1999
Farewell To Paddles
by Steve Stratman
Crammed in the crack of a rock, stuck under a log, sulkily awaiting a blast of spring flood, or the drain of a summer drought, lies my paddle, its bright yellow poggies still faithfully clutching the shaft. Nearby, strewn along the river bottom, themselves similarly entrapped, lie countless other paddles scattered like bones outside a cave. There are hundreds of them by now, hunkered down, patiently waiting for their deliverance. That's how I picture it anyway.
Somewhere about twelve feet past the first drop of Fin Falls on the lower St.Louis I learned how quickly I could abandon all my precious worldly possessions-my smart red playboat, my cleverly embellished paddle, my "specialized' water bottle and my handy throw rope, all traded wholesale in a split second for one fleeting chance to save myself. Boat gone. Fine. Paddle gone. Good riddance. Booties please be gone. Your friction is sucking me off this rock wall.
It happened at the end of a great day, as is the wont of most predicaments. Chris Ringsven, Alan Faust and I had hooked up with Paul Everson and a couple of Duluthrans (mysterious residents of Duluth, MN) before wending our way down the upper St. Louis. It was October 31st, the sky was crystal blue and a big moon brooded overhead. One thing would have made the day better if it had been a Monday and I had called in sick to work. (I never lied before I started paddling.)
We had made fairly short work of the upper section before putting in below the Thompson dam. As I was getting in my boat I watched Paul calmly boof a 20 foot drop in a little canyon just upstream. Funny, I didn't ever remember seeing that yawning drop before, my subconscious apparently keeping it at bay, safe and soundly blacked out. It knows I have enough things to worry about, like if my helmet is on backwards, or if I have forgotten to put anything on under my spray skirt. My problems are simple, albeit numerous.
Well, I ran it all after that, from above the 210 bridge all the way to swinging bridge. I even got through a rapid we call Octopus-a tangled and painful looking crease (which I portaged) that splits off at the bottom in a couple class IV directions. Just before the swinging bridge I loitered, nervously circling an eddy above a spiteful little drop. Alan got sucked into it a few weeks before. It recirculated him seven times, holding him under for up to 45 seconds between breaths (according to some not very helpful park goers watching from the bridge). Being a sensitive guy I didn't want to remind him about that, he being in the eddy right there beside me, circling nervously.
Earlier in the season, I walked everything on this section, clucking all the way. Well, I'm lying, I didn't walk every thing that day. At Octopus I took the far river-left side. By far river left I mean the path along the bank. Here, with my then unsullied, day-old Pyranha Blade perched bravely on my shoulder, I gallantly picked my way through a class IV portage. Rounding the bend into the final ravine, I suddenly found myself toppling head first down a pile of surly, bad-intentioned rocks-my proud boat pushing me downward and reducing my poor big toe to a throbbing, purple mess. So, this section of class IV portage I tumbled, not walked. Never mind that however. I learned some time ago to be humble, for it speeds the healing process.
So comes the meat of the story, this being the story and me being the meat.
Hunkered down on a rock above Fin Falls, we had a wide angle view of the river as it tumbled over drops, hidden pour overs, surging holes, and a surplus of sharp, pointy, ill humored, scrapey looking hard things - a 'fine piece' of Class V water.
It wasn't vanity that pushed me on. Vanity has already pummeled me hard. In fact it pummeled my shoulder right out of the socket in a hole on the Vermillion a year and a half ago. I learned then and there in the emergency room that exuberance and potential talent is only a thin veil for bad skills. All I got for my troubles was a fresh outlook on life, a year of rehab and a $600 hospital bill. Yes, vanity skulked along the river bottom amongst the debris that day, leering at me, mocking me from below. Its coiled waxy tendrils flexing and twitching, its cavernous eyes gleaming, before SUDDENLY REARING ITS FOUL RAZOR-SHARP TALONS STRIKING UPWARD! Um, well, you get the point.
Let's get it straight right now, I'm no hair boater. But I didn't sense any coiled waxy tendrils nearby either. I was just having fun and I didn't want it to stop. Ha! There it is, I said it! I WAS JUST HAVING FUN AND I DIDN'T WANT IT TO STOP! So, with my comfort zone lying rumpled in a heap somewhere along the bank upstream, I got back in my boat and dug in to the task at hand.
I inched toward the horizon line and struck out toward the edge of the drop. It plopped me down in a flush of water and scooted me away left. I got a little wider than I expected, up against a fin of rock, but I was still OK. Next, I took a funnel of water back down to the main flow. From there it was an eight or nine foot slide into a pesky sort of deep... thing...It was cold in the deep thing.
