The Golden Rule

This past weekend the Saint Francis received substantial late-season rain and reached its peak flows for the year. Normally, a big rain event like this one draws out nearly all of the area’s best paddlers. It’s a rare blessing when we get Grand Canyon style big water here in the Midwest and the opportunity is not to be missed.  I know local boaters who will skip school, call in sick to work, even flake out on anniversaries and family milestones just to catch flows half this good.   When big water lands squarely over a beautiful weekend, everyone and their dog shows up.  

I hopped out of my boat, stretched out, then went up to the parking to find some company  before taking on the roaring mile of big water IV+.  My usual crew of young up-and-comings were scattered all over the country.  Levi Rhodes and Ben Ford had just left for West-by-God to run Scouts down the New and Chris Ward had packed up weeks ago to sketch himself out on Idaho’s big water classics all summer.  I was a little bummed that they weren’t around to shred, but I was optimistic and happy for the opportunity to get on the river with faces I usually just see around the takeout.  

That optimism didn’t last long.  There wasn’t a soul around.  Not even a vehicle parked there.  I was in utter disbelief.  I sat around, stretched some more, ate, drank, pissed, and waited.  I got bored and threw rocks.   Then waited.  And waited.  

An hour passed.  Meanwhile the river was rising like mad.  This was the pulse now, some 2-3 feet per hour.  Even from the parking lot I could hear the roar of the Tiemann Shut-ins growing louder and louder.  And still no one around save for one family of hikers who stood around gawking in disbelief at me, my little red Dagger Centrifuge, and the brown, frothy mass building behind me.  

I was in a bit of a pickle.  My car was waiting at the take out and I was waiting at the put-in, about 4 miles upstream.  The obvious solution began gaining traction.  An old promise to my mother began ringing in my ears.  I don’t think there were any real details in that promise, but I’m certain that this is precisely the kind of situation she had in mind.  Besides hers, there was also the collective voice of whitewater community: boating challenging water alone is taboo.  If there is a gold rule of whitewater paddling, it’s that it’s not done alone.  

I had a lot of time to kill, so inevitably I got to thinking on this stuff.

I’ve got this theory that there’s a critical number of bad judgments one can make before the trouble starts (groundbreaking, I know).  Of course one never knows how many, as sometimes even a single bad decision can spell disaster.  Anyway, I consider paddling solo on challenging whitewater a bad decision (just for the record).  I’m not going to say that it shouldn’t be done, just that it leaves less room for other bad decisions.  

I didn’t feel the need to scout, but I did so anyway.  I’ve been running the Saint just about every weekend for the last 5 seasons. Paddle any river a couple hundred times and its beta eventually  just becomes part of you.  Low water, high water, surf sessions, moonlight runs, pitch-dark runs, etc. - eventually it all adds up to a pretty cohesive understanding of the place.  Standing above big drop, I could see the the shutins were running about 6.5’ over the bridge (a little shy of 10,000cfs?) - my favorite surf wave was just starting to green out.  Scouting was a good decision: the rocks hadn’t moved and the rapids were free of wood. Anyway, I didn’t think there was enough margin not to.  

“Hell, this is nothing compared to paddling with Ben” I thought.  He was still pretty green a year or so ago and could barely even look after himself at 2.5’ over.  It was just the two of us one evening after work, not enough daylight to scout, barely enough to run. No one batted an eye about that run, but I couldn’t rely on him for anything.  That was riskier no doubt - but culturally was a-okay.  What I was about to do was really no different, save for the judgment it would incur.  Whitewater is so much about self reliance and one’s individual relationship with risk, that it surprises me paddling alone carries so much stigma.  

Truthfully, I think that the climbing culture is much better adjusted in this department.  Safety is understood to be more of a moving target and individual skill is much better calculated into the safety equation. In older trad circles, you’ll hear the adage, “the leader does not fall.”  Meaning that entirety of the belay, the complexities of all that rope and all that gear is just a backup - just in case. There’s a very important admission hidden here - focus, skill, knowledge, and sound judgment are one’s primary line of safety.  

