Hydrophilia

My favorites are the moves which the river practically begs you to make.  The ones that play in the space between your competing energies.  Maybe it’s plunging 5 and a half feet of stern into a swirly-ass eddy behind the Shark’s Fin on the Saint Francis.  Maybe gliding across a hairy-ferry on a “god-sent” lateral. Or wave-wheeling down the rollers of high volume rapid’s entrance.  Whatever the case, the river lays out these beautiful opportunities for anyone willing to look for them.  When you recognize them, it’s almost as though you enter into an unspoken covenant with that river you’re riding.  And one you wouldn’t dare betray.  These are the moves I love, the mutually cooperative ones that honor the covenant:  the weak spots in big holes, the secretive deep channels that twist through the aerated chaos of rapids, the spin corners of surf-holes, the flare rocks, the auto boofs, all of it.  You don’t overpower, you don’t manipulate, you cooperate.  To me, that’s boating on familiar terms with the river, like friends.

Chuck McHenry demonstrates with a back-ender in Cat's Paw rapid, at flood stage. Photo: John Niebling