of hydraulic pressure holding him in place. It wasn’t until his friends secured a rope to his kayak that they were able to extract him from the pin. Since then, one other kayaker, a young DC boater named Bob Norr, drowned in the exact same spot. At least two others have been pinned in the same spot at Flatliner in the prior 15 years, though they were able to free themselves thanks to lower flow.

Friends and family members of Carl Schneider on his beloved Youghiogheny River a week after his accident (unknown)

Mark Hanna was a successfully self-employed tradesman who owned his own company and paddled whitewater nearly every weekend. Pittsburgher Kent Reigel was with Hanna when he swam out of his boat on the Gauley. The swim put Hanna head first into an underwater rock sieve and the strong current prevented initial attempts at extraction, even though he could be seen from above the water. After pulling his kayak to the riverbank, Reigel’s 16-year-old son walked up to the scene. “I stopped him to let him know what he was about to see,” Reigel recalled in a shaking voice. Hanna was dead by then, but efforts to revive him were still in progress. All Reigel and his son could do was watch in horror.

Mark Hanna at Rattlesnake rapid on Tennessee’s Daddy’s Creek.  (Jeff Macklin)

Just when it seemed that things had cooled off, Pittsburgh Attorney Don Smith was killed on a solo run of the North Fork of the Blackwater in Tucker County, WV in April 2011. Smith was an exceptionally good boater and had run the North Fork more than anybody else, anywhere. He logged countless runs on all of the local class 5 waterways, often showing others the way. There is literally no class 5 creek in Central Appalachia that Smith had not paddled. His nickname, “Blackwater Don,” was known nationwide and when out-of-towners came to Northern West Virginia to paddle the expert runs, it was often Smith who led them. He paddled the North Fork solo at low water regularly. And so it was Smith who acted as the unofficial steward of the class 5 Tucker County streams, notifying the boating community about shifts in rocks, down trees blocking passage, water levels, and even shuttle road conditions. In all likelihood his efforts prevented many accidents before his.

Don Smith carries his kayak out of the North Fork of the Blackwater after an autumn run.  (Curtis Heishman)

When one of Smith’s regular kayaking partners, Curtis Heishman, couldn’t reach him on his cell phone after knowing he’d been on a late morning run of the North Fork, he didn’t take it seriously. “It was common to not get a hold of Don,” he said of his friend. If anybody was going to solo the North Fork successfully, it was Smith. Unfortunately, at the foot of a double-waterfall called Rainbow Room, Smith became trapped on a log. How long that log was there before it snagged Smith is still a matter of speculation. Uniontown, PA native Dave Carey found Smith’s body the next day and recovered it and then paddled the North Fork several more times that week. When asked how he was able to go back so soon after dragging his friend’s body out of the dangerous river, he responded, “The water level was perfect. Don would have told me I was a pussy if I didn’t.”

Don Smith paddles over Double Indemnity, a falls just above Rainbow Room. Rainbow Room claimed his life in April 2011. (Max Blackburn)

Smith's passing was a profound mark in the annals of whitewater paddling. Alden Bird, author of the Northeast US’s current most extensive whitewater guidebook, Let It Rain, put Smith’s drowning into perspective. “Allow me to amplify this. That . . . Don Smith, who virtually lived at the North Fork put-in and who was acutely aware of the new wood danger . . . constituted the first fatality on his home river speaks very strongly about the risks inherent even for the best-informed, most highly skilled among us.” JB Seay, locally grown boater and blogger at Creek West Virginia (creekwv.blogspot.com) wrote, “It's miserable to keep losing friends, peers, to what is essentially play. Some people paddle so much that it's the major component of who they are. . . . is [the coincidence of their fatality] only because they have a higher exposure?”

It has been suggested by many adventurers that 'he died doing what he loved' is a cliché 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 Smith was solo leaves open the possibility that he was breathing with his head above water for some time while he struggled, eventually succumbing to fatigue or hypothermia. Like Seay, I sometimes think in probabilistic terms. The fact that Smith paddled the North Fork as frequently as he did increases the likelihood that he'd have a fatal accident there. But didn't he know the river so well that he’d be better at reacting to accidents when they came? The mind swirls.

Personally, with each tragedy, I have become more contemplative in my approach to kayaking, an activity that at one point was the primary driving force in my life. An obsession takes over and I read everything written – fact or opinion – about the event. I talk to friends and acquaintances who were there, those with most knowledge of the waterways involved, and others who may have other details. It gives me the insight to write this, but more importantly it’s my attempt to control the uncontrollable and I'm not the only one. Regional online forums buzzed for days about Smith’s accident, just as they had after Carl and Mark died nine days apart in October of 2010. 

Carl Schneider at the Pittsburgh restaurant where he worked. (Ashley Rose)

Ironically, Smith was the one to notify the community online about Schneider’s accident and then publicly consoled Hanna’s son online. Smith also specifically directed remarks to Hanna’s close friend, Marty Sullivan, who was the first to grab hold of his leg after he went into the sieve. “It’s tough to be there when things like this happen. I hope you're doing ok Marty. Please don't forget to think of the people who are still with us that were caught up in the accident. I've seen a lot of stuff go down over the years and have definitely lost some sleep and felt maybe some PTSD afterwards.” Sullivan has been paddling Central Appalachian creeks and rivers consistently since 1972. In that time, he has lost friends and acquaintances to the river, but claims that the three casualties between October 2010 and April 2011 represent “the worst I’ve ever seen.” Because of this, Sullivan paddles more conservatively. “There are places I’ll never paddle again.”

