To: lira-kin@palladium.corp.sgi.com
Subject: A Day on the River
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 97 13:17:37 -0700
From: Liralen Li <liralen@netcom.com>
Precedence: bulk

When John and I were at a Starbuck's, trying to buy something that would 
allow us to wake up for the day, there was a father with his little girl 
out in front of the store. 

The little girl said, "Daddy, I want to trapse about!"  Yes, the word 
surprised me, too.  I think she might have been working on her vocabulary
or something.  She looked about four.

"No, it's raining.  You'll get all wet." said Daddy while reading his paper
and the rain is falling like a soft curtain through the air.

The little girl watched the rain, kicking her heels and then said,
decisively, "But I *like* being wet!"

I had to laugh.

It turned into the phrase for the day.  I *like* being wet.  

The rain didn't let up in the least as we made our way north and east.  The
sky was iron grey and it was dripping wet by the time we got to Big Eddy,
which is where we were told to put our cars and contact the NW Cascades
vans.  We found them right there and they gave us wet suits, which were
nice and dry and I put mine on over my swim suit, while in the car.  I also
layered polypro underneath the upper body of the wet suit as well as a wool
sweater over that.  Toasty.

Booties of the same stuff as the wet suits and then, over all that, a pair
of gortex rain pants and a gortex jacket and a wool hat.  Then I put on my
wrist braces and, over them, a pair of wool fingerless gloves that I
usually use for my soccer games.  They were going to be a pain, but I
really didn't want to be bending my wrists in ways that would hurt things
more, if I could at all help it. 

I then took the additional step of showing the braces to Jerry Landry, who
was our guide and the guy from work that organized all the folks going, and
he told me to sit right in front of him and so that I'd be paddling with my
right hand instead of my left, as I said that my left hand was considerably
worse off than my right.  So I ended up at his right hand, so that he could
better see how I was doing and compensate if necessary.  It was very keen
to know that he knew what to do about the fact that I might not be able to
do everything that they needed.  It was better to know that he was willing
to work around what I could do and have fun anyway.

>From the cars, we rode vans to the place where we were going to be putting
in, and the van was filled with talk.  It was interesting how much bravado
most people put into doing white water for the first time, and fun to just
listen to and grin at.  There was a man and his eighteen year old son, and
two other guys from Data I/O that were likely to ride in Jerry's raft with
John and I, and they'd all been rafting at least once before and it was fun
getting to see them in this setting, so different than work.

The first thing out of the head guide's mouth when he did the general
instructions for all the crews that were heading out that afternoon was, 
"This river can take your life."  It was a very cheering thing to hear.  

It turns out that the Skykomish River is one of the few rivers in the U.S.
that actually gets more dangerous with higher water flow.  Most rivers get
less dangerous as the higher levels bury the rocks in so much water that
it becomes smooth going at the top levels.  The Sky is unique in that the
boulders that it has are *big* and start out, at lower flows as simple
walls that have to be steered around.  The higher levels of flow start to
make holes, standing waves, and slightly more hidden and dangerous
obsticles when buried under the veil of fast moving white water.  The
faster moving water is another of the factors that makes this river more
dangerous, as the higher volume, in some spots means that the velocity of
the water creates forces that can flip boats.  When the velocities are 
lower boats actually get through more readily.

We were doing the lower section of the river, which is the first of the
rivers in the local area that become runnable.  As the level of water goes
up, here, the rapids get more and more dangerous, as the other rivers and
even the upper levels of the Sky itself gradually get more and more safe 
and more passable.  So, a few weeks more into the season, all the outfits 
move to the safer rivers.

So, it was going to be plenty exciting.  Turns out that most of the rapids
were in the 2 and 3 levels, and Boulder Drop, which is the big one of the 
lower levels was at about a 5, which is on the edge of undoability.  So we
were going to assess our chances when we got there rather than depend on
either other reports or other people.  So, for the first ten minutes, we
went through a several sets of rapids and did some initial training stuff 
entirely under Jerry's instruction to see what our reaction times were and
what he could do with us an our reaction times.  It turned out to be really
good, so he thought we could actually do Boulder Drop as a team.

