I didn't realize that my kayaking grand moment had been caught on video!
The video unfortunately starts half way through the rapids but imagine the initial section of what you see as twice as long. I think the video gives a good sense of how fast the water is moving and at the end you can see me on my left side (well, if you watch it in slow motion like I did a 100 times ;-) ---but I caught myself with a great brace!
You can also clearly hear my giving some full victory whoops!
I heart kayaking.
day
EDIT BY SHILO:
I would like to add a few points here. First, I watched Day's send from the sidelines, as this rapid came after our big scare. It's difficult in the video to get a sense of just how massive the hole to Day's right is. Figure that her kayak is around eight feet long. The hole is about ten feet wide by around twenty feet in length; that is, it could swallow a minibus. Just above this rapid the river funnels down into a narrow slot, and the main current is feeding directly into the potentially terminal hole.
Notice that Day approaches the hole smoothly, in full Jedi-mind control mode. She's not thrashing around paddling in a manic attempt to miss the monster. She lets the main current take her close to the maw, then delicately skirts around, catching the small center tongue of current. This is much, much harder to do than she makes it look!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
after surviving the near drowing, I KICKED ASS!
So Shilo is going to write about our very scary experience. I want to share the photos of me busting through another class 4 rapid, and NOT bailing ;-)
The HUGE ass wave you have to burst through at the end of the rapids, and one guide in position for rescue.
Tom's boat, poking through the wave, just to give you a sense of scale! (note, Tom and his paddle are totally obscured!)
Me, absolutely psyched and elated with a clean run!
The HUGE ass wave you have to burst through at the end of the rapids, and one guide in position for rescue.
Tom's boat, poking through the wave, just to give you a sense of scale! (note, Tom and his paddle are totally obscured!)
Me, absolutely psyched and elated with a clean run!
Friday, June 12, 2009
Adventures in Kayakland
Part 1: The Lower Seti River: Waves.
"There are only three sports in the world, the rest being merely games: motor racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing." Earnest 'Mr. Testosterone' Hemingway
Admitedly, I was once of the opinion that kayakers are generally wusses. I lumped kayaking in with other gravity-assisted so-called 'extreme' sports like snowboarding and mountain biking: for both, when the shit hits the fan you can generally put on the brakes, stop, and relax. The commitment level for both is low. As so often happens when we hold opinions about things we know nothing about, I was flat wrong. Kayaking is full-on, and matches or exceeds (for me) the physical and mental challenges I've encountered climbing.
I make an exceptionally unlikely kayaker on several counts. First, I'm claustrophobic. I don't like shit (like tight lifejackets) wrapped around my chest and throat, and I like to be able to move freely, not have my legs crammed into a plastic coffin. Second, I have a destroyed right shoulder. The right shoulder is the pivot around which a kayaker executes a right roll, so shoulder strength and flexibility are crucial. Further, shoulder injuries are the most common injury in kayaking. Third, and most grievously, I have a rather disabling water phobia: I do not like having my head under water. I have always kind of suspected this, but it was made obvious during our time swimming in Gokarna: it took a week or so of mental work before I could put my head back and float without hyperventilating. Yeah, just fucking floating in the ocean stresses me out.
Picture a fish out of water, flopping around wild-eyed, gasping, every muscle in spasm. That's a Shilo IN the water.
Knowing this, why even bother learning to kayak? Well, I've become enamoured by the idea of an extended wilderness river journey: self-supported for a week or more through the BC mountains. Put simply, remote rivers are special places that I want to spend more time with. Obviously an expedition of this kind requires a high level of whitewater proficiency (and is still some time off!). Another reason has to do with being a beginner again. After climbing off and on for over a decade I've found the experience is so often bound up with ego and expectations of performance that some of the joy is lost. I wanted licence to thrash around, make beginner mistakes, and generally be a fresh-faced bumbling newbie.
Our first three day intro trip was a 'mellow' raft-supported cruise (the raft carries the food and beer) down the Seti River. Because it's off-season for tourism in Nepal, Day and I were lucky to be the only ones on the trip. Private lessons for three days, when in busy season up to fifteen beginner kayakers is the norm! Soon the river left the highway and wandered through isolated jungle-clad valleys where children ran waving along the shore and lithe fishermen set bamboo weirs along the banks. Our instructor, Lama, was a reticent master. Dayna and I had taken two short introduction courses previously, one in BC and one in California. The guides during both cooed their pupils down the river: it was all very supportive, very hand-holdy, very lawsuit-aware North America. It worked for me, and the panic button remained unpressed. We realized things might be a tad different in Nepal when at the first real rapid Lama turned and whispered "Follow me...CLOSE." and launched off. Experiential learning at it's best, hmm?
A beginner's first lesson in hydrotopography inevitably involves wave-trains, which are a series of waves that generally form in the main current. Contrary to what most people believe, waves on a river do not form by running over things like rocks. Instead, they form when the faster moving main current slams into a slower downstream current running at a reduced gradation (angle). The energy is released upward, forming a standing wave. Faced with a wall of water leering precipitously above, the newbie's instinct in to lean back, hold the paddle in the air, and stop paddling.
