The Rescue

I am finally finding a quiet moment to sit down and write this story.  I hope I can recapture the emotion from last week, but I am afraid doing so is going to be a difficult task.  Nevertheless, I am going to give it my best shot. 

A little over a week ago I saved a woman from drowning on the Potomac River.  Perhaps I should correct myself in laying claim to being in control of the event of saving this woman, but in the common vernacular it was in fact me who paddled out into the water to save her.  I am simply not so sure I was working alone.

It was Friday.  I left school on a warm, sunny afternoon.  I jumped in my truck and headed to the Falls to unwind with some afternoon laps.  I could not stop thinking about something I caught on television the night before, a documentary about a spiritual healer in Brazil.  As strange as it sounds, after I watched the film I was markedly calm.  I went to sleep.  When I woke up the feeling remained.     

I arrived at the river.  The parking lot was mostly empty.  A couple strolled the towpath. A woman walked her dog.  The temperature was above average for the time of year, but it was an otherwise normal afternoon.  I crossed the canal and headed down the path to the river.  The water level was high. The river had been low for months.  It was the first time I saw it with real water in it for quite a while.  I decided to walk around 'Grace', and ran one lap on the 'Fingers'.  I paddled down through O'Deck.  I surfed the wave for a bit, but was not really in the mood.  I really just wanted to be outside and enjoy the afternoon.  I paddled down to the 'Fishladder' to take out, but decided to float down through 'Rocky Island Waves'.  As I paddled downstream, I noticed a woman crouched by the side of the river in a small pothole.  I noted she was pretty close to the water, it did not seem too unsual. 

I looked up at Rocky Island.  The sky was bright blue and it was warm.  I knew there were not too many warm days left in the season, so I hopped out of my boat and climbed the cliff to sit in the 'King's Chairs'.  The chairs are natural stone formations that look like someone took a huge ice cream scoop and scooped out a chunk of rock to make a  smooth stone lounger.  It was the perfect spot for a warm sunny November afternoon. 

I was sitting for a while.  I was thinking about the film I watched the night before, God, being in the moment, and a smathering of other utterly idealistic notions for which my mind is all too commonly attuned.  I decided to close my eyes and try to clear my mind of any extraneous thoughts.  I placed my hands on the rock, and started breathing in and out very slowly.

Suddenly, I opened my eyes.  I am not sure why I opened them at that moment, and I am not sure for how long I had them closed.  I scanned the river.  Immediately I noticed the pink hat bobbing up and down through 'Rocky Island Waves'. 

I yelled out.  I was too far away.  No response.  I ran quickly.  I down climbed.  Loose rock slid as I scrambled down the vertical pitch.  My boat sat in the shadows.  I jumped in and strapped my helmet.  No time to pull my skirt.  My arms stroked voraciously at the clear crystalline water.  My body tired. I mumbled words of encouragement under my breath to keep going.  Finally, I reached her. 

'Are you alright?'  She looked up with a milky white stare. 

'I'm fine'.  I was confused.  The water was freezing.  She was not flailing around.  She was drifiting in the current like a floating stone.  She was anything but fine.  Several hundred more yards in the main current and she was going to float straight to the bottom.  This stretch of river sees an average of six or seven deaths per year.  This year, the park service had already seen eight.  Nine was not an option.

'Do you want me to tow you to shore?'  The answer seemed obvious, but I awaited her response anxiously. 

'Yes'.  I pulled hard.  We made it to the rocky bank in the nick of time.  There was no one else on the water.  There were no hikers.  There were no climbers.  The gorge was empty.  I took off my dry top and gave her my t-shirt.  She pulled off her wet top.  I stared up at the cliff face.  We were not in a good spot.  The only way out was up.  We had to get back to her car as quickly as possible.  Hypothermia can set in quickly.  I was thankful we were not miles from help, but we still had to negotiate the cliff. 

I asked her name, and a few other basic medical questions.  I explained I would scout a route for us to make it up and out.  I looked carefully, trying to find the easiest way up.  After a few moments I was satisfied, and we proceeded to climb.  There were a few places where exposure was a big risk.  One misplaced step and we could both wind up in the river, or worse breaking our fall on a rock ledge fifty feet below.  I spotted her, braced her, gave her hand holds, and hoisted her to the top.  It was a relief when we were off the rock face. 

She was in relatively good spirits.  Cold, but not too distraught.  The hike out was short.  After ten minutes the trail came to an end and we were near the parking lot.  I noticed the park police car, but there was no ranger.  I figured it was a good idea to report the incident if someone was around, but it was most important to get her a change of clothes and into a warm vehicle.  There were two kayakers in the lot changing after their surf session at O-Deck.  She changed her clothes.

