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.

Digging Up Old Times

52 Miles

I made my return to the Gauley River. 

The Gauley is often a milestone in many paddler's lives.  Most never forget the feeling of their first time down, scared at 'Insignificant', wide-eyed at 'Pillow' and terrified in 'Lost Paddle'.  The river is a true classic.  Time passes in a paddler's life.  Bigger rivers and steeper creeks come to pass, but the allure of the Gauley remains.  It is a pilgrimage.  It is a sacred space where the community gathers and revels in all that it is.  The paddling community is made up of a unique breed of individuals from working professionals to bearded, dread-locked, back of my van lifestylers who breathe water instead of air.  They all have one thing in common though.  It is a respect, a fascination with an ideal that seems lost, or at the very least, hard to find in modern society.  It is a feeling of a life without walls.  It is a feeling of a life about possiblities.  It is a feeling of... perhaps quite obviously... life.  Simple, visceral, moving life.  On the river, things makes sense because things are real.  One gets to blend, and mesh with the very essence, the very core of the lifeblood of the planet.  In this environment, it is an easy mental exercise to let go of the constant neverending chattering monologue of you mind.  We are out there, because of this simple thing.  

We decide to go to the river.  We make a conscious choice to seek it out, to learn from it, to experience it. 
 
We paddled fifty two miles on Saturday.  It is known as the double-marathon, a logistical, mental, and physical challenge.  It was a long way to paddle.  It was a series of small moments strung together over nine hours of river time.  Almost all of it, I do not remember.

It was deep into the second marathon, that one moment in particular stands out in my mind.  We were out of the rapids.  Most of the rough stuff was over.  The river was calm.  There were a few small ripples on the surface.  The sun was beginning to dip near the tops of the trees.  We paddled straight into the evening light, squinting so hard we could barely see.  The trees shimmered alongside us in the breeze, and it was quiet.  The clink of my wedding band on the shaft of my paddle played a steady beat as the strokes melted away.  At times the sun was so strong, I could only manage to stare as far as the bow of the boat.  The water gently lifted the boat up and down.  We paddled in sequence like this for some time, rounding a bend, sliding onward, passing into the depths of a long shadow created by a high bank.   


There are reasons we go to the river.