Well, through a stupid mistake I nearly offed myself today

[eyepaddle]

At high water two sets of rapids (mother's delight and dragon's tooth) blend together, you stay in the middle through mother's delight (to avoid rocks that jut into to the river from the banks) but once through that head to the left NOW to avoid "The Tooth." The tooth is a large rock in the middle of the channel, and because of how it affects water flow feeds boats (and swimmer's) into the right wal--which is severly undercut. This means you can be swept under water and trapped under the wall, and thus drown.

As ghastly as that sounds, it isn't much of a problem--it is simple to head to the left and there is a ten or fifteen foot clear path around the "complications."

Except I stupidly lost trck of where I was--I thought I had one more ledge in Mother's delight to clear before making my move to the left. As it turns out, I didn't. I got caught in the trash around Dragon's tooth and flipped. Realizing where I was I knew I didn't have long to screw around getting myself sorted out. I took one hurried shot at rolling up, missed and bailed out; usually that is just a blow to one's pride, now I was worried (for the first time since I've been kayaking) about drowning.

Holy shit, I din't know I could swim that hard. At least my sense of direction is pretty rock solid, I swam so hard for the safe "bank" (really a ten foot rock wall) I managed to get out of the trash. My friends who had run the tooth cleanly collected my boat at the bottom and had it dumpe out and waiting for me when I hiked up. It was my only screw-up today, but boy howdy, ir was a doozy. The rest of the river was run without incident.

Here's where I swam:

[LynzM]

1. Holy shit!

You swam in that?! :scared:

Glad you made it out ok, dude. Yikes. :hug:

[eyepaddle]

2. After the fact I was wondeing what my heart rate hit, 140, 170?

Who knows, I must've been on rocket fuel-strength adreanline. (I started out near the edge of that shit and managed to avoid being dragged in to it's full fury)

Believe it or not, I held on to my paddle and never even sucked in any water.

Thanks for the hug.

I wonder if I'll have nightmares tonight :scared:

[eyepaddle]

3. Here's a map of the river, notice how close

Mother's delight and Dragon's tooth sections are. On the right bottom you'll see a difficulty rating according to river stage. Today the river was at a little over 4 ft. (class III-IV)

http://www.rapidsriders.net/maps/kettle.pdf

I thought I was up for it--had I not spaced off how far I'd traveled I probably would've gone through effortlessly. Live and learn I suppose.

[bigwillq]

4. So you did go!

:hi:

Jeez, glad you're ok.

[eyepaddle]

5. Thanks, in retrospect I should've listened to you last night.

(Note to self--ALWAYS listen to bigwillq!) :)

[bigwillq]

6. LOL!

WEll at least you made it through your ordeal.

Have you gotten any work done?

[eyepaddle]

9. I found some source stuff last night. Right now I feel to wiped out

and farnkly, stupid to do much good. I've kind of got an adrenaline hangover going on.

I know this is gonna be hard to believe--but I am NOT and adrnealine junkie. I've just always liked water and canoeing/paddling. Taking up whitewater was just the ultimate extension of that. I'm actually pretty timid about physical danger.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. Omigod, my dear eyepaddle!

You did nearly buy the farm, didn't you?

I am so relieved that you're OK.......Truly!

I'll bet you won't do that again....

You might have some bad dreams, but I doubt it.......

You will settle down pretty quickly, and we are helping you do that!

I am glad and grateful that you're OK.......

:hug:

[eyepaddle]

8. Thanks Peg,

Honestly (and this is a minor distinction) where I was it turns out I wasn't in danger--I just knew that if I screwed around it could go utterly to hell in an instanthad I been two or three feet to the right....At least I had seen my error before I dumped and was bustin' ass to get left--maybe that helped save my bacon.

I'll defintiely not swim the tooth ever again--I'll portage at this level, or at least follow other people a bit more closely!

:hug: (I need a few of those)

[sbj405]

10. Glad you're ok.

Now, don't you have some work to do? ;-)

[eyepaddle]

12. I do. I'll get to it tomorrow.

:P

[SeattleGirl]

11. Holy crap, eyepaddle!

What a scare! I'm glad you made it out okay to tell the tale! :hug:

[eyepaddle]

14. Here's a footnote, I instinctively close my eyes when I flip,

not today. Looking up at that mess from the bottom was a bizarre sight. It's surprisingly bright (though kind of tan-colored from the run-off) It looks like the bottom of an extremely violent and fast moving thunderstorm.

It was the instant where I was missing my roll were I was hugely terrified. I came up enough to look around before I flipped a second time and knew I might be in the dnager zone, I was swimming HARD to the left (the calmer water at the bottom of the pic) before my head broke the surface. After crashing through a few waves I could see I was still making progress to safety and felt intense relief.

Thanks for the hug! :hi:

[Redstone]

13. Time for a new hobby? Stamp collecting, maybe?

(Speaks the wise, authoritative voice of one who has jumped out of perfectly functional airplanes and free-rappeled out of a helicopter.)

Redstone

[eyepaddle]

15. I'm gonna just stay on mellower streams

at least until the spring floods come down. By the way, did I mention that water is about 35 degrees? (There was ice floating in it when we went last week!)

By the way, glad to see you're back! :hi:

[Redstone]

17. Thanks. You paddle in water that cold without a wetsuit?

Sound like something I'd have done at your age. In other words, inadvisable.

Redstone

[eyepaddle]

18. I have a drysuit it is FAN-DAMN-TASTIC!

But even though you don't get wet, you can still feel the cold coming through it (and the layers of polypropylene lon johns underneath).

Unless of course you are focused on more important matters!

I didn't notice the cold at ALL! ;)

[Redstone]

20. I gotcha. Swimming your ass off to avoid a strainer really gets

you focused, doesn't it?

Too bad we couldn't turn on that kind of alertness at will (like at work). That'd be handy, wouldn't it?

Redstone

[eyepaddle]

22. Wouldn't it though!

:rofl: (thinking of the possibilities)

[KitchenWitch]

16. I think you should take up chess!

Much less dangerous!

:hug:

[eyepaddle]

19. True enough, but I'll never be able to just give up something

at which I've worked so hard to attain....mediocrity, apparently. What an embarassment--NOBODY else swam at all today. There were like twenty people out on the Kettle today. Sigh...I'm tired of always being the lamest one in the group.

[Dangerously Amused]

21. Aaahhhhhh!

Dude! Don't scare me like that!!!!


I'm glad you're safe.


NOW DON"T EVER DO THAT AGAIN, YOU HEAR!!!???

[eyepaddle]

23. Thanks

I didn't want to do it the first time! I want to do about a million times less a second time!

Sorry to scare you. :hug: