There is no tongue.
Shelby slows down. He yells some beta over the roar of the river. I nod. He turns and starts to paddle. We start river center and begin working our way to the left. There is no clear path just two holes that are clearly to be avoided. The water leading into the rapid isn’t what anyone would call calm. It’s churning but slow. Instead of a long tongue dropping into the rapid there’s a line where the water goes from slow to fast. The waves are mostly pyramid in shape. Rising and falling in a way that appears to have no logic to it.
Through the rising and falling pyramids, I see the two holes. We skirt to the left of the first and then paddling hard through the chaos, we pass the other. Once beyond the two major obstacles, the rapid is finished out by bouncing off and around the many different waves being thrown in every direction.
I see Shelby pass smoothly through a trough of one wave. I’m only 12-15 feet behind him and start to shoot for the same spot. By the time, I hit that point, the water has churned and I am riding the top of one of the pyramids. I brace to keep from sliding off the far side and then turn the boat to meet the lateral that has now appeared at the bottom. I’m able to tee it up and push through giggling as it drops me into a giant wave that feels like it is going to swallow my boat and myself whole. Instead, I push up through the other side with enough momentum to almost launch off the crest.
Shelby exits the chaotic water and turns to make sure everyone is good. I exit and do the same to see Dave following right behind us with a giant smile on his face.
Back on the Virgin.
We’ve got a Swimmer!
I’m a horrible boater. If there is a chance for me to swim, I’m most likely going to flop right out of my boat.
For example, two years ago, we hiked down into the Grand and floated a few miles of the Colorado River to the next trail that would take us out of the canyon. There were two or three named rapids on the section but nothing that was too highly rated. We approached what we thought was the first rapid. Almost immediately, I was in the water. Once back in my boat, we realized it wasn’t even the rapid, just a no name riffle that I decided to check out from water level instead of in my boat.
But that’s a later example, to understand the chronic issue, we must start with the Virgin.
My first ever swim was on the section of river described above. I ducked out of work early on a February afternoon to catch a flood swell through the gorge. It was me, the Planner and the Lickers. The water was ripping. We had told ourselves that over 2000 CFS and we weren’t going to run. We got to the put in, estimated the flow to be about 500 above that and promptly blew up our boats and put on.
The river was moving very quickly especially for our nascent skills. The sand waves were gigantic and we flowed through them giggling like school children. Until, of course, one of the waves ate Heather tumbling her backward at the crest.
We had all started paddling together purchasing packrafts for the desert rivers and what they could mean for access to remote locations. Most of these desert rivers, including the Virgin, up to this point, were small. A few hundred CFS was usually enough to keep from having to walk too much as we flowed down the ephemeral water ways. 2500 CFS is a hell of a lot more water and as I learned that day, flood stage rivers behave very strangely. Not only did we have minimal experience, but the water was pure chaos.
My boat and I had a pretty good run until we passed under the bridge on I-15. At that point, the rapids are fast and there is very little time between them. There’s little chance of eddying out and scouting. I enter a rapid following Shelby as best I could. He floats through a wave trough and I get hit by a lateral in the same spot that sucks one of the tubes under flipping me into the river. I manage to hold onto both my boat and paddle, but there is little chance of self-rescue. I’m tossed into the chaos doing what I can to keep my head above water or at least, trying to get a breath of air the few times I’m able to get my head above water.
It feels like forever. Long enough that I start to feel like I’m in serious trouble. I’ve swallowed enough sand with the nasty water to be coughing it up. With my feet pointed down river, I am pummeled into boulders and then dragged over them. Any attempt to exit feels futile and I surrender to the river.
I finally hit slack water and a couple of kicks with my legs puts me into a small eddy. I swim to shore coughing and hacking up the nastiness I’ve just consumed. I drag my boat onto shore and dump it out while trying to catch my breath. I’m soaking wet. Apparently, the last time we stopped to take a whiz I left my relief zipper slightly open. My drysuit is more or less full of water. I gather myself, check the boat and other gear and then put back on. We’ve still got a ways to go before we’re done.
Look where you want to go
Leading up to this year’s foray down the Escalante River, I was a hot mess.