I flipped instantly: in kayaking, one must always do the opposite of what comes instinctively. The most stable position a kayak can take is upside-down, with you stuck underneath. A kayak is quite happy in this position, and can stay in it...forever. Not being proficient at breathing water, I am not so happy in this position. Time for a wet-exit: reach forward (underwater), grab the spray-skirt grab-loop, pull like a motherfucker and push out of the boat. You are no longer a kayaker but a swimmer, which brings a host of separate problems: "Can I get to shore before being thrashed by this rapid? Is my swamped kayak going to swing around and bludgeon me to death? Where the fuck is the rescue-dude? Are my contacts still in? Etc." Incidentally, a wet exit is kind of like shitting yourself in public: embarrassing, messy, and acceptable only for total infants.
I metaphorically shat myself many a time that trip...and Lama, the reticent master, was unfailingly there to wipe up the mess. Solid. Unfazed. Stoic. Maybe holding his nose a little, sure, but unfailing in duty.
There are two (much more sophisticated) options for righting oneself in rapids. Both involve a certain degree of underwater comfort. The first is to simply put your hands out of the water on top of your boat and wait (WAIT!) for another boat to come by, which you grab, and with a hip-flick, right yourself. Easy...for Dayna. Have you noticed the small slits behind Day's tiny ears? Those are gills, which explains her ability to wait for a long time (A LONG TIME!) for a T-Rescue boat. Every guide we've had has attested that Day is one of the most patient, relaxed and calm people they've seen under the water. This makes her a NATURAL, because a big part of improving in kayaking is being able to relax and keep your shit together while being thrashed. It's a lovely, beautiful thing to see Day come up out of the water, always laughing, with a giant smile.
Day is what is known by instructors as a 'good victim'. I am a 'bad victim': when underwater in the boat, my brain lights up a giant red bulb that says "GET OUT!", not "Wait patiently for a T-Rescue.". So I wet-exit and swim alot. Upon resurfacing, I immediately latch onto the nearest floating object and refuse to let go. I close my eyes and tense up. This can be a problem when I've latched onto my instructor's paddle, arm, or face. I have pretty good grip-strength from climbing, so it can sometimes take a while before I release. Keep in mind the instructor has to somehow tow this simpering anchor into an eddy, out of the main current, collect the swamped boat and paddle, and get me back into the boat. Thus I've been trying to tip well after each trip.
The most advanced form of self-rescue is the roll. Master this and you're considered fully potty-trained and can shit with the big boys and girls. I won't say too much about the roll just yet, except that it is a voodoo-trance skill that involves leaning forward onto the bow of your kayak with your paddle flat-forward (Position 1), sweeping your paddle back near your ear (Position 2), and using your extended paddle with a hip-flick to right yourself. Or something like that. Dayna now has a consistent roll in heavy (Class 4) rapids about...80% of the time. I'm at about 50% in Class 4, if the summer solstice lines up parallel to Saturn's third star.
I hesitate to use river grades because they are even more fluid (!) and subjective than in climbing, but when I do use them they're taken from the kayaking Nepal guidebook. Class 1-2 are generally OK for beginners, Class 3-4 intermediate, Class 5 I have no idea. This is further complicated by the fact that most rapids have more than one possible line, called in Nepal the 'Chicken or the Tiger' Lines. Although I was always squawking like a half-drowned chicken, our Nepali guides seemed to love shooting us into the Tiger lines. Pure entertainment value...what could be funnier than a wide-eyed whimpering white boy getting a thorough ass-kicking?
Besides learning the roll, our time on the river was spent practicing peeling into and out of eddies. Eddies are small, sometimes calm spots behind obstructions to the main current. A big rock will have an eddy behind it where the current splits. To get into an eddy you have to cross an eddy line, a strange spot where fast downward flow meets slower upward eddy flow. Eddy lines are frequently squirrely fuckers that are best passed through decisively. It's important to eddy in and out consistently because this is a large part of how you safely navigate a river: go down a bit, scout the rapids from an eddy, go down a bit, rest in an eddy, etc.
Back to waves. Eventually all but the biggest become NO BIG DEAL. Because they flow consistently, you can usually predict where to brace, and if you do capsize, you can be pretty sure you will flush downriver without getting thrashed. As rapids become more difficult the river unleashes other nasties that keep me sweating and tight-chested trying to sleep. Did I mention this shit is hard for me?
Part 2: The Kali Gandaki River: Rocks and Holes.
In Hinduism, rivers are sacred because they are highways that convey a spirit toward rebirth or salvation; this is why Hindus cremate their dead on the banks of rivers such as the Ganges. In Nepal, the Kali Gandaki River is considered auspicious because it's headwaters flow from Mt. Kalais in Tibet, the mountain abode of Lord Shiva. The banks of the Gandaki are covered in small stone cairns and cremation-graves, often marked with prayer flags and tridents. They lend human spiritual weight to an otherwise remote river environment.
The Upper Gandaki runs through one of the deepest gorges in the world, formed between two 8000m peaks: Dhalaguiri and Annapurna. The river doesn't actually 'carve' a gorge through the mountains; it doesn't begin higher and, over time, wear down the rock. What happens in the Himalaya is that the mountains themselves are rising up and the larger rivers are staying at generally the same elevation. This is why they create regular East-West oriented drainage systems that have become trade and settlement routes between the lowlands of the Gangetic Basin and the Tibetan Plateau.
We ran the Middle Gandaki with raft support over three days. Shortly into the first day we portaged two dangerous Class 4 rapids, Little Brother and Big Brother. Big Brother has a strong left wave-train that slams you into a huge undercut boulder (wave trains aren't always benign!). Last year, two Israeli rafters had their faces ripped off when their rafting guides chose to run the line and botched it. Our raft was cut loose to run the rapid unmanned, then the guys gathered it up afterwards.