I was cold.  We hopped in her car.  She blasted the heat.  I felt there was something more to the situation, but I was not sure what.  I told her there was no good reason for me to be sitting on Rocky Island that afternoon.  There was no good reason I opened my eyes to see her hat at that moment. 

She asked if I believed in God.  I said yes.  I was sitting on that rock for a reason.  She said she was glad I rescued her, because she was beginning to feel forsaken by God. 

I asked her why she felt that way. 

'My life has been a lot of pain.'

'Why is that?,' I replied.  She responded with a long list of abuses, broken relationships, and recent misfortunes.  She recently lost her job and was working as a cashier at McDonald's to make ends meet.  She said she had no friends, and asked if I had a lot of friends.  I told her I was lucky to have some good ones. 

She leaned her head on my shoulder.  The bright lights shone through the car window.  It was the park police.  I hopped out and met the officer halfway. 

'Is that your boat?,' he asked.  I told him it was.  On our way out of the gorge, he was hiking in to do his nightly rounds.  He was making sure there was nothing unsual going on in the park at dusk.  He noticed my boat, and assumed an accident had taken place.  He called in the park helicopter to do a search.  They were looking for me. 

There was no way I could have known.  I explained what happened.  He walked up to the car and questioned her.  I sat in his police car, and cranked upt the heat. 

He came back and was about to back up his car.  I told him he may want to make sure she leaves the park.  He asked what my intuition was.  I told him I was not exactly sure, but it was possible she did not just trip and fall. 

He asked her as politely as he could if she had thrown hersel f in the water.  When she responded no, all he could do was let her go.  I got out of the squad car.  I walked up to her and gave her a hug goodbye. 

'Take care of yourself,' I said.  I thought to say 'I love you' for some strange reason, but held back.  She understood. 

The officer drove me back to my truck on the Maryland side.  It took nearly an hour to make it there with Friday night traffic.  I shook his hand and bid him a good night. 

'It was good thing you did tonight,' he said.

I closed the car door. 

I am not sure I will ever by able to explain that evening, but I do know the entire event was not a coincidence.  I will never know if she threw herself in the water.  I am not so sure she did.  Maybe it was more like she was 'pulled' in by circumstances outside of her control.  Perhaps the circumstances of her life led her to the edge of the river in the strangely cushioned depths of an ancient stone pothole to contemplate the meaning of it all.  Perhaps she arrived at the river's edge in the same way as I arrived at the top of the rock, likely contemplating the same questions. 

There are things we cannot see.  There are things that happen that are far outside of our control. 

The river is wide.  The river is deep.  It is shallow.  It is rocky.  It flows in straight shots.  It meanders back upon itself at the strangest of times, but all the while it is creeping ever forward.  There are a million ways to be dashed to bits. 

That afternoon I felt light in the deepest of my bones. 

We are not foresaken.   

Thanksgiving Sessions

The fall season is flying by in a hurry.  So far the weather has been unusually mild, and there has been relatively little rain.  The Falls are typically starting to run high again this time of year, but we've had water levels hovering around an average of three feet for the past several weeks.  It is hard to complain.  The boating has been great.

This weekend offered some more beautiful weather.  A lot of guys were in town for the holidays, so we met up for a 'Thanksgiving Session' this afternoon.  I caught some good footage and filmed a few new angles. I climbed on top of the rock in the middle of the river above 'Sweet Drop'.  The video short is compiled from today's session.

Congrats to Scott and Katy on their recent engagement.

Cane Creek Farm

Kerry and hit the road last weekend for a wedding down in Durham, North Carolina.  We decided to spend the day at her cousin Elizabeth's farm, Cane Creek, on Monday.  

We got a chance to eat some great food from the farm, and had a fantastic morning catching pigs and turkeys to send to market.  It is an incredible feeling to wake up, walk outside, and go to work knowing you will be able to spend the entire day out in the fresh air.  The first chore of the morning was to hitch the chicken mobiles to the tractor and move them about ten yards to a new spot in the pasture.  This helps spread the chicken manure around the field.  They came running by the hundreds as we filled the trough with their morning feed.

When we were finished we ventured off to pick up the trailer used for picking up the pigs on market day.  We found an entire herd of Red Devon cattle in our way and had to wait for them to move along to the next field before we could get to the barn.

Catching pigs was new experience.  Pigs are amazing creatures.  One of the most remarkable attributes of pigs is  their personality.  Each pig is slightly different than the next, and we were introduced to the crew of 'all-stars'.  Donovan is the friendliest.  While pigs are normally quite skittish, Donovan saunters over and stick his snout right into your legs to say hello.  In complete contrast is Wayward Pig.  He should have been sent to market more than a year ago, but he is on to the farmer's game, and when they come rolling in to catch his buddies, he is sure to stay hundreds of yards away.

