| California Dreamin’ |
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| Written by Frederick Reimers |
| Saturday, 01 March 2003 07:41 |
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Colorado’s worst-ever drought affords a pilgrimage to the world’s best whitewater It’s the cars that irritate me the most. Hemming in the streets of Kernville, Calif., are dozens of brand new, expensive, logo-splattered SUVs, each one crowned with a quiver of gumball-colored kayaks. It’s like Mountain Dew meets Nascar, or the "Tao Berman Hotwheels X-treme Collection." While the cars make it easy to locate the rodeo site, they remind me of everything I hate about kayaking in the 21st century: self-promotion, cooler-than-thou paddling punks who reek of entitlement, and worst of all, park and play. Granted, I’m probably just grumpy from the 18-hour solo drive from Colorado—with only four hours of sleep in the backseat in the desert off the interstate. But my knee-jerk reaction to the trappings of freestyle runs deep. It’s the fundamental schism between the soulful adventure of river running and the cliquish, paddling-for-dollars circuit. The irony is that I pull up in just the sort of vehicle I’m railing against—a Hotwheels-looking, Paddler-logo-encrusted Outback with kayaks on top, in the employ of a magazine that plays an active part in promoting freestyle. I’ve boondoggled my boss into believing that I’m needed to distribute magazines and P.R. at several of the California rodeos, but what I’m really here for is the whitewater. In a year when Colorado is parched by the worst drought on record—some areas with a shocking 9 percent of normal snowpack—I have to flee to salvage my paddling season. So like the Okies of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath fleeing the dustbowl, I pile the Suby high with boats, magazines and camping gear and join countless other parched Colorado kayakers in the whitewater migration down I-70 to California. Except that, unlike the Okies, who were searching for back-breaking farm work, I’m more like a boating Beverly Hillbilly bound not for swimming pools and movie stars, but the best whitewater in the world. California is indeed the whitewater promised land. Fueled by obscene annual snowpacks, whitewater flows off the Sierra’s polished granite domes more freely than even Jed Clampett’s line of credit. The state’s whitewater guidebook lists more than 180 runs, not to mention the dozens of ballistic creeks pioneered since its publication. People talk about Class V, and then they talk about "California Class V," and they’re two very different things. Additionally, with 900 miles of latitude, there’s always something running, and chances are it’s better than anything you paddle back home. I’m planning to meet two friends who’d already made the migration permanently. Max Sullivan had been lured from the Rockies the winter before, and Jeff Trauba—who lured me out with a phone call—moved a decade earlier. In comparison to my California caper, Jeff’s is like being the Ben and Jerry’s taste tester. He cruises the West Coast on an expense account in an F-350 and palatial trailer owned by Lotus Designs. As the company’s road rep he boasts, "I don’t have to sell anything, I paddle when I want and the heaviest thing I have to lift is a lifejacket." Come on out, Jeff said. "We’ll hit some classics." But right now we’re working the rodeo, mired in the scene. Jeff helps me hoist the Paddler tent next to his Lotus display on the lawn of Kernville’s whitewater park. Dozens of other commercial booths line the riverbank, and competition standings are posted on a sheet of plywood leaned against a tree. We set up the card table and pile it high with free magazines and stickers. Self-serve schwag. The event is already underway and we wander over to the river, where a bright yellow kayak flips and squirts through the rapid like a tiddly-winks chip. Techno music thumps from big speakers and the emcee barks contestants’ names over the noise. All the rodeo stars are here: EJ, Jay Kincaid, Tanya Shuman, Brooke Winger, Javid Grubbs. Unfortunately, they’re all walking around in down jackets, leaning into an icy April wind. The crowd is sparse—mostly the 90-or-so competitors themselves—possibly the result of the poor weather, but also the reality of most whitewater rodeos. Each competitor gets a single run and an allotted 45 seconds to strut their stuff through the rapid. To the untrained eye, each run is pretty much like the last. Of course, to the trained eye, each run is pretty much like the last, with only issues like angle of cartwheels separating the top of the standings from the bottom. Competitors cluster in groups on shore, wet hair peeking from under fleece caps, and cast calculated glances around the crowd. It feels a lot like the schoolyard during middle school recess. Little wonder, with the entire pool of professional paddlers numbering smaller than many a high school hydrology class. "Same crowd as last year," Jeff says, glancing around. The majority of pro men and women have been paddling with and against each other at competitions for the last decade. The scene contains as many undercurrents as a Connecticut country club: simmering rivalries, wounded egos and overlapping romantic crises. No one is really comfortable in the scene, but liking it or not, they’re beholden to it: It’s their chance to fight for a slice of the tiny sponsorship pie—the only way most of them can support their kayak-bum lifestyle. But as for the competitions, most paddlers, like Brandon Knapp, admit, "I’d rather be running a river." Me, too. I’m foaming at the mouth for white foam, and as the rodeo dwindles to its chilly end, Jeff and I pile boats on his truck and head up to Brush Creek for a quick evening run. Brush Creek is a lot like a whitewater version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland: thrilling, fast and rugged, but not particularly dangerous or difficult unless you stick your proverbial arms and legs outside the vehicle (i.e. pull a bonehead maneuver like flipping over in a foot of water on a smooth rock slide, which I do). It’s 1.6 miles of alternating 15- to 20-foot slides and waterfalls. "It’s a plop and grin session," Jeff explains as he points his boat over the lip of the first falls. Seconds later, I plop into the pool 20 feet below, grinning. Thirty minutes later we’re changing into dry clothes and deciding what to do with our week. We’re due in Coloma, Calif., the following Saturday for the American River Festival, which leaves us with plenty of those "classics" to choose from along the way. The Kaweah River is a certifiable classic. It’s also where Max nearly does himself in. Like all the great Sierra runs, it begins high in the snow-filled meadows, cirques and buttresses of the Pacific Crest. Come spring, all that snow comes gushing off the headwalls and careens downstream in frothing white ribbons through deep stone canyons. The Kaweah snakes its way through the splendid peaks and groves of Sequoia National Park, one of the few national parks that doesn’t flinch at the thought of paddlers bouncing their way down its hairball rivers. We meet Max at the Kaweah after ticking off two more runs on our way north from Kernville: Dry Meadow Creek, a similar affair to Brush Creek, and the Tule, a beautiful run that drops 237 feet per mile through a parade of waterfalls, granite slides, and tight, steep rapids. The weather is warm and on our lunch stops we lie on the polished bedrock and soak up the heat. At the Kaweah we cross paths with the scene again. A posse of 20 pro paddlers congregates on the Hospital Rock run to shoot video and slides of each other pitching off the clean granite ledges in sparkling California sunlight. They are making the same migration north, following the freestyle events. Max, Jeff and I stand on the banks of a particularly steep and nasty flume watching as they sort their nerves and, one by one, launch into the maelstrom. Motor drives whir as kayaks carom off the walls in a slalom of falling water. Once the media circus is out of the way, we get ready and put in. The Hospital Rock section is as good as whitewater gets. The rapids are big, steep, pushy and all end in calm pools in case you screw up. The rock is granite—the secret to California’s reputation—and the water clean and clear. We boogie downstream under Jeff’s guidance. He raft guided on the lower Kaweah for years and knows the local runs as well as anybody. The run culminates at the aptly named Zero-to-60, a wicked 30-foot falls. At first glance the falls looks like it wants to stuff you into the wall at the base. On closer inspection, it’s pretty simple to line your kayak up into a center current that puts you well out of harm’s way. Nevertheless, it’s a big drop, and sitting in my kayak on shore above it, I splash a little cold water in my face to bring my mind into focus. I shove off, take two strokes through the right-pushing current into the tongue of safe water, and the drop flashes past in an instant of whitewater, rock and air. The next day we decide to run the lower Hospital Rock section from the Marble Fork down to the park boundary. A few of Jeff’s rafting buddies tag along, shooting for the second raft descent of the run. The lower section is nearly as steep as the upper, but the riverbed is a bit bigger, allowing for raft passage, but just barely. Long, raft-oriented scouts and a few portages make for slow going, but with the road on the canyon high above, we have the solitude of the wilderness all to ourselves. At least, that is, until the accident. It is a tough drop. Most of the water cascades down a jagged 45-degree bed, slamming against the rocks