It was a good time to think about RISK ASSESSMENT and FEAR. In the mountains I have very little patience for the 'No Fear' attitude, which is ALWAYS one or both of two things: pure ego posturing and/or inexperience. I'm finished with 'Just Go For It' adolescent rites of passage, and I won't climb hard with folks who are still in that mindset. I've become intimate with certain kinds of fear, and can generally distinguish between negative 'bad vibes' holding me back and authentic don't-go-there danger. I've passed on plenty of scary leads to my climbing partners (thanks Stoltzy!), and have also taken some on when others have passed. Only on one or two occasions do I regret passing the lead, and have (or want to) go back.
For me, pushing fear to the back of my mind is the absolute worst thing I can do, because it inevitably comes slamming to the front when something goes a little bit off (and things often go a little bit off). Instead, I know my fear by imagining the absolute worst possible scenarios in a given situation, in vivid detail. At the beginning of a pitch I may notice a long fall potential onto the belay, or onto a ledge. Or maybe I see a shifty-looking block, or a sharp edge that the rope needs to stay away from. Noticing these things and following through mentally with their consequences allows me to (usually) make an informed choice about whether or not to keep going. It also has the benefit of helping me make good choices on route.
Once I've taken a good, honest look at what could happen, and made the decision to keep going, much of the uncertainty is removed from the situation and the fear-potential is less. Put simply, acknowledging that your fear is telling you something useful and needs to be listened to rather than ignored and/or avoided is a good way of staying alive climbing...unless you're just unlucky. All this is not to make me sound like a super-bold climber: I'm not, but dealing with fear is something climbers do not matter how 'hard' or 'safe' the route may be.
The situation is more complicated for me on the river, because I have a dense black mass of irrational, phobic fear that limits my ability to distinguish between real and perceived danger. It takes ALOT of mental energy to make an informed risk-responsible decision while at the same time managing a phobia. At the end of a kayaking day I'm drained and exhausted, not so much physically as mentally. Every single time I'm underwater the panic button is flashing, and I can only hope more time on the river and in the water will give me the experience necessary for me to chill the fuck out.
After the portage, the Gandaki warmed us up with some straightforward Class 3 waves. Our rolls were getting more and more solid. Day two was the money-shot: around six hours of nearly continuous Class 3 with at least half a dozen Class 4's thrown in. I discovered two joyous new river features: rocks and holes. Rocks kinda suck because they're hard, but after half a day or so of slamming into them I began to notice that the current usually breaks to either side and if you time your turning (sweep) stroke well you can swoosh on by them. Cool. I didn't see it, but Dayna apparently took a rock full in the chest after a flip and came up smiling. That's my girl!
My second lesson in hydrotopography is that holes literally suck. A hole develops when a mass of water pours down a drop or face. Some of the water is re-circulated back upstream, forming a circular water feature that tends to hold onto an object such as a boat or a body. Most holes release after only a few re-circulations, but some are terminal and will hold onto an object indefinitely. The real bitch about holes is that they're often hard to see until you're right on them...at which point you better have the boat maneuvering skills needed to turn and get the fuck outta there.
I realised I might not have those skills when I noticed the silhouette of my bow outlined against a clear blue sky. The first thing that happens in a powerful hole is the downward flow behind you piles onto your stern and shoots you up vertically. Then you slam backwards into the maw behind you. There's no "Oooh look at me...I'm gunna get into Position 1 and try my roll, then wait for a T-Rescue" in a strong hole. You'd have better luck hosting a fucking organic market down there. The hole tore me out of my boat and smashed me into the river bottom before I could remember to get a breath. It shot me up into the air, then rag-dolled me back down. It did this three times before it released me. I was absolutely, 100% completely powerless...which is an unsettling feeling.
An at home hole-simulation: wrap a black plastic bag around your head. Spin around a bit to get nice and dizzy. Have a friend (?) chain four angry Rottweilers to each of your limbs. Then have the same friend smash you occasionally with a 2"x6" plank. Feeling shitkicked and helpless? That's a good start.
Now, sometimes (Have you noticed there are alot of 'sometimes', 'maybe', and 'usually' in kayaking? That's because no-one really knows what the river will do. If they pretend to anything other than an experienced guess, avoid them.)) there's a stable downstream current below the hole. In theory, you can curl up into a ball and flush down there to escape. This is possibly better on paper, because the hole was literally pulling my body apart, and I had no idea of which way was 'down'. I had ZERO control over my limbs. In fact, I couldn't even form a fist: the hole was pulling at me from all directions at once. This is called getting 'washing-machined', although the movement is more similar to a dryer...I guess 'getting dryered' isn't a very good description of a watery ass-kicking.
Finally it spat me out. I did nothing other than rag-doll around: it just released me. I was slick with fear-oil, and apparently the river wasn't accustomed to the taste.
To end on a positive, Day and I both were sending hard rapids and/or doing strong rolls in current, and my mental headspace actually improved after my hole-thrash (helped to clean out the system, or something).
Part 3: The Trisuli River AKA Third Time's A Charm
So by now we're hooked. Time on the river has a magical pace, interrupted by (for me) mad terror and (for Day) giggling good-times. Either way we love everything about kayaking. Fuck it, we're blowing the budget on another three-day trip.
