Here’s me and Jason Conlon going through:

Here’s Samson going through the Needle, not Ned’s.  At 2000 cfs it’s really sticky but the more right-to-left line that he takes appears to work well, Charles has said the same thing but a lot of people seem to go left-to-right (I’ve seen good boaters flailing paddles when levels are sticky):

And here’s Adrian going through Ned’s Needle:

Thanks Dave, for taking the videos!  It was an awesome day on the Skykomish, we are so fortunate to have such an interesting Class IV rapid less than an hour from Seattle.

Ouch, ouch, and ouch.

So is it foolish to kayak on Friday the 13th?  I’m not superstitious, but as I was heading out to boat that morning I remember thinking how ironic it would be if there ended up being river carnage that day.  As it turns out, I was front and center in the carnage department, but at the same time it was relatively minor, so I’m seriously grateful to have been able to learn a lesson without totally sidelining myself for months.

Anyway, here are some thoughts I’ve had about what happened:

It’s easy to get used to getting away with things.

What happened is that I ended up breaking 3 ribs when I got T-boned by the bow of someone’s kayak while they were surfing and I was coming down a wave train.  It flipped me over and I remember thinking, ‘Holy smokes, I think I really got hurt this time’, but fortunately I was able to roll up and get over to an eddy.  Now apparently (as I’ve heard since then) there’s a river rule that says the upstream kayaker has right of way, but let’s be real - there also has to be an unwritten rule that says the upstream kayaker should avoid acting like a bonehead, and I know I had enough time to get out of this person’s way - I just was being a little lax about paddling hard.  Usually you get away with that stuff with some flips and apologies, this time I didn’t.

Snow billows through Index as we put in.

Little mistakes can have big consequences.

I think for most kayakers it’s a lot easier to consider getting hurt and dealing with pain than it is to think about the amount of time they’ll have to take off of paddling.  They told me six weeks and I’m hoping it’s four, but poor Fish Waidelich, who’s an amazing kayaker, dislocated his shoulder recently and is out for months – recently he was on Professor Paddle begging people to take him down river in a raft, and (paddlers being the people they are) he got lots of offers right away.  But seriously – from what I hear, he got hurt on a class III section, and he’s a class V paddler.  So I guess it’s worth keeping that kind of thing in mind.  Although at the same time, if you think too much about what can go wrong you’ll never leave the house.  (Martha Stewart reruns, anyone? )

Your paddle group is your lifeline.

I was fortunate to be paddling with a great group of people who did everything they could to make things safer and easier.  Everyone took the time to figure out what was going on, Brett Barton carried both his and my boat off the river and through the woods for half an hour up to the road, the guys from Peak 7 happened to come along and give us a ride up to Index, JP and Dave Morales drove me back to my house, and Dave didn’t make me feel bad about committing his afternoon to taking me to the hospital when it turned out  I couldn’t drive.  You seriously want to paddle with people like this.

We are blessed with amazing capacity to heal.

I know most people know that, but I have to emphasize – I am completely mind-boggled at how much better I feel just over a week later.  When I got to the hospital on Friday I could barely walk, and on Sunday I couldn’t clear my throat, even on Percocet.  By Wednesday, however, I was off of painkillers and actually tried a slow jog (then got walloped on Facebook by my clear-thinking friends.)  Today is nine days later and I can breathe in just fine – sneezing is not agonizing, I can run (although I’m not) and I’m just watching out for my left arm and shoulder blade, which I can tell will take longer.  If you had told me last Sunday that I’d feel like this today, I would have snorted in disbelief – and then toppled over in agony.  It’s truly amazing.

So in the end…

I’m not trying to sound like Polyanna.  It’s not fun to have broken ribs (other than the outpouring of sympathy, including fellow paddler Marilyn Ridings showing up on Sunday with a full grocery list and flowers – thanks Marilyn!)  But who are we kidding – any time you get the opportunity to learn a potentially life-saving lesson without losing a bunch of teeth or rupturing a shoulder (the point being, obviously, that you’d be off the river for a long time with those injuries ) there’s not that much to complain about, right?  I’m calling it good, and hoping to be smarter and better when I get back out there.

Clear skies and fresh snow on the way back.

a)  I finally made a clean run on Boulder Drop and arrived at the bottom right side up

b)  One member of our group, Stephen, was a new paddler whose only previous river experience was the Class I/II run from Big Eddy to Monroe.

Fearless Trip Organizer Kiran and Hand-Roll Whiz Kid Stephen

Driving up to the put-in Kiran told Stephen that he was either going to be a natural and astonish us, or a huge source of entertainment.  I said ‘Maybe both’, and to my surprise I was right.