On the other hand, I was kinda leery about Jerry's lead, as he put us
through quite a number of standing waves *sideways*.  After a week down the
Rogue river on little tiny one man tahiti's, it was kinda terrifying going
into those any way other than straight in.  Then Jerry said, "Look, I know
what I'm doing.  We'll handle this small stuff easily, sideways.  We may
have to in order to get through the big stuff down the Drop."  Then, to
demonstrate, he led us through a whole series of standing waves, not just
sideways, but swapping sides as we went. 

I have to admit that after that little demonstration, I was much, much,
much happier just lending my paddle into it all and blindly following 
whatever orders he might have.

Everyone got out just above Boulder Drop, at first to pow wow about how the
various boats' guides felt about how they were doing and then to go and
scout the drop to see how it was doing today.  From the inital conference,
the two client boats were going to portage, the new guides boat and our
boat were going to do the drop.  The guides then did the arduous task of
getting the boats, guiding them around the slow areas of the river and had
all the passangers carry their own paddles to make wander through the
portaging.  

My legs were just a bit rubbery from the inital push, so I took my time and
climbed carefully along the big rocks that made up the shore and took a
little time out to soak my wrists in the ice melt run off.  The water was
like liquid ice, numbing the moment it hit my skin, and it felt really good
on the areas that I'm so used to icing.  I thought a bit as I felt that and
realized that I really, really did not want to end up swimming in the
stuff.  It was going to be an interesting ride.

The white water was also really, really big.
 
Looking at it from the shore, there was an entry to the right or to the
left of a central boulder, that then carried into a chaos of flurries.
Those broke out into a big current to a standing wave to the right, and
jagged, nasty rocks to the left.  It looked doable, but then after that,
there was another small flurry field that was then bounded, on both sides,
by rocks that weren't going to allow a passage, and a central standing wave
where the worst of the current was going and a rock that was at nearly
exactly the right height to flip a raft.  Any bigger, and the raft might
make it around it, any smaller and we'd be able to go over it.

As I sat there, one of the new guides wandered by and said, under his
breath to me, "You know it's really bad when the guides look at it and say
they don't want to do it."  I grinned.

I also decided, at that point, to take my braces off, as they were 
messing with my arms and shoulders and I couldn't paddle right with them
on.  It was also pinching things to a point where the upper parts of my
forearms were starting to hurt.

Turned out, though, that the head guide decided that everyone was going to
portage, rather than letting Jerry risk it with just his boat crew.  Turned
out that the guide boat had decided, as a whole, to not do it, because of
that hole.  Also, since Boulder Drop was near the beginning of the day, 
anyone that did get dropped into the drink was going to be freezing wet 
and cold for nearly the rest of the day.

So the head lady guide decided to bring Jerry's boat down.  Jerry said,
later, that he met her as he was coming back up for his boat, and at one
look from him she said, "I know what you're thinking, and I'm really sorry,
but this is for the best."  After a bit of a stare down, we all portaged.

Turned out that the classifaction for the day for Boulder Drop was a 6, and
the whole company decided to do a completely different river the next day
because the Sky had gotten so rough and ready that they weren't willing to
risk their clients to it.

Yes, official classifications go from 1 to 5.  There is, however, a 6 and a
7.  Usually a 5 shouldn't be gone through except by people that are well
prepared for it, with protective gear (we did have helmets, which I've
never had before for a river trip, and everyone in the boat also had wet
suits along with the necessary life jacket), support boats (which we did
have two of), and backup.  6's and 7's are just insane and mostly a 
classification to tell people that they won't make it through.  6's are
sometimes possible in non-standard rafts.