We tied off the feeders the night before so the pigs would be hungry in the morning when we opened the one with the corral.  We backed up the trailer and began to usher the biggest pigs aboard.  After several tries, and a lot of running and chasing we had the pigs we needed.

We took them back to the barn, and it was off to try our hand and catching turkeys.  The goal was forty, but it turned out they were mostly underweight and needed another two weeks of fattening before sending them to market.  We caught twenty-five.  It was my first time catching turkeys.  It is a little like taking a 'shot' in wrestling to grab their feet.  Once their feet are secured, you come over top and smother their wings so they cannot beat you, and carry them like a football to the trailer.

The visit to the farm was great, and left Kerry and I with a lot to think about as we move forward.

New Boat

I have not been able to spend much time kayaking over the past few weeks.  I cracked two boats in the past nine months, and my weld on my old Jefe was far from adequate, and leaking tremendously every time I was on the water.  Finally, my warrantied Remix hull made it in, and I installed the outfitting on Friday night.  I got the chance to take it out on Sunday afternoon for a few laps on the Falls with Geoff Calhoun.  I took this photo series from the session:

Pummel at 2.9

U-Hole Boof on Virginia Lines

Right Line Entrance at S-Turn Rapid on the Virginia Lines

Right Line at the 'Spout', on Virginia Lines

Geoff on Low Water 'Grace'

Classic Autumn Days

Somewhere between Riley's Lock and Great Falls

This past weekend offered up two incredible back to back classic Falls days.  The weather was perfect, lower sixties, blue skies, and plenty of sun.  The nights were crisp and cold.  Kerry and I woke up on Saturday morning, and decided to head out on a new adventure.  We were tired out from being on the road the weekend before at her cousin Elizabeth's farm, so we wanted to stay local.  I had the idea to grab the canoe and head up to Riley's Lock and canoe down to Great Falls, walk around the Falls and then canoe Mather Gorge to Old Angler's Inn.  We were not sure how long it would take, but after a leisurely morning finally got up to Riley's to put on around two o'clock in the afternoon.

We only had about three and half hours of daylight, so I knew we had to keep a steady pace.  The first part of the trip offered some great canoeing through the George Washington canal.  There were four or five quality class two, maybe three rapids with some interesting tight maneuvers through log jams and big boulder gardens.  We made our way out to the main Potomac and headed downstream for some beautiful calm flat water paddling.  There was a surprise five or six foot cobbled ledge about half way down that offered a quick thrill as we found the only open sluice with enough water to keep us from hitting bottom.

Sunny Waters on the Potomac

We spotted a Bald Eagle along the way, and after about two and half hours made our way into familiar territory.  We started recognizing some of the trees on river left, the big sycamores that line the River Walk trail in Great Falls Park.  It was getting dark quickly by the time we took out above the Falls and the temperature was starting to drop quickly.

The river was low, and the Gorge was calm, but S-turn is always full of squirrelly water, and it was the one part of our trip that I was a bit nervous about in the canoe.  Mogul was joining us, and was not too much trouble, but any sudden movements would be enough to tip us on a strong eddy line.

Kerry was a bit panicked when we got to the entrance of the gorge, so I came up with a quick plan 'b' and walked us along the cliff wall down below the rapid about one hundred feet downstream.  Getting back in the canoe was difficult and the canoe sat directly next to a strong eddy line.  Mogul jumped off the cliff into the boat and we held onto the wall and pulled our way away from the stronger current, dug in, and paddled out into the main flow.  We paddled through the Rocky Island wave train and floated the rest of the Gorge with ease.  It was completely dark, and a half moon sat overhead.

We were frozen by the time we took off the river, but it was an awesome spontaneous adventure on a beautiful fall day.  

Mogul in the Canoe

Painting Lines

Firing up the Right Line at the Spout

It's been a great start to the fall season.  Buckley came down last week for his sister's wedding.  We hung out on Wednesday night with Trope, and again on Monday morning to catch a little action on the Falls.  We took two runs down Maryland side before firing up the Virginia lines.  

The fall season always brings about its share of change, but this year the change seems particularly abundant.  My life as well as those I keep close, all seem in a state of flux faced with big decisions and fresh horizon lines.  Change can spur the occasional anxious moment, but more than anything I like to think of change as an opportunity.

My time at Landon seems to be drawing to a close.  I hope not to make a rash decision about my next step in life, but to carefully consider all the options and decide what the next step may be.  I am well aware the grass is not greener on the other side, rather it is merely different grass.  Any situation in life will bring about its share of imperfections and frustrations.  We simply need to decide what frustrations we are willing to deal with, as we follow our passions and pursue our desire of what we think life should be.

This can undoubtedly be an overwhelming process of pursuit.

Thank goodness the river is there to lift our spirits.