As anxiety goes, getting on the river was amping up all the demons in my head. I was unable to sleep waking up worried about getting on the river. Constant reels of what could happen were playing in my head. The turns, the house sized boulders sitting mid river, the possibility of too high of flows, all things that weren’t probable, but kept me worried. After a few days of this, I realized I had to figure this out.
The fun thing about anxiety is that it is almost always 100% irrational. After a sleepless night, I laid in bed and began to break down the things that had me worried, what were the possibilities and how could I deal with them. High flows? Well, I don’t get on the river if I don’t feel like it’s safe. The turns? That one took some thinking. I started to go back over the times that I had already floated the river. The turns were an obstacle but one that was easily overcome. The more I thought about it, the more it appeared obvious. I was a rookie and making a rookie mistake.
I’ve never heard anyone give this advice on the river, but it is almost the first thing you tell someone on a mountain bike. Look where you want to go. Your body has a way of getting you to where you look. If you are looking at all the things that you think are going to kill you, chances are you are going to either crash or stop before you get there. I realized that I was so fixated on what I was trying to avoid that I was almost guaranteed to end up in the hole, out of the boat and swimming the rapids. Ok, look where you want to go.
And then I just had to be logical. I’d already paddled the Escalante twice with zero issues. Could something happen? Absolutely, but experience would suggest that we were most likely going to be fine. The river may change, but the overall character and nature of it, typically doesn’t.
After rolling through these thought experiments, I was stoked. I felt ready to be back on the river and excited to do so. My mantra became look where you want to go.
The Return
After the Escalante, I knew for my personal progression and to be able to enjoy the Virgin, I had one thing to do, get back on the river.
With the almost endless snow and precipitation we’ve received over the last few months, the rivers are rippin’. And the Virgin is no exception. We’ve done some high water scouting. Almost all of the Alliance, except myself, had already done some higher water paddles down the very section of the Virgin that caused the most anxiety.
The text went out. The water was here and a paddle was happening. It was time.
Dave picked me up at the Lounge and we then met Shelby at Cedar Pockets. There were several other groups doing the same thing. We road scouted the river and took a look from the parking lot. It was roaring. You could hear it. The dark chocolate color was only interrupted by the white emerging from the turbulence. It looked chaotic, even from above.
My hands are sweaty. I keep telling myself that anxiety is just excitement for the unknown. We load up and head to the put in a few miles back up I-15. We ready the boats and hike down. The chaos we had seen from above is amplified at the river’s edge. The water is ripping and roaring. The sound alone is intense. Shelby and I put on and try to sit in the eddy. The slack water we are parked in is constantly changing. Just when we think we’ve got it, it changes directions and rises pushing us into the willows. We battle this little challenge until Dave is ready to float.
Right off, we’ve got a bridge to go under and then a small rapid. This is only the 2nd time I’ve used my new boat and the first time in actual big water and rapids. Immediately I’m ecstatic. The boat is stiff and goes where I put it. The speed at which I can get moving is a game changer. And then my seat went flat.
We start ticking off the many rapids through the gorge. Between each, Shelby shouts beta to me and then I follow as best I can. Each one has its own style, but the overwhelming theme is chaos. The waves break and change constantly. Even the holes seem to disappear and reappear as you attempt to peg them in your head and avoid them. I feel confident mostly due to the people I’m with. Shelby is out front with his impeccable memory of the river and rapids and Dave is following behind with years of river experience. The other piece is the new boat. It feels awesome.
Despite the seat in my boat going flat and having to paddle from 3″ lower in my boat, the run goes smoothly. No one swims and we finish up without any mishaps. I’m the most stoked on rivers that I’ve been in years. We’d talked about a second lap and I would have been pushing for it, but doing another without a seat didn’t sound like a good idea. I offered to drive for Dave and Shelby, but after the run, everyone is kind of smoked.
We high five, giggle and talk about the river. It was big. We had thought we were putting on around 2500, but noticed that there was a high amount of debris. Turns out we caught a spike and the river was closer to 3000 CFS.
I’m 100% sure that I’m still the guy who is going to take the swim, but getting back on the river at high water and cleanly paddling the section that almost ate me years ago has given me the freedom to be ecstatic about the river. I’ll be putting in again soon.
Anyone up for a float?
Embrace Chaos. Seek Discomfort.