What was really funny was that when Stephen started practicing his self-taught roll at the put-in we all looked at each other with big eyes, because it turns out he had ended up teaching himself a hand roll, and would just leave his paddle slack in the water or let go of it altogether.  It was really a crack-up, because he popped up like a duck pretty much every time – and he’s so new he didn’t even know it was a hand roll!

The first rapid after the Cabledrop put-in is probably one of the more challenging ones, and Stephen ended up missing two rolls and swimming, so he took out a bit further down and rejoined us at Split Rock for the trip down to Big Eddy.

By the end of it, however, he was so used to hand-rolling in moving water that on the last II+ rapid right before the Big Eddy take-out I watched him roll up twice, once in shallow water bouncing off of rocks, and the last time in some significant froth that plenty of beginner paddlers would have found challenging to roll up in even using a paddle.

I brought up the rear and laughed the whole way down.

So nice to arrive at this point still in my boat.

Anyway, big thanks to Kiran for taking the time to get out at the Airplane Turn eddy on Boulder Drop and point out the lines (scouting from Airplane Turn is probably a really good idea for first-timers, by the way.)  I’d always done OK up to that point, but it was the first time that I felt like I had a clear idea of the line from there on down, even though I’ve looked at it from the bottom several times.

Between that and the cfs being about 1000 lower (at around 1500) than the first two times I tried it, it felt WAY easier, although still really fast.  And as always, a ton of fun.  Further on down Dave dug out someone’s Dagger playboat that had gotten caught between some rocks just below Lunch Hole two weeks earlier – apparently there’s a pretty nasty sieve on river left at some levels.

Anyway, good times, good people, and an 85 degree day on the Skykomish River – it’s hard to go wrong!

Whatever.   I’ll be the first person to admit I flip over when a there’s not really a need to, but at the same time I’ve realized that at the other extreme, letting people hype you up about how difficult a run is may not always be helpful.

For example, when I was just getting into Classs IIIs I ran the optional lower Class III section of the Headworks on the Green all by myself because I thought it looked like fun.  It went fine, and later on it seemed harder when I followed people who made a big deal about the lines.  I realize that river levels change, etc. – but I guess there is a fine line between where to be reasonably careful and where to say – ‘Oh, what the heck”.   Based on past experience, I appear to be solidly in the Option 2 department.  (With reservations. of course  - I’m not a complete nut. )

Anyway, on the Saturday run we got to Boulder Drop (which is the Class IV rapid on the run) and I watched Dave Fusilli, Nicole Mansfield and Brett Barton throw ends over the entry drops.  I was scouting from land and planning on portaging.  Right when I got back to my boat (feeling crappy about portaging, by the way) I ran into Jared Seiler and David Space, who were just coming down and wanted to scout.

The short version is that we scouted and Jared made Boulder Drop not sound like a big deal, so I decided to do it.  Not that he made it sound like a cake-walk either, but I think he’s the kind of person who’s really good at making things sound reasonable without making you feel like he’s trivializing the Precipice of Doom.  Not a  bad mix.

Anyway, we did Boulder Drop through Airplane Turn and I actually made the drop after Airplane Turn, using a couple of massive high braces.  This is a big deal for me because I historically have sucked at bracing – so I actually felt like some skill (and not just luck) played into me making it that far.

David flipped on the ferry over to Airplane Turn and swam through one of the needle routes – but keep in mind this was his third river ever in his life, so just the fact that he was trying it was amazing.

On the last drop I went a bit to the left of Jared and flipped over in the side of a hole – tried twice to roll, and then swam.  I seriously think I should have gone for a third roll – I was right at the in-between point where I was thinking about it (having decided to swim, then thinking ‘ “But, maybe…”) when my paddle hit me in the face and I thought – “OK, I’m done.”

Fortunately there’s a nice eddy below Boulder Drop, Nicole did the ‘boat-over-boat’ thing that made emptying my kayak look easy (I’m pretty sure it’s not really) and it wasn’t really traumatic.  Overall, I have to say that the whole experience, even with swimming, was so much fun that I could have gone back and done it again right afterwards.

Kayaking down the Skykomish River really makes you think about how fortunate you are to be in a place like that.  Everywhere you look there are big craggy mountains making outlines against the sky, the river is beautiful, and on an 80 degree like Saturday you seriously (especially if you read international news and remember that somewhere, someone just like you is staring through the wire barrier of a refugee camp wishing they were someplace else) have to just thank God that you are fortunate enough to be in that spot, at that time.