Hanna’s death-trap came just below Pillow Rapid, which is a nationally known rapid through which thousands paddle on a typical Gauley release weekend. Among the dozens who watched him become trapped, there were doctors, EMTs, and veteran guides. A defibrillator on a commercial raft was available. Despite the virtual hospital present, the Gauley still took Hanna from his friends and family forever.

The lessons (or lack thereof) of Schneider, Hanna, and Smith are clear to American Whitewater Safety Director, Charlie Walbridge. “For Carl Schneider, the only lesson learned is that Class 5 water carries serious risks and you may not recover from a mistake. Mark Hanna taught us that the ‘clean’ run-out of Pillow is not clean after all.” (Despite its enormous size and notoriety, Pillow has been thought by some to be so benign that boaters routinely get out of their boats to leap from a boulder and swim through it, myself included.) “I've stopped running the Upper Gauley because my roll isn't strong enough. Don Smith might well have survived if he'd paddled with a partner, according to those who recovered his body. Solo creeking increases risks significantly. The saddest thing to me about many high-end accidents is that they're hard to prevent. We all make mistakes, and hard rapids are often intolerant of that.”

The gravity of these accidents has changed boating for many of us in Central Appalachia. Beau Smith stopped boating for months after Schneider’s accident and has seen little river time in the past four years. “For me, Carl's accident shattered the whole notion that being a better boater makes you a safer boater.” Unfortunately for those who continue to paddle class 5 water, JB Seay’s standard, to paddle “engaging, difficult whitewater . . . far enough back from the edge of their abilities to be safe and comfortable” is tricky to define when you’re on the river. I’ve certainly changed my paddling endeavors and now embrace a more conservative style.

Don Smith (center) stands in a safety position at Rainbow Room on the North Fork of the Blackwater. Smith ultimately drowned at this rapid, in the channel shown on the right of this photo. (Max Blackburn)

Is there a silver lining? It is there, unspoken among those who were affected: lessons learned, enhanced vigilance, and communication within the boating community. On the heels of Schneider’s and Hanna’s accidents, various organizations met to formally discuss rescue protocols. A meeting that involved WV state park officials, rescue volunteers, and local whitewater boaters took place in Tucker County, home of the Blackwater River. At that meeting, rescue personnel asked local kayakers to assist in swiftwater rescues. This is one of the few instances nationwide of a partnership between professional first responders and private enthusiasts. Because of Carl’s job as a raft guide, his accident solidified unions and communication between the guide community and recreational paddling community. Each spring since then, Three Rivers Paddling Club, to which both Schneider and Hanna belonged, hosts a swiftwater rescue clinic in the mens’ names. Money raised at the first clinic, as well as donations at Schneider’s funeral, were given to the Tucker County volunteer rescue group. They needed to replace a defibrillator that was dropped in the Blackwater after it had been used unsuccessfully on Carl. Impromptu vigils, honorary river trips, and memorials at the sites of the drownings have brought the boaters who knew and loved Carl, Mark, and Don together. In a few weeks on October 5, Carl’s friends will attend the fifth annual Carl Schneider Memorial Paddle on the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle. At the first such gathering, Carl’s father, Bob Schneider, clad in neoprene and floating in an inflatable craft, found his own silver lining in the discovery of what his son meant to the people with him on the water. He said, “it is gratifying that Carl influenced so many in a favorable way and that so many returned his friendship with such loyalty, warmth, and love.” But of course it’s not worth it; when it comes down to it we all want our friends back.

Days before the 2011 Carl Schneider Memorial Paddle on the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania, a decal portraying his handlebar moustache and wide grin appeared on this trolley in Schneider’s whitewater hometown of Ohiopyle, PA. (Ben Scoville)

Don Smith died in April 2011, just as the spring creeking season was getting good. Instead of joining, I watched from the cyber-sideline as our region’s famous creeks hit the “juicy” levels perfect for kayaking. I even decided against doing my favorite annual kayaking event, the Cheat Canyon downriver race, in early May. My excuses for not getting out – work and family – were only part of the reason. As I began to get back out, the first few times I got in my boat, images of Carl, Mark, and Don blurred my focus as I admired the water, boulders, and trees for their entrapment potential rather than for their perfect natural coexistence.

Whitewater is a strong addiction and eventually I was able to find the focus I needed to paddle the rivers I love. But it is different now. For several years I had been taking Molly out to see the beautiful rivers we're lucky to have here in Central Appalachia. Before long we were back on the river together, too, enjoying the river. That August, we paddled a section of the Youghiogheny River that was new to her. I had been down it dozens, maybe hundreds, of times over many years and in all conceivable conditions. Despite my confidence and knowledge of the river, as we approached a crucial rapid I did something I had never done there before. I portaged.

Carl Schneider at ease on the banks of the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. (Ashley Rose)