First Post! Summer 2021 Vision Quest
After a several year hiatus from attempting to articulate my thoughts about life, kayaking and what the heck it all means, I have decided to rekindle my efforts in the hope of creating some sort of archive of my adventures. In a perhaps futile effort to disassociate myself from the teenage angst that facilitated much of the written meanderings of my last blog, I have started a new one (this one) with an almost identical title and content that is more similar than I would like to acknowledge. Here it is. Read at your own risk.
Right now I am living at my parents house in Truckee, pushing the liberal agenda to the youth of America, or as it is transcribed on my resume "teaching high school history". In between helping kids write essays they didn't know about until the day they're due, I have been putting all my energy and focus into preparing for an upcoming trip to Pakistan to paddle the Indus River. California has been a poor imitation of its identity as a whitewater paradise the last couple years, reducing my efforts to flat water intervals, slicing and running the elusive 9 minute mile. My only solace is that few rivers can match the power of the Indus anyway, so better to not lure myself into a false sense of confidence by actually going kayaking before hand.
This spring, I spent several months "working" remote in between chasing the high sierra walk off (run off being a hyperbolic description of the abismal snowpack we endured this year).
Some highlights of the California season:
Fantasy with my hero/mentor Ben Luck. Something about our combined personalities must deter additional would-be kayak partners; it seems that no one wants to kayak with us as this was our second high sierra gruesome twosome in less than a year. The road closure created an opportunity for us to hike the last 7 miles along the road, creating a fantastic extra challenge to the run and allowing me some alone time as Ben dusted me with his "old man strength".
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| Ben and my camp, day 2 Fantasy Falls |
Figuring that my knuckles could stand to lose a bit more skin in the mank, I returned a couple days later with two awesome guys Ben had linked me up with. Like many first time California dreamers, they had had a humbling trip and were thrilled to have someone who knew the lines. We had an awesome trip bombing down on beta, a testament to their skill and blissful ignorance. We encountered a hail storm between two significant gorges on the run, creating a unique and unforgettable landscape. Dark granite slabs were juxtaposed by the blooming dogwoods and chunks of hail falling around us.
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| In the meadows |
Middle Kings is my favorite week of the year. The days leading up to the trip were nearly identical to last year, stressing about flows, crew, which friend my younger sister Lacey would take with her to pick us up at the takeout and whether or not we would actually have to carry loaded boats over Bishop Pass. Luckily, our optimism was rewarded with perfect medium-low flows, beautiful weather, and an assortment of skin care products courtesy of team dad Chris Madden. It would be tedious to articulate all the moments from our trip that I hold close to my heart but here are a few: force eating cinnamon rolls on the first night, Chris failing to convince me that I was drinking too much of the Team Beer Kool-Aid, getting annihilated by mosquitos with the iconic Tephite Peak as the aesthetic backdrop to our mild suffering and above all, being out there with my great friend Anna Wagner. Anna, as a fellow native Californian, shares my infatuation with the Kings and her successful descent was the culmination of many years of effort and deliberate training-- a rare combination in the world of kayaking. She styled the rapids and only peed in her drysuit twice.
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Chilling on Bishop Pass with my trusty kayak/lounge seat
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Safe space
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Usually, the California season leaves me stuffed to the brim. This year, the meek snowpack did little more the wet my appetite. I was fortunate to be offered by teaching position shortly after Middle Kings, leaving me ample time to explore the wonderful freedoms of being in between jobs. My wonderful lady friend Jessie left to fight fires and I ventured away from California with aspirations of pushing myself and my poor little subaru as hard as I could.
My psych was as high as my planning was poor. Shortly after arriving in White Salmon I got a call from Ben that Bull Lake was dropping in, so with my Subaru threatening to overheat, I packed up and drove another 12 hours to Jackson. We got skunked on Bull Lake-- unpredictable weather in the Winds led to a spike in the river mere hours before we were set to drive to the put in. I spent a couple days in a mild stupor-- feeling foolish for abandoning an abundance of friends and good kayaking in the gorge for the allure of an unpredictable sufferfest that didn't pan out. Thankfully, Idaho heartthrob Alec Voorhees called me and we made plans for what would turn out to be a "high side of perfect" Box lap. My three laps the previous year, coupled with Alec's incredible whitewater talent, provided sufficient for a highly enjoyable lap down one of the most amazing walled in canyons I have ever had the pleasure to visit. And just like that, Box season was underway.
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| Does it get any better? |
I enjoyed another 4 laps down the box, each at varying flows and speeds. One of my favorite kayaking partners, Cole Moore, and I enjoyed the company of many fantastic individuals, the majority of whom were named Ben.
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| Two happy guys |
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| Ben Luck in it |
Our Clarksfork season culminated with 2 laps in a day. This objective had occupied a lot of space in my life for the better part of 7 months; it became a mantra through cold attainments on the Truckee, hikes out of Burnt Ranch Gorge and after work ski tours. After setting shuttle-- which was almost an epic in itself thanks to my Subaru's propensity to overheat coupled with its aversion to hills-- Ben, Will Grubb and I hung out by a small tributary next to the put in, reading and relaxing in preparation for our big push the next day. Cole and Carli showed up just before sundown and it was an early bedtime for all. 3:40am came quickly, we ate breakfast and geared up, putting on well before sunrise. The class 4 lead in before the first major portage felt extra exciting in the dark. I was responsible for our sketchiest moment of the day, nearly missing the last chance eddy for the Green Monster portage due to my memory of the rapid right before it being significantly larger at higher water. The 4 of us moved quickly through the Green Monster, the cool morning temps and light boats making it less of a slog than normal. The combination of it being Sunday and lowish flows filled the box to the brim with groups and we were relieved to be passing everyone's camps while they were still asleep-- a traffic jam would have likely put a damper on our ambitions. The sun had barely touched the confines of the Box when we arrived at the halfway point. We practically ran through the next couple portages and it was a blur of paddling, walking and fruit snacks until we were back at the take out. In an act of immense generosity, Carli had offered to drive our shuttle, making the whole day possible. The drive back to put in was a somber affair. We talked little but consumed much caffeine. The second lap was more of the same. A sense of deep euphoria set in as we made it through the last portage. We had done it! Elated, we pulled over to where a big group of Colorado boys were camping, enjoying a final few moments in the canyon before the paddle out. We pulled into the takeout for the 2nd time roughly 14 hours after we had put on for our first lap.
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| Thanks to the CO boys for capturing the happiness. Left to right: Will Grubb, Cole Moore, Ben Luck, myself |
I am undoubtedly vulnerable to the fallacies of speed descents. It is easy to confuse the desire to push my limits and move efficiently through terrain with the ego inflation that is produced through doing a river differently than it is normally done. After doing it in a day in 2020, both Cole and I felt deeply inspired by the possibility of doing it twice. It was an honor to share the experience with him. I don't care if people know we did it, that wasn't what it was about. It was a fantastic day of kayaking and a deeply humbling experience; one that I will be forever grateful to have shared with some of my closest friends.
I closed out the summer spending a couple weeks living frugally and joy lapping the North Fork as much as possible everyday.
That's all for now, hopefully I can maintain this effort to both cultivate my writing and article some experiences that I hold close to my heart.
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