The Trisuli parallels the main Kathmandu-Pokhara road, and so does not have an isolated feel like the others. It's known as a friendly but big-volume river: it stores gradient for a while (meaning it remains relatively flat) then releases it in short, powerful rapid-bursts, but there are plenty of pools and flatwater to recover in. Piece of piss.
At the put-in a giant, bloated dead water buffalo floated on by. An auspicious start...
Shortly downriver our guide, Santos, (also rocksolid - they all are) peeled into a gnarly little eddy for our first big-water hydrotopography lesson. Basically in big (high volume) water, all bets are off. The eddy was a strong, fast whirlpool, not a calming respite. Three foot high aerated boils lurched up from God knows where. Our boats were being tossed and thrown around...in the fucking eddy! According to expectation, I was the first to flip. A big boil reached up, sucked my stern down, and flipped me. Underwater:
"OHWHATTHEFUCKWASTHAT??!!WHYAMIFUCKINGSPINNING?
WHEREISMYFUCKINGPADDLE?TRYAROLL!!"
Yeah, well. My roll failed. I shat myself into a wet-exit faster than you can say "Momma". Trouble was, I was still in the whirlpool. Now I'm getting sucked under in a giant looping half-arc. My semi-swamped boat circles slower than me, so occasionally I slam my face into it. It tastes great.
Back in the boat, down the river. Another swim in a Class4, a few good rolls. Restless sleep.
Day 2 found us bank scouting the first real rapid. It was, to my eyes, fucking terrible looking. Some Class 4's are straightforward big-wave shoots that lack things like rocks and holes. The line is simple to follow, and even if you dump, the consequences are (usually) pretty harmless. This one was different: the river accelerated as it dropped into a fierce channel/boulder-garden. We would take a complicated, twisting line through rocks and between holes with zero room for error. It involved starting middle river, moving left through rocks, then back right into the main current to avoid a series of mid-size holes on the left...but not too far right because there, lurking, was a giant terminal hole that would NOT BE GOOD. Finally, the main current piled directly into a cliff at bottom, so after running river middle we would have to bank back hard left to avoid the wall pile-up.
Running the rapid would take about five seconds. Did I mention things happen incredibly fast on the water?
Back in the boats, and the main thing on all our minds was: "Avoid the terminal-looking right hole." So of course we all strayed too far left of the main current. I was first down, made it to the smaller left holes, watched Santos dig into a powerful reverse stern draw (to turn right), didn't commit to the stroke for feer of plunging into the far right keeper hole, and plopped into the side of a left hole, which sucked all my speed and sent me back into the main flow without any momentum to punch through the big waves, where I flipped. I tried two rolls. They were both shit. Sometimes you can come up enough to get a breath, but not this time. I pulled out of the boat. And stayed under. I knew I wasn't pinned against the wall because the current was too calm. I just wasn't fucking surfacing! PANIC!
The thing I never realized about drowning is that you just begin breathing. I kind of thought water forced its way into your lungs somehow, but no. You hold your breath, run out of air, and begin breathing...water. I thrashed around, waiting to pop up. It kept NOT HAPPENING. There was no 'time' down there. There was only underwater, and somewere else, the surface. Unlike in climbing, where big falls happen too fast to think much, I had PLENTY of time to think. In a way that's all there was: my brain, going.
I popped up as I sucked in my first bodyful of water, then coughed it out to get a breath. A few long moments later, fifteen or so feet further downstream, a person I didn't recognize resurfaced, eyes white terror, face stretched, sucking in air.
It was my wife.
We had both been sucked into the main current below the surface disruptions of the rapids. Dayna had spent nearly twice as long as me down there. It took a good while to gather all the boats and paddles and get everyone in their boats again. Big Tom, who bailed in the rapids but missed going under, was stranded on the opposite bank. I was shaking from the blind-fear tearing at me from some pre-conscious level. All the guides were quiet. It was, as the kayakers say, a "BIG SWIM" for both of us.
Just below was a fairly straightforward Class 3. I was tense, tight, choking. I botched the line by a foot or two, dropped into a medium-sized hole, got tossed a few times and swam for the raft. Finger across the throat: I'm finished. It was absolutely the right decision. I spent the remainder of the day doing some heavy mental work, feelings things out...and secretly terrified for my wife at every rapid.
DAYNA ABSOLUTELY KICKED ASS! To take such a long, terrifying swim and recover enough to solidly run Class 4's, calm and completely in control for the rest of the day, is fucking astounding. One rapid in particular, called Gloria, has a massive keeper-hole. The guidebook asks: "Take a look at Gloria and guess how many semi-trucks you think can fit in that hole." Dayna ran it, clean, with a giant grin! (check the photos).
The Trisuli wasn't finished. Later, in flatwater, we saw a bloated dead body that had washed up on shore. It seems trucks and buses frequently careen off the road above into the river. A little further along a small landslide cascaded from above. Fucking wierd day, all in all.
The morning of the third day I was psyched to get back in the boat. I had sorted myself out. In the first heavy rapid I flipped, nailed a fucking solid roll on the first try, and kept paddling.
So there's world-class kayaking on the Nile in Africa, we hear...
Campsite after day 2 on the trisuli.
Dayna reaches out for a T-Rescue on the Trisuli.
At every camp, local kids come down to check out the tourists and show off their gymnastic skills. I can do that.
A shrine on the Gandaki River. The big phallic rock is...a Shiva lingam! And yes, that's weed growing wild along the shore.
