Up a Creek Without a Paddle

So I headed over to Vancouver for some whitewater paddling with our friend Ryan. It started out as a great trip. As soon as I arrived at Ryan and Darya’s place, Ryan was walking up with pizza and beer. Who can complain? We went to the pool on Friday night to practice before the river and my roll was looking good, or at least able!!

Saturday, we leave after a hearty breakfast (made by Darya) of pancakes and coffee. We decide that the Chilliwack will have the best water conditions. After the drive out to Chilliwack, we scout out the river looking for something that I could handle. It took about two hours. We finally decide on where to paddle and decide on a plan. So we unload the boats and gear and start to change. All I hear is “Mike, guess what?” I reply “what did you forget?” and the response is “my drytop!” Well, this makes the whole trip a total bust (except for being able to scout out the river) because you wouldn’t want to go into the water, its too damn cold, and it was about 2 degrees outside. Therefore, we decide to go the pub for some food and beer cause beer and food always make you feel better. All in all, our Saturday turned into driving and lots of beer and playing Wii.

Sunday, we decide that we should try again. I picked a different section of the river based on the guidebooks, and either I misread it or the guidebook was wrong. We expected a class 2 maybe some class 3 rapids. Turns out it was sustained class 3, and a lot longer than I’m used to. I’m used to pool then drop or drop then pool. This was just rapid.

Well we started out and I stayed upright for awhile but eventually I capsized (I really think I forget to brace in my boat when I hit moving water). I manage to roll upright (did I say the water is cold) and continue to paddling, then since I am in a river I hit a rock and capsize again. This time my roll was unsuccessful after 3 or 4 attempts, so I swim out of the boat. I manage to corral my boat and gear over to an eddy with the help of Ryan and drain my boat. I get back in my boat and continue paddling, but capsize again. I manage to roll back up again, but I ended up backwards and hit another rock and hole, so over I go again. Again my roll doesn’t work, so I swim again, but the rapids are bigger this time and it is harder to control myself, paddle, and boat while trying to defensively swim. I let go of the boat, so now I’m swimming with my paddle for the shore and Ryan is worrying about the boat although he is farther downriver. I hit another big rock end up ass over tea kettle and lose the grip on my paddle. As I resurface I see my paddle gliding past my boat towards Ryan, so I pointed to it and he spotted it. I swim a little faster and grab my boat, only to hit more rocks and decide that I would rather not get beat up on rocks. I grab onto a rock as I go floating by and pull myself into the micro-eddy behind and rest for a second. By now the water is only up to my waist when I stand up, but it is still moving fairly fast that I cannot stand in the current where I was.

I took this time to locate my gear. I spotted my boat first, hung up on a rock in a shallow spot. Then I spotted Ryan, who first asked my if I was okay, then he showed me my paddle. I decide to make a plan to get to shore because as I mentioned earlier the water is cold. Out of the corner of my eye I see my boat wobble and start to move downriver again. Ryan also spots this and stares upriver at both my boat and me, not paying attention to what is coming up behind him, like the big rapid with a hole in it, so he promptly hits it and capsizes. He manages to roll up so I swim to shore and run down river to where Ryan is so we can try to communicate, even though I am on one side of the river and he is on the other. At this point it hasn’t entered my mind that in Ryan’s capsize he may have lost control of my paddle. He indicates that he is going to portage back up river so we can get my boat, so I run back to the spot where I got out of the river, find a good sturdy stick and begin my wading out into the middle of the river to help Ryan with my boat. My boat ended up stuck on a gravel bar that was about 3 inches deep. Ryan got to my boat first and waited for me to struggle my way over. When I get there he tells me that he could have gotten my boat for me, so I ask him where he put my paddle. The response was pretty much “dude did you see me capsize when I hit that hole,” Which means that my paddle was floating down the river somewhere.

I decide to try and carry my boat across to the other side of the river, where the road is, but the water was too deep, so we opted for Ryan to tow the boat down to the first eddy where he pulled out and I made my way over to the riverbank. Did I mention that it was cold out? By this time, there was ice forming on all my clothing. We look down the river for the paddle but it was gone. For some reason the make carbon paddles all black!! Without a paddle, we have to hike out to the road and walk back to truck. We get back the truck and have to work the ice off our clothing and PFD’s in order to take them off. Unfortunately, since we were planning on taking out further downriver, that is where my car was with our change of clothes. We drove back to the boats, then to my car, and then had the coldest clothes changing experience of my life, and I’ve changed outside a tent in a blizzard.

So that was my whitewater paddling adventure over to Vancouver, which didn’t actually that much paddling!!!

I took the camera, but forgot to take any pictures, so here is Brynn trying out the kayak.