After the paddle we met up at AquaSports in Redmond for a viewing of Team Pyranha’s “Demshitz” movie – very fun, and I bought a copy.  I love the movie, and there’s a ton of great footage that makes you think, “Holy smokes, if that were me I’d be dead in two seconds.”  I guess in the interest of being an honest reviewer I have to say that there’s one part in there involving an insect that lost me.  It may seem like a little thing (and no, I’m not a PETA person) but I see those things as kind of symbolic of how we rationalize why it’s OK to treat people, or things, a certain way just because our big ‘why’ is that we hate what that person, or thing, does.  (For reference, see virtually anything related to Dick Cheney.)  I’m sure this seems like an overreaction to most people, but for me, it isn’t – so I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t mention it.

See, now you’ll have to buy the movie to figure out what I’m talking about.

Anyway, it’s an extremely fun movie – amazing waterfall and huge rapid stuff, and Jared told me he and another guy are responsible for the time-lapse footage, which I think is really well done.

Charles at AquaSports hosted the movie event, including $50 worth of gear plus a free T-shirt for attendees – nice!   People walked out with big smiles, and Team Pyranha ended up staying at my house overnight.  They are a really nice group of people, and great house guests – I actually felt like I ignored them this morning because my face was in a computer for 5 hours, and then I pretty much blinked twice and they were gone – with all their dishes washed behind them.  So if they’re in your neck of the woods and you have the means to put them up, they’ve got my two thumbs up.

Umm… did I mention that this was only David Space’s third time on a river?

(I could explain further, but it would make me sound really, really dumb. Let’s pass.:)

Anyway, Greg Nicoll, Mike Peele and I portaged Boulder Drop, and Sam and Adam ran it doing a line through the Needle.  Here’s the video:

Check out the difference between these two photos (which I bought, by the way – I know they say ‘proof’, but that’s because I ended up ordering the print version and rather than wait for the prints to arrive I just took screenshots from the Riverbooty proof page for this post.)

Anyway, here’s Steve Worcester, long-time kayaker and all around nice guy.  What cracks me up is that he has this expression on his face in every single photo.

And here’s me, looking just a tad more serious.  Actually, looking like someone with enormous, pressing concerns.  And yes, I have this expression on my face in every single photo.

OK, I think by this time I had already rolled twice in this rapid and was quickly figuring out that, rather than being a much better boater like I thought I was the previous weekend when I was trying out the Wavesport Fuse, I was pretty much the same boater and had better be prepared to spend some quality time upside down that day in the Jackson 2Fun.  It was a bit of a shock.

Regardless, I’m looking forward to the day when my skills and confidence have improved enough that I can go through rapids looking a little more like Steve W. and a little less like, well, me.   But I still always have a blast – and on the plus side, I’m getting to know some of the underwater routes quite well.

Here’s some video from Greg’s helmet camera of people ripping it up on Turkey Shoot.

Here are some photos taken by Chris Peele and some video of a bunch of people surfing, plus me flipping on Railroad Drop.

[View with PicLens]

Here’s the video I took going over Railroad Drop.  I was demo-ing the Jackson 2Fun and was bummed that I flipped, but what the heck - all good experience in the long run.

There were a couple of nice surf waves along the way, I caught the first one a few times and was again amazed at how great the Jackson 2Fun was.  Mike VanOrden graciously offered to take video at the next one we hung out at for a while – here’s the video, with the people who missed the wave edited out.  That would be, um, ME.   (Although I did catch it once earlier.)

Here’s Greg Nicoll, Fearless Trip Leader, his very cute dog, and, well, he and I have already discussed the shoes.

And here are Mike, Chris and Jeromy trying to look like people who would never, ever partake of a post-paddle beverage in the parking lot.

Here are some photos and a video of us fooling around on a surf wave.  (I’ve tagged the people whose names I can remember.)

Photo by Michael Deckert

Photo by Michael Deckert

Photo by Michael Deckert

Photo by Michael Deckert

Photo by Roger Marchand

Photo by Roger Marchand

Photo by Roger Marchand

Here’s the video of people trying to pile onto a wave.  Please keep in mind I’m trying to video and not drift downstream at the same time.

This was the trip where I punched the big hole, not realizing that a) it was quite so big, and b) 20 people were watching. Fortunately it turned out OK, even though I did feel bad after Kevin Hoffman worked the words “I was concerned” into the ensuing conversation about 6 times.   Seeing as there was no one upstream to mop up after me he was right, I realize – but it was funny.

Speaking of which, if you ever have a beer with Kevin ask him about his days as a tree-topper in high school – I’ve worked on a bunch of fishing boats in the Bering Sea and heard a TON of wild stories but his are still seriously right up there.