1999
Dutch Treatment
By Martin Buhr
From Paddle Splashes, The Appalachian Mountain Club Newsletter
Martin Buhr sent me the following email: "My firm has relocated me to Rotterdam, Holland. Via the rec.boats.paddle newsgroup, I was able to hook up with some Dutch kayakers (most notably Wilko van den Bergh, a regular poster on r.b.p), and we did some paddling last weekend in the Ardennes in Germany. Below is the trip report Wilko posted on r.b.p, which I though some of your readers might find interesting. Cheers, Martin Buhr," I have edited it a bit, but here are the fun parts.
In November '98, I reacted to Martin Buhr's mail about where in the Netherlands he would be living closer to whitewater, Rotterdam or Amsterdam. In December and January, we mailed a bit more, until Martin finally let us know that he had arrived in Rotterdam at the beginning of February. This weekend, on Sunday we finally managed to get him in a boat and on some flowing water.
Marc came to pick me up a little after nine, after stopping at the meeting point (the Floraplein gas station in Eindhoven) to tell Niels and Steven that he would be a little late. At a quarter to ten, Michiel and Martin showed up. We quickly arranged a complete set of paddling gear for Martin (his own boat and paddling gear is still stuck in customs), loaded up the boats, and went down south towards Germany.
A missed exit-"hey, is that the one we were supposed to take?" this being said while we were driving past it!-showed that Marc was clearly still suffering from jet-lag (he came back from the United States on Friday). A short stop just before the border to get the caffeine levels of some of the addicts in our group up again and we drove into Germany. Martin and I had an interesting discussion about the futility of trying to remove the hundreds of thousands of "Dragon's Teeth" that were seen all over the German hills (part of the World War II era Siegfried Line defenses).
Around noon, we arrived at the Ruhr river. "Dusty" would be the appropriate description. We checked further upstream at the gauge under the bridge near Reichenstein: 20 cm's (eight in)-at least 30cm (one ft) is needed for this stretch! This has been the wettest year in the past century (1300+ mm's of water, the previous record was 1100+), and we run out of water!
We decided to put in just above the medieval German town of Mochschau, paddling the stretch through Monschau and downstream of it to the first roadbridge. Steven and Marc drove away to run shuttle when I suddenly remembered that I had left both throwlines in the car - oooops!
The two drivers returned, and we put in (Michiel walked the boney "Washing Board" rapid-an 8 metre/25ft high weir-to keep his relatively new Perception Whiplash in one piece). I offered Niels an opportunity to practice his trip leader skills again, so he had to take us down the Washing Board. Niels hesitated, not knowing for sure what line to pick, but bouncing down on a decent line down the middle anyway. I followed, bouncing completely off course, flying over some rocks and getting into the eddy with a grinning Niels. Martin did okay, although he did get his bones shaken pretty good, trying to prevent getting knocked sideways which will lead to flipping (you don't want to come down this weir upside-down-you will have a boat and your full body-weight pounding your head into the rocks!). Steven followed my line, and hit the exposed rocks as well.
We sneaked down the bouldergarden at the bottom of the weir and met up with Michiel. Niels had some difficulties getting us all organized, especially since Steven and I had secretly planned to give him some "learning opportunities." Niels stopped the group when he saw the next horizon line show up, the Brewery Weir. He gave us a short description of what to expect from that weir at high levels, but he forgot to explain that we were having an extremely low level, with hardly any consequences for this weir. Michiel was clearly not feeling comfortable and asked if portaging was an option. I told him not to worry and just follow us, as there weren't any nasty consequences now.
I followed Niels on his tail, and he corrected me quickly, pointing out the correct distance to stay behind him. Good move! Neils momentarily stopped at the top of the Brewery Weir and then slid down, forgetting to tell us what we were to do next. Everyone slid down afterwards, all passing him quickly, trying to find an eddy. He had quite some problems trying to get everyone back in line again! Shortly afterwards I "pinned" sideways (actually I had to grab the rock very tightly or I would be flushed downstream, but it sure looked like a pin to everyone else). Niels first tried to get me unpinned himself, but I had picked a rock that was impossible to reach for him from downstream. He needed to get the upstream sweep to "rescue" me. Another valuable lesson: use your resources instead of doing everything on your own.
We laughed a lot, especially since some old folks on the concrete ledge overhanging the stream didn't know what was going on down there with those crazy kayakers. We paddled through Monschau, stopping to play (and for Martin to peel out and boof a rock). Martin swapped boats with Michiel, doing a good practice roll while I spotted him. We all played a bit in a hole, attracting a lot of attention from the tourists. A big group of German paddlers arrived, so we quickly went further downstream.
In an eddy behind a bridge, I asked if Marc felt like trying to play trip leader for a while. He rearranged the paddling order and went downstream. There is a weir in the center of the town. Marc stopped in time, asked what to do and led everyone to the big eddy on river left, just upstream of the weir. There are a couple of eddies on river left that he proposed to take. Unfortunately, he didn't stop to see if everyone made it down the weir alright, so Steven and I couldn't pull off our "stuck in the hole" trick.
We floated through Monschau, enjoying the sun and the water. I briefed Marc on the upcoming "favorite killer" weir-a nasty critter at high and very high levels, but because a small sluicegate to the river-left side is opened, that poses a serious threat as an artificial strainer at these lower levels. We got into the eddy at river-right top of the weir, giving Martin a chance to scout it. I went down first, throwing my Diablo in the powerful eddy at the bottom of this 5 metre/16ft drop. I quickly went further downstream to find an eddy from where I could quickly get to a potential swimmer. Everyone made it down, but Marc did his "stretched arms high brace close to the rear of his boat" duffec again, and I motivated him to retry the run, without that dangerous move. He went in the eddy very well.
We moved further downstream, and played in the corkscrew rapid for a while. Marc flipped and got his first ever combat roll! We quickly made him a member of our growing "you swim, you buy the group a drink"-club!
A couple of kids were throwing pebbles at us, so Martin sneaked up on them and treated them on a bottle-load of Ruhr water. They helped him get back in his boat afterwards, so they weren't really bad kids, probably just a bit bored. We ran the next couple of rapids quickly, and at the end of Monschau, our normal take-out point, the river widens and isn't as steep any more.
Niels got to be the trip leader again, and we went downstream. Since the sun was going down quickly, I told Niels to speed up a bit. He had a difficult time spotting the best (read: deepest) lines through the often boney rapids, but I could see him improve with each rapid. The last stretch of the river went down quickly, with only one rapid proving to be a bit of a challenge for everyone, as there was a tree with many branches stuck in the bend, exactly where you would normally go down the rapid. Following the inside of the bend proved to be tricky, as the eddy on the inside was very powerful, turning around almost everyone before they could float out of it backwards.
Not long afterwards we reached the take-out, which Niels wasn't sure of, even after I told him. Oh well, that's what you get when you tease the trip leader all day long! We quickly changed, decided where to have dinner, ran shuttle and drove back north again. After a very nice dinner with interesting and funny conversations we went back to Eindhoven. Michiel and Martin unloaded their stuff, and after thanking everyone for a very nice paddling trip, they headed back to "their" province of Southern Holland.