Same strange shrine, this time it's Ganesh.
Campsite on the Kali Gandaki River.
Can you say "hole"?! I knew you could! This one is actually not too bad...the drop into it isn't too steep, and there's plenty of water flowing out so you probably won't spend too much time getting washing-machined.
Me, staring at a boulder I'm about to kiss on the Gandaki.
"There are only three sports in the world, the rest being merely games: motor racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing." Earnest 'Mr. Testosterone' Hemingway
Admitedly, I was once of the opinion that kayakers are generally wusses. I lumped kayaking in with other gravity-assisted so-called 'extreme' sports like snowboarding and mountain biking: for both, when the shit hits the fan you can generally put on the brakes, stop, and relax. The commitment level for both is low. As so often happens when we hold opinions about things we know nothing about, I was flat wrong. Kayaking is full-on, and matches or exceeds (for me) the physical and mental challenges I've encountered climbing.
I make an exceptionally unlikely kayaker on several counts. First, I'm claustrophobic. I don't like shit (like tight lifejackets) wrapped around my chest and throat, and I like to be able to move freely, not have my legs crammed into a plastic coffin. Second, I have a destroyed right shoulder. The right shoulder is the pivot around which a kayaker executes a right roll, so shoulder strength and flexibility are crucial. Further, shoulder injuries are the most common injury in kayaking. Third, and most grievously, I have a rather disabling water phobia: I do not like having my head under water. I have always kind of suspected this, but it was made obvious during our time swimming in Gokarna: it took a week or so of mental work before I could put my head back and float without hyperventilating. Yeah, just fucking floating in the ocean stresses me out.
Picture a fish out of water, flopping around wild-eyed, gasping, every muscle in spasm. That's a Shilo IN the water.
Knowing this, why even bother learning to kayak? Well, I've become enamoured by the idea of an extended wilderness river journey: self-supported for a week or more through the BC mountains. Put simply, remote rivers are special places that I want to spend more time with. Obviously an expedition of this kind requires a high level of whitewater proficiency (and is still some time off!). Another reason has to do with being a beginner again. After climbing off and on for over a decade I've found the experience is so often bound up with ego and expectations of performance that some of the joy is lost. I wanted licence to thrash around, make beginner mistakes, and generally be a fresh-faced bumbling newbie.
Our first three day intro trip was a 'mellow' raft-supported cruise (the raft carries the food and beer) down the Seti River. Because it's off-season for tourism in Nepal, Day and I were lucky to be the only ones on the trip. Private lessons for three days, when in busy season up to fifteen beginner kayakers is the norm! Soon the river left the highway and wandered through isolated jungle-clad valleys where children ran waving along the shore and lithe fishermen set bamboo weirs along the banks. Our instructor, Lama, was a reticent master. Dayna and I had taken two short introduction courses previously, one in BC and one in California. The guides during both cooed their pupils down the river: it was all very supportive, very hand-holdy, very lawsuit-aware North America. It worked for me, and the panic button remained unpressed. We realized things might be a tad different in Nepal when at the first real rapid Lama turned and whispered "Follow me...CLOSE." and launched off. Experiential learning at it's best, hmm?
A beginner's first lesson in hydrotopography inevitably involves wave-trains, which are a series of waves that generally form in the main current. Contrary to what most people believe, waves on a river do not form by running over things like rocks. Instead, they form when the faster moving main current slams into a slower downstream current running at a reduced gradation (angle). The energy is released upward, forming a standing wave. Faced with a wall of water leering precipitously above, the newbie's instinct in to lean back, hold the paddle in the air, and stop paddling.
I flipped instantly: in kayaking, one must always do the opposite of what comes instinctively. The most stable position a kayak can take is upside-down, with you stuck underneath. A kayak is quite happy in this position, and can stay in it...forever. Not being proficient at breathing water, I am not so happy in this position. Time for a wet-exit: reach forward (underwater), grab the spray-skirt grab-loop, pull like a motherfucker and push out of the boat. You are no longer a kayaker but a swimmer, which brings a host of separate problems: "Can I get to shore before being thrashed by this rapid? Is my swamped kayak going to swing around and bludgeon me to death? Where the fuck is the rescue-dude? Are my contacts still in? Etc." Incidentally, a wet exit is kind of like shitting yourself in public: embarrassing, messy, and acceptable only for total infants.
I metaphorically shat myself many a time that trip...and Lama, the reticent master, was unfailingly there to wipe up the mess. Solid. Unfazed. Stoic. Maybe holding his nose a little, sure, but unfailing in duty.
There are two (much more sophisticated) options for righting oneself in rapids. Both involve a certain degree of underwater comfort. The first is to simply put your hands out of the water on top of your boat and wait (WAIT!) for another boat to come by, which you grab, and with a hip-flick, right yourself. Easy...for Dayna. Have you noticed the small slits behind Day's tiny ears? Those are gills, which explains her ability to wait for a long time (A LONG TIME!) for a T-Rescue boat. Every guide we've had has attested that Day is one of the most patient, relaxed and calm people they've seen under the water. This makes her a NATURAL, because a big part of improving in kayaking is being able to relax and keep your shit together while being thrashed. It's a lovely, beautiful thing to see Day come up out of the water, always laughing, with a giant smile.