Nowhere is that reflected more clearly than free-soloing - climbing unroped, unprotected.  Even if it’s only a handful of elite climbers free-soloing routes of consequence, the image is so vivid that it captures the cultural imagination.  It’s an essential part of the sport’s history and progress.  On a well rehearsed route, under perfect conditions, and well within your abilities, why not?  And if you climb with perfect control, what real risk is there of falling? How different is that really from “the leader does not fall?”  It’s a radical idea, and an unmitigated risk, but I don’t think it’s foolhardy.  And the general attitudes within the climbing community reflect that:  Yosemite free soloist Alex Honnold is seen as a posterchild, not a maniac.   

Unmitigated risk.  Perfect control.  The old math doesn’t work.  

Perfect control, if maintained, means 0 risk.  

Perfect control it would be.  I said a quick prayer and shoved off.

I’m writing about this experience because it was so dramatically different from others.  And because it was quite possibly the best I’ve ever paddled.  10 foot exploding waves, holes so powerful they rattle in your chest, and honestly I didn’t even need a brace.  Perfect control.  Five years of rehearsal and every aspect was flawless.  

The Kind of Thing That Can Only Seem Like a Good Idea at 23.

Tuesday night I had an orientation thing at the hospital that ran just about all evening.  6 to 9:30 or something.  It had snowed heavily all over the state a few days prior, and some of that snow was just beginning to melt in the watershed of my favorite river in the Saint Francis Mountains of Southern MO.  I had been expecting this, and had been watching the USGS gage regularly throughout the day to see whether the river was rising enough to go paddle.  So during a break, I call a good friend of mine with a proposition: we go kayak the first good flows of the paddling season, in the moonlight, and don't sleep a wink.  

I show up at SLU and he's got all the gear laid out in front of the Rec Centre.  He's even more stoked about the idea than I am, if that's possible.  We leave sometime a bit after 10 to start the almost 2 hour drive.  You can imagine the looks we were getting - driving down the the road with two brightly colored boats on the roof, middle of the night, middle of the week, middle of the winter, etc.  On top of that, the two of us are running on nothing but pure stoke and the thermos of coffee sitting between us.  The night was  that cold-crystal-clear and the moon blazing. Once I turned on to highway 67, I killed the lights and drove by its light alone.  

We arrived at the put in and unloaded.  It was probably about midnight now.  Our plan was to drop off everything we'd need to boat the river, drive the car to the take-out downriver, then hike back up to the boats on a wilderness trail that runs the 3 or 4 mile distance between the two.  The temperature was probably mid 30's and dropping steadily, so naturally there was some discussion and thought put into what gear to leave, what gear to hike in, etc.  That kind of strategic worrying is inevitable sometimes.

I wish I could better describe this place to you.  The geology is some of the oldest in North America; it's a deep igneous layer that only surfaces in this part of the state. As a result, there's very little soil - it's mostly granite.  The river valley is steep here, about 100-200 feet deep and is lined with shortleaf and white pines, so much so that the air is heavy with their tannins and smell.  The trail follows the river almost exclusively, but continually changes elevation above it. Tuesday night, all that rock and pine was sitting under almost a foot of snow and the moonlight was sparkling off every inch of it. The treetops and branches were iced, and they sparkled too.  There was too much ambient light for good shadows. The moon was maybe 10 or 15 degrees off vertical and lit up both sides of the valley; the river glinted below in the reflected light of both sides of the gorge, center stage.  

I've been hiking that section of trail for 3 years now and know it well enough to love it.  It sounds really corny, but everything about visiting that place is an act of love to me.  That night was no different.  We got to the boats around 2 or 2:30 and found all our paddling gear icy and stiff- clearly colder now than we thought. We thawed it, creased it, unstuck it from the boats, whatever it took to get it on.  

You've never seen whitewater quite like it looks by moonlight. It softens without as much contrast, and looks more like it does in longer exposure photography - smoothed and fluffy.  In the daylight that river would be perfectly clear, and reflect those deep blue/green colors and sharp contrasts that are so picturesque.  In the snow and moonlight though, the color palate of the whole environment changes instead to every shade of blue and violet between the luminescence of snow and the cold dark of shadows.  The distinction between steep hillsides and river vanishes; the colors of the whole microenvironment of river, gorge, and sky merge.  It's stunning, and unlike anything else. It's a cold kind of beauty that doesn't give a fuck whether you're around to see it or not.  And I like that.  

