@cjw4d
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<b>Hey Mike,</b>
I have a Nomad 8.5 that you would likely fit in if needed. Feel free to borrow it; You can also use my dry top, pfd paddle and helmet.
I am in STL however, and will not be making it down to the river this week / wknd; perhaps cindy grabs it?
Let me know if you want to give it a shot.
CW -
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Ahh yes, it turned in to a LONG day…
The EFSF is located deep in central Idaho on a forest service road the dead ends into the mountains. Due to the isolated location, the logistics of this 12 mile “road side” run were more complicated than expected.
We ran our gear to the top of the run and then drove 12 miles down the deserted road to the put in. Our plan entailed waiting up to an hour and a half to see if by any chance a car passed by that we could hitch a ride to the top. As luck would have it, after 1:33 min., we hitched a ride to the top!
Shortly there after, we put on and proceeded into the meat of the run, which just so happens to be at the very start. All was going well, a ton of reading and running, but with the presence of wood, a lot of scouting took place.
We cleared all of the big juicy stuff up top, roughly the first 3 or 4 miles when the situation slowly began to unfold.
Feeling confident that we had made it through all of the larger rapids, we got a bit to lax and began running some horizons after a brief boat scout. We soon came upon divided drop, one with flow pushing hard towards the right bank (where the road is) and one forcing down a left chute. It was here i realized I had already made a mistake and was too ‘deep’ in the series of eddies leading up to the horizon. To top things off, I was river left, which was walled in. With scouting not an option, my brother opted to run the left chute after boat scouting.
I watched as his boat shot down the chute, and proceeded to get a little stern squirt. With some butterflies in my stomach, not feeling good about running the horizon blind, I had 2 options; make a hairy ferry to the right chute and see what that had in store, or run the line I knew was semi-clean that my brother took.
I opted to run the left chute and almost immediately as I crested the horizon, I was greeted by a big tasty hole with a recircing’ eddy / walled in pocked feeding back into the meat. In a panic, I attempted to take a left boof stroke and punch the hole on the right… While good in theory, I missed the move and my boat punches the hole, only to be violently pivoted into the recircing’ eddy.
It didn’t take long before it became clear that I was going to have to go back into the meat of the hole and see what happens…
This is the part that I am most disappointed in my irrational decision making; Already in a bit of a panic re: the situation at hand, I lost my wits and almost immediately punched my skirt. I found myself floating a bit hopelessly in the boils / powerful eddy, and finally snapped back to reality.
The reality was, I was on the far bank, out of reach of a well placed rope, swimming in an eddy that I was hesitant to think that I could paddle out of…. At this moment, I could see my brother already on the bank downstream preparing a rope. I buried my head and told myself I wouldn’t quit swimming until I clawed myself onto the right bank. Midway through, I saw the rope come in, but it landed just shy (within 2 or 3 feet) By this time, I was too spent to give it one last push and I watched as the rope slipped away. Fortunately for me, I was now only one hard burst away from the river right bank and quickly got there.
After hanging with me for a few minutes, my brother took off downstream in search of the boat; I began the long long walk of shame. A few miles downstream, I caught up with my brother and he had completely lost sight of the boat.
A bit later as we walked back towards the car, we stumbled across a forest service worker and he let us know he never saw a boat come around the bend. With a bit of searching, we finally located the bright red mamba; It was completely submerged on the far bank. After some time, and alot of walking, we got back to the car, unwound a bit, and then headed up for the boat retrieval.
We worked on it for a little bit, never able to get a rope on it, despite its close proximity to shore. I decided it’d be best not to jeopardize anyone’s safety and cut my losses.
Later that night, we drove back to McCall; The next morning, I received a text from a boater who was apparently behind us by quite some time. They spotted my boat floating free and caught up with it before it went into an absolutely monstrous log jam. With my luck turning around, by the time I walked out of the hotel room where we stayed for the night, a boater mobile pulled up with 5 or 6 boats up top; one of which was my mamba!
For their efforts, much beer was donated!…
A few things I learned from this experience; Don’t rush a new run; when you get that gut feeling, get out and scout. I realize how important it is to be playing eddies WAY ahead of your current location;
– in the event you are faced with two evils ( both lines look ugly), and you still want to run it, opt to run the side that is accessible to safety. Had i ran the chute on the ‘road side’, if things hit the fan, I would have at least been within reaching / rope distance.
– Through this experience, and past experience, i have come to generally conclude that the times in which I am most scared and rattled. also tend to be the times it is MOST IMPORTANT to STAY IN YOUR BOAT. The fact that I panicked because I knew I was in a recircing eddy AND THEN opted to swim, was a downright horrendous decision. It would have been far easier to paddle out of that situation than it was to swim out.
Lastly, know your paddling partner and discuss ‘plan b’s’ Earlier in the trip, my brother found himself getting worked in a hole directly above a few hundred yards of some serious class V water. Looking back over my shoulder, i saw him getting worked. While the hole he was in was not to violent or nasty, the consequence of a swim was.
He eventually swam out of the hole and made shore before the mank below. We discussed the ordeal later, and I brought up what I found to be an error on my part; I saw he was in trouble, and I opted to stay in my boat, as if I would have been able to tow him to shore in such a strong current. In reality, has he not been able to make shore, there was no way I was going to be able to tow him over before the consequential swim.
From that point, we discussed that if one of us were taking a thrashing, and there was strong current and or consequence downstream, that it would be best for the other to bank their boat quickly and prepare a rope.
Low and behold, as I went into the eddy, Terry almost immediately could see I was in a struggle. Within a few seconds he was already out of his boat and making his way back up to me. Even though I was out of reach at the current moment, seeing him on shore and knowing he was zoned in on my situation, is a tremendous boost of confidence. It almost acted as a reminder that I needed to start swimming hard in that direction.
I am a strong believe in the importance of analyzing mistake and swims as there is so much to be learned from situations like this.
Stay safe!
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Hmm, I have yet to really dial it in. It seems to be a big water boof no matter where you come off the drop. The left line reminds me very much of Soc’ Em Dog on the Section IV… A stacked up foam pile that can make for 1) the most ideal, sweet boof or 2) a mistime stroke accelerating you deep in the hole aha.
One thing is for sure, when the good boaters hit that drop right, it looks so saaaweeeet!!!!
Ill be back for revenge!
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