Day is what is known by instructors as a 'good victim'. I am a 'bad victim': when underwater in the boat, my brain lights up a giant red bulb that says "GET OUT!", not "Wait patiently for a T-Rescue.". So I wet-exit and swim alot. Upon resurfacing, I immediately latch onto the nearest floating object and refuse to let go. I close my eyes and tense up. This can be a problem when I've latched onto my instructor's paddle, arm, or face. I have pretty good grip-strength from climbing, so it can sometimes take a while before I release. Keep in mind the instructor has to somehow tow this simpering anchor into an eddy, out of the main current, collect the swamped boat and paddle, and get me back into the boat. Thus I've been trying to tip well after each trip.
The most advanced form of self-rescue is the roll. Master this and you're considered fully potty-trained and can shit with the big boys and girls. I won't say too much about the roll just yet, except that it is a voodoo-trance skill that involves leaning forward onto the bow of your kayak with your paddle flat-forward (Position 1), sweeping your paddle back near your ear (Position 2), and using your extended paddle with a hip-flick to right yourself. Or something like that. Dayna now has a consistent roll in heavy (Class 4) rapids about...80% of the time. I'm at about 50% in Class 4, if the summer solstice lines up parallel to Saturn's third star.
I hesitate to use river grades because they are even more fluid (!) and subjective than in climbing, but when I do use them they're taken from the kayaking Nepal guidebook. Class 1-2 are generally OK for beginners, Class 3-4 intermediate, Class 5 I have no idea. This is further complicated by the fact that most rapids have more than one possible line, called in Nepal the 'Chicken or the Tiger' Lines. Although I was always squawking like a half-drowned chicken, our Nepali guides seemed to love shooting us into the Tiger lines. Pure entertainment value...what could be funnier than a wide-eyed whimpering white boy getting a thorough ass-kicking?
Besides learning the roll, our time on the river was spent practicing peeling into and out of eddies. Eddies are small, sometimes calm spots behind obstructions to the main current. A big rock will have an eddy behind it where the current splits. To get into an eddy you have to cross an eddy line, a strange spot where fast downward flow meets slower upward eddy flow. Eddy lines are frequently squirrely fuckers that are best passed through decisively. It's important to eddy in and out consistently because this is a large part of how you safely navigate a river: go down a bit, scout the rapids from an eddy, go down a bit, rest in an eddy, etc.
Back to waves. Eventually all but the biggest become NO BIG DEAL. Because they flow consistently, you can usually predict where to brace, and if you do capsize, you can be pretty sure you will flush downriver without getting thrashed. As rapids become more difficult the river unleashes other nasties that keep me sweating and tight-chested trying to sleep. Did I mention this shit is hard for me?
Part 2: The Kali Gandaki River: Rocks and Holes.
In Hinduism, rivers are sacred because they are highways that convey a spirit toward rebirth or salvation; this is why Hindus cremate their dead on the banks of rivers such as the Ganges. In Nepal, the Kali Gandaki River is considered auspicious because it's headwaters flow from Mt. Kalais in Tibet, the mountain abode of Lord Shiva. The banks of the Gandaki are covered in small stone cairns and cremation-graves, often marked with prayer flags and tridents. They lend human spiritual weight to an otherwise remote river environment.
The Upper Gandaki runs through one of the deepest gorges in the world, formed between two 8000m peaks: Dhalaguiri and Annapurna. The river doesn't actually 'carve' a gorge through the mountains; it doesn't begin higher and, over time, wear down the rock. What happens in the Himalaya is that the mountains themselves are rising up and the larger rivers are staying at generally the same elevation. This is why they create regular East-West oriented drainage systems that have become trade and settlement routes between the lowlands of the Gangetic Basin and the Tibetan Plateau.
We ran the Middle Gandaki with raft support over three days. Shortly into the first day we portaged two dangerous Class 4 rapids, Little Brother and Big Brother. Big Brother has a strong left wave-train that slams you into a huge undercut boulder (wave trains aren't always benign!). Last year, two Israeli rafters had their faces ripped off when their rafting guides chose to run the line and botched it. Our raft was cut loose to run the rapid unmanned, then the guys gathered it up afterwards.
It was a good time to think about RISK ASSESSMENT and FEAR. In the mountains I have very little patience for the 'No Fear' attitude, which is ALWAYS one or both of two things: pure ego posturing and/or inexperience. I'm finished with 'Just Go For It' adolescent rites of passage, and I won't climb hard with folks who are still in that mindset. I've become intimate with certain kinds of fear, and can generally distinguish between negative 'bad vibes' holding me back and authentic don't-go-there danger. I've passed on plenty of scary leads to my climbing partners (thanks Stoltzy!), and have also taken some on when others have passed. Only on one or two occasions do I regret passing the lead, and have (or want to) go back.
For me, pushing fear to the back of my mind is the absolute worst thing I can do, because it inevitably comes slamming to the front when something goes a little bit off (and things often go a little bit off). Instead, I know my fear by imagining the absolute worst possible scenarios in a given situation, in vivid detail. At the beginning of a pitch I may notice a long fall potential onto the belay, or onto a ledge. Or maybe I see a shifty-looking block, or a sharp edge that the rope needs to stay away from. Noticing these things and following through mentally with their consequences allows me to (usually) make an informed choice about whether or not to keep going. It also has the benefit of helping me make good choices on route.