Anyway... we didn't do it, but had a lot of fun anyway.  There were a  
good four or five rapids before lunch and a number of them were big enough
that we were able to get everyone in the boat piled on top of each other on
the high side of the boat and have it *just* fall back into place.   The
command for the crew is 'High Side!' and it's really straightfoward like
most other commands, in that you just head for the high side of the raft.
Since the water is pouring down against the rocks, you're usually coming up
on the side where the water is piled up from going so fast.  So the edge of
the raft that's about to hit the rock moves *up*.  If you don't get
everyone's weight on that side of the raft before or during the hit, then
that edge will come up further than you want it to and the raft will flip.

So when Jerry yelled 'High Side' we flopped to the high side and stayed
there until the boat moved past the rock or whatever.  Intersting thing was
that on the side that goes high, the water does come over with the flop and
water just *poured* all over me several times.  One time the water went
right down the back of my neck, and I yelped loud enough to make Jerry
jump.  The gortex of my rain pants did a very fine job of just letting 
all that water just roll right off.  My feet, in the wet suit booties 
got drenched in the ice cold water numerous times and my feet were 
*cold* after that.  But the rest of me was relatively warm.

We pulled up on a small pebble shore for lunch.  There was a huge tree that
had fallen onto the beach, some small part of it's massive trunk hanging
out in the water, the rest of it was lying on its side.  It made for a
nearly ten foot tall roof when the tarp was strung up along it, and big
straigth branches were used to pull out the far edge of the roof of the
tarp.  The guides then boiled water and started serving 'mochas' which were
a mix of powdered hot cocoa and powdered coffee.  It was nice and hot,
though so I had one and warmed my hands with it.

A number of the guides also gathered a pile of firewood that was fairly
damp on the outside from all the rain, and they started the fire by putting
a bottle of propane under it with a valve on it and a bit of a tube so that
it was nearly a blow torch lit underneath the pile of damp wood.  The fire
got going only after several minutes of the torch being under the whole
pile of wood.  Others of the new guides set up the tables, the lunch of
sandwiches and homemade brownies and we all munched our lunch by the river
in the damp grey drizzle.  It was fun.

Also cold.  The wind picked up and we were soon all huddled about the fire.

That was when I realized that I was quite content with the fact that we
hadn't done Boulder Drop, otherwise I would have spent the majority of the
day completely miserable from the cold.  As it was, it was pretty hard
getting back out into the boat after lunch, anyway.  Muscles had cooled off
and were tired, and so the first set of rapids were a bit of an adventure
as we were pretty well bounced around.  

We hit a fairly calm bit and suddenly one of the guys in the boat shouted
"Happy Birthday" and dumped the eighteen year old out of the boat in to
the water.  There was this yelp and a gasp and then the kid flailing to
get back into the boat, half laughing, half swearing, and just freezing
from the ice melt runoff.

He huddled for a bit until Jerry got us paddling again, and he warmed up
fairly quickly after that.  

After that, there were two more series of good, solid standing waves.  In
the midst of one of 'em, we hit a fairly high wave, and Jerry said, rather
mildly, "You might wanna high side on this one."  I kinda blinked at that,
and then lept to the left as we hit, muttering to myself afterwards, "Might
wanna... might..."

We made it through just fine.  

The rain still fell softly.

It was, however, still a beautiful day.  The mist drifting softly in front
of black mountain peaks with snow still runnelled in white, trees and trees
and more trees all around us on the banks of the river.  Clouds drifted 
above us, some more solid than others, some bringing more rain than others,
all of them covering the sky.  The river itself was cool grey, sliding soft
and cold about it's way.  A comorant winged by quietly, as did an eagle.  
Quiet, wet, beautiful day.

We ended up where we'd parked, a huge eddy were the river jumped a few tens
of yards to the left made it so that we could ride the stream towards the
right bank and have the eddy sling us to the left.  A few hard forward
strokes and we were well on the left bank.  It was kinda sad to leave, but
nice, too, as we all gathered for a party at Jerry's house and had beer and
burgers and hot showers, yum.  <grin>

It was a pleasant trip and I was glad to find out that my wrists hadn't
gotten in the way of paddling that much.  

-------
Liralen