Falling Into Whitewater - Part 1

Installation 1--by Helen 

Hello folks!  Someone asked if I might write up some of my beginner whitewater paddling adventures, so I thought I'd start with a story about my journey into whitewater paddling.

Becoming a whitewater paddler was not really a goal of mine.  Perhaps I got tricked into it.  Maybe it was fate, or possibly a logical, necessary next step for an avid recreational kayaker, but for a 50+ year old lady?  Who am I kidding?  I must have been tricked.

It all started innocently enough, on a sunny warm vacation day, on a beautiful,  easy class II section of the incredible Wolf River in Wisconsin-- in what they call a boulder garden.  A boulder garden is exactly like it sounds-- lots of rocks, seemingly planted in the river, that a paddler must either navigate around, smash into and/or bounce off of. I navigated (mostly), had a blast, loved the clear water and scenery, but realized I didn't really have any real river running skills.  It dawned on me, then and there, that after 14 years of kayaking, a lesson would probably keep me safer as I explored new rivers.

So I went online, found the Wausau Whitewater Park in WI, and signed up for a class. The Wausau park is amazing and on the weekends when water is released from a dam into the course, it is always filled with talented boaters.  Lots of students and a bunch of instructors showed up for the classes, but much to my dismay, after 14 years of kayaking I found out I was a beginner.  I had never even tried to roll and without a roll, one is a liability in rapids.  Without a roll, if your sit-inside kayak flips, you have to hang onto the paddle, try to swim the boat to the shore, and dump out the water before you can climb back in and rejoin your group.  It usually takes a partner to help you swim the boat to shore on a river powerful enough to dump you in the first place.  So I stayed with the beginners that day, below the course, working with the currents coming out of the whitewater park.

Good kayaking classes are small-- typically one instructor for 4-5 students, so we got some great attention.  We were taught many skills:
-- How to wet exit a kayak while wearing a neoprene spray skirt (pull the  the skirt off the boat and fall out with skill :-)
--The J-lean that allows the boat to tilt without unbalancing the paddler.  That tilt allows one to carve turns and it is also used to prevent the current from catching the side of the boat and flipping it over.
-- The low and high braces, skills that take a bit of practice before they become an effective, instinctively performed action to prevent the boat from flipping over.
-- The hip snap, a key element of a kayak roll and braces.
-- An intro to the roll, but without a nose plug and goggles, I was an uncomfortable, nervous wreck under water.
-- How to ferry from one side of the river to the other, facing upstream right below a rapid.
-- How to enter and exit the eddy current next to a rapid (eddy turn and peel out), using the edge, lean, and a couple of new paddle strokes.

At the end of the day, I was mentally and physically exhausted- what a work out that was!  I was also very disappointed that we had spent  almost the entire day facing upstream and I had never even entered the whitewater course to run the features.  I hadn't learned what I had gone there to learn, and the skills I had been taught would take more time and practice for me to master, so lacking an inner tube and permission,  I still wasn't ready to get on the course the next day.  (Whitewater parks are a blast for tubing and foam boogy boards but Wausau caters to paddlers, exclusively.)

It wasn't until two months later, as I watched my friend almost get flipped while crossing an eddy line next to a wing dike on the Missouri River, that I realized that the techniques and insights I  learned in the class were very valuable and would prevent many potential flips on the Mighty Muddy MO River and any other river I paddled.   With a new sense of purpose, I found my swim goggles, bought a nose plug, and practiced calming my mind while upside down in the kayak.  I was bound and determined to learn that roll and master the skills to which I had been introduced.

More later,

Helen.

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