Once I've taken a good, honest look at what could happen, and made the decision to keep going, much of the uncertainty is removed from the situation and the fear-potential is less. Put simply, acknowledging that your fear is telling you something useful and needs to be listened to rather than ignored and/or avoided is a good way of staying alive climbing...unless you're just unlucky. All this is not to make me sound like a super-bold climber: I'm not, but dealing with fear is something climbers do not matter how 'hard' or 'safe' the route may be.
The situation is more complicated for me on the river, because I have a dense black mass of irrational, phobic fear that limits my ability to distinguish between real and perceived danger. It takes ALOT of mental energy to make an informed risk-responsible decision while at the same time managing a phobia. At the end of a kayaking day I'm drained and exhausted, not so much physically as mentally. Every single time I'm underwater the panic button is flashing, and I can only hope more time on the river and in the water will give me the experience necessary for me to chill the fuck out.
After the portage, the Gandaki warmed us up with some straightforward Class 3 waves. Our rolls were getting more and more solid. Day two was the money-shot: around six hours of nearly continuous Class 3 with at least half a dozen Class 4's thrown in. I discovered two joyous new river features: rocks and holes. Rocks kinda suck because they're hard, but after half a day or so of slamming into them I began to notice that the current usually breaks to either side and if you time your turning (sweep) stroke well you can swoosh on by them. Cool. I didn't see it, but Dayna apparently took a rock full in the chest after a flip and came up smiling. That's my girl!
My second lesson in hydrotopography is that holes literally suck. A hole develops when a mass of water pours down a drop or face. Some of the water is re-circulated back upstream, forming a circular water feature that tends to hold onto an object such as a boat or a body. Most holes release after only a few re-circulations, but some are terminal and will hold onto an object indefinitely. The real bitch about holes is that they're often hard to see until you're right on them...at which point you better have the boat maneuvering skills needed to turn and get the fuck outta there.
I realised I might not have those skills when I noticed the silhouette of my bow outlined against a clear blue sky. The first thing that happens in a powerful hole is the downward flow behind you piles onto your stern and shoots you up vertically. Then you slam backwards into the maw behind you. There's no "Oooh look at me...I'm gunna get into Position 1 and try my roll, then wait for a T-Rescue" in a strong hole. You'd have better luck hosting a fucking organic market down there. The hole tore me out of my boat and smashed me into the river bottom before I could remember to get a breath. It shot me up into the air, then rag-dolled me back down. It did this three times before it released me. I was absolutely, 100% completely powerless...which is an unsettling feeling.
An at home hole-simulation: wrap a black plastic bag around your head. Spin around a bit to get nice and dizzy. Have a friend (?) chain four angry Rottweilers to each of your limbs. Then have the same friend smash you occasionally with a 2"x6" plank. Feeling shitkicked and helpless? That's a good start.
Now, sometimes (Have you noticed there are alot of 'sometimes', 'maybe', and 'usually' in kayaking? That's because no-one really knows what the river will do. If they pretend to anything other than an experienced guess, avoid them.)) there's a stable downstream current below the hole. In theory, you can curl up into a ball and flush down there to escape. This is possibly better on paper, because the hole was literally pulling my body apart, and I had no idea of which way was 'down'. I had ZERO control over my limbs. In fact, I couldn't even form a fist: the hole was pulling at me from all directions at once. This is called getting 'washing-machined', although the movement is more similar to a dryer...I guess 'getting dryered' isn't a very good description of a watery ass-kicking.
Finally it spat me out. I did nothing other than rag-doll around: it just released me. I was slick with fear-oil, and apparently the river wasn't accustomed to the taste.
To end on a positive, Day and I both were sending hard rapids and/or doing strong rolls in current, and my mental headspace actually improved after my hole-thrash (helped to clean out the system, or something).
Part 3: The Trisuli River AKA Third Time's A Charm
So by now we're hooked. Time on the river has a magical pace, interrupted by (for me) mad terror and (for Day) giggling good-times. Either way we love everything about kayaking. Fuck it, we're blowing the budget on another three-day trip.
The Trisuli parallels the main Kathmandu-Pokhara road, and so does not have an isolated feel like the others. It's known as a friendly but big-volume river: it stores gradient for a while (meaning it remains relatively flat) then releases it in short, powerful rapid-bursts, but there are plenty of pools and flatwater to recover in. Piece of piss.
At the put-in a giant, bloated dead water buffalo floated on by. An auspicious start...
Shortly downriver our guide, Santos, (also rocksolid - they all are) peeled into a gnarly little eddy for our first big-water hydrotopography lesson. Basically in big (high volume) water, all bets are off. The eddy was a strong, fast whirlpool, not a calming respite. Three foot high aerated boils lurched up from God knows where. Our boats were being tossed and thrown around...in the fucking eddy! According to expectation, I was the first to flip. A big boil reached up, sucked my stern down, and flipped me. Underwater:
"OHWHATTHEFUCKWASTHAT??!!WHYAMIFUCKINGSPINNING?
WHEREISMYFUCKINGPADDLE?TRYAROLL!!"
Yeah, well. My roll failed. I shat myself into a wet-exit faster than you can say "Momma". Trouble was, I was still in the whirlpool. Now I'm getting sucked under in a giant looping half-arc. My semi-swamped boat circles slower than me, so occasionally I slam my face into it. It tastes great.
Back in the boat, down the river. Another swim in a Class4, a few good rolls. Restless sleep.