on river right. There seems to be a runnable line down the main flow, but all the kayakers are taking a sneak route over the smooth shelf on river left—well out of the violence of the main flow. Max and I stand on shore scouting the meat line. He seems ready to go, so I’m content to watch him probe. He enters the rapid through a slot on the right, which feeds him into the main flow about halfway down. Suddenly, he jerks to a stop, momentarily pinned and then, just as quickly he flips upstream. The upside-down kayak washes down the falls, lurching each time Max’s head comes down on a rock. I cringe with each bounce. I wait for Max to roll up in the pool below...five seconds, then 10. Just as I realize something isn’t right, Max’s head pops up next to his boat and he swims slowly to shore. But something is wrong. The other paddlers help him to shore, give him a quick medical exam and then lie him down with his head in traction to keep him from wriggling around. When I finally arrive, people are passing his helmet around and gaping at the cracks. According to Lars Holbek and Chuck Stanley’s The Best Whitewater in California: "The South Merced is one of the best multi-day, super high quality and difficult ‘runnable’ Class V sections in the world." It’s also a strange place to find yourself the day after visiting Max in the Fresno University Medical Center with a broken neck. On a rainy, 45-degree day, far from the rodeo scene, Jeff and I and stand above yet another of the South Merced’s big, pushy Class V drops, searching for a clean line. Our other friend Jeff—a new addition to the team—has already portaged. The bulk of the river’s 1,200 cfs pours out of the pool above, taking little notice of the rock walls hemming in the sluice, and divides at the two-story boulder that form the fall’s lip. Water cascades to either side into lethally clean hydraulics. The crux is straightforward: launch high off the boulder, where barely a few inches of current curtains over its top, and fall into the calm water at its base. That way you avoid the hydraulics kicking upstream into undercut corners. Missing the crux move means a trip straight down into those corners, and a certain, and perhaps final, swim. The move is simple, but getting to it through the gauntlet of holes and waves in the sluice above would take razor concentration. My mind interrupts the scouting: What am I doing here? Shouldn’t I have at least taken a day off out of respect? He’s not dead, I answer, looking at the staircase of thumping holes in the entry. Well, he could be. This dialogue is an easy way for my mind to trick me out of concentrating on the scary task at hand. Then I think of Max lying in room 417, bed two. Next to him is a man who’d been stomped on by his horse. Apparently he’s pretty messed up and they have the green curtain pulled around his bed. I can hear his slushy-sounding breaths. Max is lying there with his halo—a medieval-looking contraption designed to clamp his neck in place. The steel ring around his head is attached to two bars coming up from his chest harness. The screws that hold the halo in place are drilled directly into his skull. The threads turn right into his skin, and there’s a red stain under the screw where they hadn’t quite wiped off all the blood. "I’m not feeling it," Jeff says at last. "Me neither," I answer. We shoulder our boats. The South Merced is just plain hard. In the rain and cold, it often feels like work. No sooner have we blasted our way down a pushy, rollicking Class V drop, than we have to suppress the celebration and turn our attention to the next horizon line. There are more than 100 rapids on the South Merced, about 40 of which are blind and need scouting. The scale of the run shifts the scope of success from the courage quizzes of each Class V drop to the exam of the entire two-day run. It’s not a matter of just bravery and skills, but also stamina. In order to save time only one of the three of us gets out to scout. The ritual is continuous: One paddler steps ashore while the other two study him from their boats. We look for his expression, one of three reactions. A quick nod and turn toward us means straightforward Class IV. He gives us verbal instructions: "It’s a six-foot drop, hug the boulders on the right at the lip and land right. Read and run the rest." That’s the best news—it means the continuation of steady downstream progress. You can also stow the rising fear for a few more minutes. The second reaction is also comforting: a frown, then he waves us up to have a look. This means a big one, possibly a portage. We expect these monsters and are glad to finally meet them. The comforting thing is that you’d know in a glance if you’re up for it. The third expression is the most troubling: a frown, and then he disappears, scampering over the boulders to see more of the complex rapid. If he doesn’t return within a minute, we get out, too, figuring it’s hard enough that we should all scout. These rapids require tough decisions. The lines are clear, but they’re hard, pushy and consequential. Late on the first day, cold, exhausted and looking for a camp, I actually grow angry at the river for these drops. Wasted from constant clambering in and out of the kayak, puzzling out lines and processing adrenaline rushes, I yell: "Why can’t you just leave us alone?" I portage that one out of spite. Sometimes I question my motives. The sight of Max immobilized and in pain proved definitively that the risks aren’t worth it, yet here I am. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Each risk I take is certified by the shadow of the accident—not for glory or on a whim, but rather because it is a reasonable challenge for me at that moment; my skills, the cold, a heavily loaded boat, and energy to maintain focus all deliberately weighed. Each decision to paddle or portage is made with a gravity that renders it precious—like the weight of jewelry in your hand. Relishing the judgment I’ve won in a decade of paddling is reward enough for the South Merced. Still, I portage more than my ego is comfortable with. Rain wets the steely granite banks, and huge pine and fir trees climb the canyons into the mist. We find camp between two thumping rapids and sleep well in our Mega Mid with a paddle for a center-pole. We lie in our sleeping bags snacking on cashews and beef jerky, talking and feeling good about our expedition. We’re moving slowly, and have all had scares: I ran one slot backwards and upside down after I blundered into a corkscrew current against the wall and took two sharp cracks to my helmet. Jeff pulled his sprayskirt and swam after a similar run, worried that he might have damaged his back after some hard shots. Yet we know we’re equal to the challenge—that the skills we’ve honed for years are carrying us through. And best of all, we’re far from the rodeo scene. For me the soul of paddling still resides within a deep gorge in California, one cut through with a gauntlet of steep, pounding rapids. The concept alone is frightening: Pimp n’ Ho party at the Red Bull house. The American River Fest had culminated earlier in the day and rodeo/Red Bull diva Jamie Cooper is throwing a party at the house she’s rented in Grass Valley. Just off Highway 49, the so-called Whitewater Highway because it threads its way past the Merced, Tuolumne, Mokelumne, American and Yuba, the Red Bull house is rented for the spring as a flop house for idle paddlers. The party is also the 30th birthday bash for long-time pro boater Tanya Shuman; so once again, I’m plunged deep in the scene. The big difference is that California’s whitewater has washed away my rodeo angst. I’ve been soothed by the clean granite bedrock and sparkling whitewater. The bruising rapids of the Tule, Kaweah and South Merced have humbled me and sated my craving for fear. I’d actually spent the day learning how to do loops on the Class III Chili Bar section of the North Fork American under the tutelage of pro paddler Shane Benedict, who is currently cavorting around the party in high heels, a spaghetti-strap cocktail dress and a feather boa. Someone thrusts a Red Bull and vodka into my hand and I settle in to what will be a long, caffeine-addled night. The gang’s all here: rodeo victor Rusty Sage talks with women’s winner Brooke Winger in one corner, while in another Scott Lindgren, Dustin Knapp and Johnnie Kern hold forth about their famed Tsang-Po expedition. Filmmaker Nate Nash is showing his new video, Players Two: the Royal Flush in the other room to a crowd that includes many of flick’s featured paddlers. Unfortunately, there’s more guys in drag than actual women at the party—not an uncommon occurrence at pro boating bashes. Suddenly a pretzel fight breaks out in the kitchen, sending people dodging into corners. I see paddler John Grossman heading out to the back porch with his sleeping bag just as someone falls through a coffee table. "This is what happens when you throw a party without girls," he says. Then my friend Jared Johnson shows up. He’s just made the trip out from Durango, Colo., via Fresno, where he visited Max in the hospital. I thrust a drink upon him and we talk about his upcoming trip. "Colorado’s pathetic," he says. "The Upper Animas only ran one day. California’s where it’s at. You wanna go hit the South Merced?" "I just ran it," I say, feeling proud. "I have to head back to work anyhow." Jared shakes his head sadly, as though I’ve told him I have smallpox. "I’m hitting the Little North Fork of the Feather, Love’s Falls, Golden Gate. It’s gonna be sick. Why don’t you just tell the boss you had car trouble?" Originally Published, Paddler March-April 2003 |
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