We get back down to the car, build a fire, and I brew pot of earl grey.  Thermometer reads 20 degrees even. Things freeze with alarming quickness.  It's just before dawn, but "just before dawn" seems always to come remarkably early when you've watched the colors of sky changing all night.  We hit up a diner on the way home and are the only ones in there.  I eat ridiculous amounts of hashbrowned potatoes.  The cook is making them for the morning and keeps filling my plate every time I finish.  I can't remember the last time I felt happier.

The Longboard Artist

About a year ago, I was camping with my girlfriend in the Ozark Mountains of the Upper Buffalo Wilderness, Arkansas.  As we were getting back to the trailhead, we ran into a group of longboarders.  They were there for the mile and a half descent into the Buffalo River valley, below.  They’d come from Springfield for the smooth asphalt and serpentine corners.  I got to talking with one of them, and he suggested that we follow him down the mountain.  Naturally, we obliged. 

It didn’t take long for us to realize that this guy was good.  Really good.  The road dropped gradually at first and he’d scrub speed by carving back and forth, then dive smartly into a sharp corner. When the road eased into a gentle false-flat, I pulled up next to him, and complimented the skill of his riding. “Just wait,” he said excitedly.  I followed him around the next bend and was met with the yellow, almost iconic, “steep grade” sign I knew would be there.  12% this time.  As the road dropped and his speed swelled, the playfully carved turns soon subsided, brought out only for necessity.  Each time he intervened to turn, the back wheels would shutter violently, fighting left and right to overcome his control.  He’d reign them in though, just in time to set up for the next corner.  When he rounded the last bend at about 55, I couldn’t follow.  I braked hard to 35.  After that the road straightens, then plummets the last 300 ft. down to the valley floor. 

What I saw when I first glimpsed him on the other side was unforgettable.  It was mastery, artistry even.  As the road dove further into the valley, he crouched further and further down - his torso flattening, shoulders moving forward, arms moving back.  Headlong. All the clatter and struggle for control phased-shifted into fluidity and ease.  I didn’t catch him until the valley, but I drove behind at a steady 60 mph before he began to slow. He turned into roadside park, and I followed.  The look in his eyes was fiery when he told me that I had just seen the best ride of his life. 

The Flood Riders

Amateur meteorology, online gauges, and homegrown forecasting models

Phone calls, logistics, live-feed precip updates on the hour.  

Expectation…then once the rain leaves the basin,

Speculation.

“It’s going big tomorrow.”

“How big do you think? And when you think we’ll see the peak? Daybreak?”

“What about the feeder creeks coming down from the mountains? They’re primed sure, but they got half an inch less rain and support twice the vegetation”

Like we’re fucking hydrogeology doctorates or something.

Can’t even sleep until you see the uppermost gauge twitch,

knowing that somewhere deep within the hills a sleeping Giant stirs.

Race down there.  Gear loaded, boats strapped.  

River rising more than a foot an hour.

Prelims look good: ditches full, drainages roaring, USGS gage still rising

First glimpse of the headwaters and it’s unrecognizable.  

Out-of-its-banks high, wide, brown, powerful. Indiscriminate.  

Slightly nervous now, remembering my last encounter

Have I seen it this high before?

No, probably 2 feet higher today.

The bridge is under, the lot is under, the old dam nearly is.

Low booms and tectonic rumbles from somewhere out of sight.
Reverberations through the hull.

I am unfamiliar with this Giant.

One last shiver, and I shove off.

Life comes into focus.

Water not read so much as felt

Strokes intuitive, automatic

Life and death might be two feet apart,

but that doesn’t matter the slightest.

You pierce the seam between them,

A thousand lives lived in the moment.

I am one of the flood riders.

We don’t conquer the Giant,

Don’t ask favors of it.

We simply join in the wild anarchy of its descent,

And in the severity of its beauty.  

 Chuck McHenry, king of the Flood Riders.  Saint Francis River (10' over); Photo by John Niebling