Day 2 found us bank scouting the first real rapid. It was, to my eyes, fucking terrible looking. Some Class 4's are straightforward big-wave shoots that lack things like rocks and holes. The line is simple to follow, and even if you dump, the consequences are (usually) pretty harmless. This one was different: the river accelerated as it dropped into a fierce channel/boulder-garden. We would take a complicated, twisting line through rocks and between holes with zero room for error. It involved starting middle river, moving left through rocks, then back right into the main current to avoid a series of mid-size holes on the left...but not too far right because there, lurking, was a giant terminal hole that would NOT BE GOOD. Finally, the main current piled directly into a cliff at bottom, so after running river middle we would have to bank back hard left to avoid the wall pile-up.
Running the rapid would take about five seconds. Did I mention things happen incredibly fast on the water?
Back in the boats, and the main thing on all our minds was: "Avoid the terminal-looking right hole." So of course we all strayed too far left of the main current. I was first down, made it to the smaller left holes, watched Santos dig into a powerful reverse stern draw (to turn right), didn't commit to the stroke for feer of plunging into the far right keeper hole, and plopped into the side of a left hole, which sucked all my speed and sent me back into the main flow without any momentum to punch through the big waves, where I flipped. I tried two rolls. They were both shit. Sometimes you can come up enough to get a breath, but not this time. I pulled out of the boat. And stayed under. I knew I wasn't pinned against the wall because the current was too calm. I just wasn't fucking surfacing! PANIC!
The thing I never realized about drowning is that you just begin breathing. I kind of thought water forced its way into your lungs somehow, but no. You hold your breath, run out of air, and begin breathing...water. I thrashed around, waiting to pop up. It kept NOT HAPPENING. There was no 'time' down there. There was only underwater, and somewere else, the surface. Unlike in climbing, where big falls happen too fast to think much, I had PLENTY of time to think. In a way that's all there was: my brain, going.
I popped up as I sucked in my first bodyful of water, then coughed it out to get a breath. A few long moments later, fifteen or so feet further downstream, a person I didn't recognize resurfaced, eyes white terror, face stretched, sucking in air.
It was my wife.
We had both been sucked into the main current below the surface disruptions of the rapids. Dayna had spent nearly twice as long as me down there. It took a good while to gather all the boats and paddles and get everyone in their boats again. Big Tom, who bailed in the rapids but missed going under, was stranded on the opposite bank. I was shaking from the blind-fear tearing at me from some pre-conscious level. All the guides were quiet. It was, as the kayakers say, a "BIG SWIM" for both of us.
Just below was a fairly straightforward Class 3. I was tense, tight, choking. I botched the line by a foot or two, dropped into a medium-sized hole, got tossed a few times and swam for the raft. Finger across the throat: I'm finished. It was absolutely the right decision. I spent the remainder of the day doing some heavy mental work, feelings things out...and secretly terrified for my wife at every rapid.
DAYNA ABSOLUTELY KICKED ASS! To take such a long, terrifying swim and recover enough to solidly run Class 4's, calm and completely in control for the rest of the day, is fucking astounding. One rapid in particular, called Gloria, has a massive keeper-hole. The guidebook asks: "Take a look at Gloria and guess how many semi-trucks you think can fit in that hole." Dayna ran it, clean, with a giant grin! (check the photos).
The Trisuli wasn't finished. Later, in flatwater, we saw a bloated dead body that had washed up on shore. It seems trucks and buses frequently careen off the road above into the river. A little further along a small landslide cascaded from above. Fucking wierd day, all in all.
The morning of the third day I was psyched to get back in the boat. I had sorted myself out. In the first heavy rapid I flipped, nailed a fucking solid roll on the first try, and kept paddling.
So there's world-class kayaking on the Nile in Africa, we hear...
Campsite after day 2 on the trisuli.
Dayna reaches out for a T-Rescue on the Trisuli.
At every camp, local kids come down to check out the tourists and show off their gymnastic skills. I can do that.
A shrine on the Gandaki River. The big phallic rock is...a Shiva lingam! And yes, that's weed growing wild along the shore.
Same strange shrine, this time it's Ganesh.
Campsite on the Kali Gandaki River.
Can you say "hole"?! I knew you could! This one is actually not too bad...the drop into it isn't too steep, and there's plenty of water flowing out so you probably won't spend too much time getting washing-machined.
Me, staring at a boulder I'm about to kiss on the Gandaki.
Monday, June 8, 2009
A question for the blogger experts.
Anyone knowhow to re-format the size of images so when you click on them they come up at full screen instead of over full screen, which is irritating?
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Day Not Rolling in Rapids
The first kayaker through is Big Tom AKA 'LizardMan'. His burly rapid style doesn't count because he's about 6'6' and therefore has more mass to carry him down. Day flips in the tiny eddy line at the top of the rapid and, after attempting a roll, has a relaxing full-rapid swim. I blaze by last, hyperventilating and completely unaware of my wife's predicament, focused on one thing: the joy of smooth water ahead.
Keep in mind that this swim is the exception: Day has a full-on Class 4 rapid roll that I would peg at around 70% successful. As for me, well...if I don't roll on the first attempt I'm generally ripping off the skirt in wide-eyed terror and thrashing for the nearest respite, be that shore, raft, someone else's kayak...
Keep in mind that this swim is the exception: Day has a full-on Class 4 rapid roll that I would peg at around 70% successful. As for me, well...if I don't roll on the first attempt I'm generally ripping off the skirt in wide-eyed terror and thrashing for the nearest respite, be that shore, raft, someone else's kayak...
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