I wondered why it was so cold in the deep thing. I thought at first it was because I was so deep in the deep thing. I also noticed there were no bubbles in this part of the deep thing and that the deep thing was very quiet.I suddenly realized that although I was very deep in the deep thing, I was very cold because my boat was filling up very quickly with water. Ruefully, I came to the conclusion that whenever you pair up a very wimpy garden-variety type of spray skirt against a very pesky sort of deep thing, the deep thing will always prevail. Also, just as dogs luuuuvvv trucks, deep things luuuuvvvv low-volume playboats. So, pride aside, I dug into the next task at hand, this being survival.
Oddly, as I breached the surface I noticed that I preferred the quietness of the deep thing to the cacophony of my new situation. I knew full well I couldn't navigate a rapid like this in a boat full of water, but I also knew that swimming it would be unthinkably foul and painful, if not tragic. The canyon wall loomed up in front of me and I began to wash past it. I had only a few feet left before this pillow of water swept into the main current. So, I ditched my paddle directly and pushed out from my boat. The bow, full of water, endered, forcing me up against the wall. My fingers raked along the stone as the current began to sweep me towards the first gnashing pour over.
"I do not want to swim this," I thought. I felt doomed. The rock wall slipped past my clawed fingers, while my boat bobbed, ownerless and forgotten, behind me. My feet caught the pull of the rapid, delivering me ever closer to that baleful rock, which was mocking and beckoning me with its lurid twisted grin.
Suddenly, my cold benumbed fingers found a hold. "A miracle," I reckoned. Slowing just enough, I clamped another hold with my other hand. "Providence," I increduled (You make up your own verbs, and I'll make up mine. It's my article). However, my new hope began to erode as I tried to wrest my feet from the current. My body was dragging down in the water and the current sucked hungrily at my booties and spray skirt. Every time I tried to gain some sort of foothold, it would pry me away from the wall. My fingers. although now totally numb from the 40 degree water, were still plenty useful as hooks on my rock holds, but my forearms were cramping and I began to tire. I figured it was only a matter of time before I would have to relent to the river.
I looked upstream and saw Alan, picking his way across the escarpment but much too far away to save me. Here I was, stuck on the rock like a tree frog. and I figured if there was to be any saving done. I would have to do it.
It was at this time that a moment of clarity crept over me. I remembered a cassette my dad gave me last year when I was having a difficult time rehabbing my shoulder. It was a true story about a guy who worked as some type of engineer on these giant ocean freighters as they were docked in port. One day he had managed to rivet himself into a small crawl space deep in the bowels of a ship near the outer hull. He had only space enough to lie there; it was cold, dark, and worst of all, the end of the day before a 4-day weekend. No one knew he was there and there would be no one to help him until work resumed the next week.
He freaked out and died, of course. No, just kidding. He collected his thoughts and cleared his mind, opening himself up to whatever divine inspiration or thought might come his way. He refused to panic; it wasn't even an option. Slowly it came to him to work the rivets free by using what ever slack was left in the steel plate. And one by one he got the rivets off and made it home for dinner.
Well, I thought, even if I had a rivet gun it would be of no use to me here. I would have chucked it with the paddle! You think you could have given me a better anecdote than that, Dad. But I did become and remain very calm, my mind cleared, and my attention was drawn to my right leg. Instead of scraping around for a foothold I crooked my knee and moved it about two inches upstream. There, sticking out about two inches is what I'll refer to from here on as 'THE KNOB OF LIFE'. It came willingly and offered its full cooperation, destined from birth within a glacier a couple of million years ago, and weathered through the ages, to become my soul mate and champion.
I got the hell off of it! Faster than you could say igneous metamorphic.
With the knob of life under my knee I scaled the wall like an ant. Atop a rock I waved to Paul and stuck my fingers from both hands in my mouth. As Alan clambered up a small path, I howled, "Thhuffig phuthip thngggbvp! Flung thel luffinstuf!" Well, it didn't make any sense to him either but it was exciting. I took my fingers out of my mouth and right behind them came a thick stream of profanity. Although curiously poetic, the only real words of substance were - fingers, can't feel. Cold, hurts, hurts, hurts, and so on. I stuck my fingers back in my mouth and we set off to extricate my boat and go home.
Thanks to Paul, Chris, and the two guys from Duluth (Jay and a fella named Holliday, I forgot his first name, you know who you are) for saving my boat and to Alan for sticking with me. If I had swum that rapid I know they would have done everything they could to get me out. At least I picked my partners well. Paul put it to me eloquently later: "What the hell were you doing out there in that little boat? And get a better sprayskirt, ya numbskull." Well, it was something like that anyway.
The moral of my little story is: never bring a rivet gun to gunfight... Get the proper gear and use it wisely. And if you do screw up, reach deep down inside and don't lose your cool. And, oh yeah, swear a lot afterward, it makes ya feel better.
