Kayaking the Pemigawasset
August 20, 2005
Phds @ launch
Part 1: The Trip
The day was a little iffy...But the intrepid crew decided to go for it. They had this one opportunity and what the heck, who ever got hurt by a little rain anyway. So orf they went. They almost turned back in the first 10 minutes. The river was very shallow right after put-in. They had to portage for about 50 yards. Too late, once past the shallows their fate was sealed. Occasionally they met more obstructions and had to portage, or snake thru very shallow goings. For the most part however, the trip was wonderful. Miles of pristine river, clean and clear to the bottom. They all reveled in the enjoyment of the rips they encountered from time to time.. Better than a ride at an amusement park!
Little did they know the danger that lurked ahead. The showers they bravely endured were adding to the velocity of the river. The slightest addition of water increased the force of the rips enormously! The worst waited ahead. They were teased into confidence. They met every challenge and overcame it. No rip too violent. There was even a multi turn rip that yielded to their developing skills. As their confidence grew, their attention to the river and simple safety practices diminished. Close to the end of their trip it lay in wait. A bank of stone and gravel grew innocently from the left, obscuring a complete view of the dangerous turn. The shallow left bank forced the river into the right bank deeply, cutting into the softer dirt, undermining the trees growing there for years. Undermining their grip with the earth, and finally falling, but still holding on, limbs jutting into the center of the rapids, providing an almost impossible passage for the over confident, underexperianced group. One by one, the river sucked them in.
The first to succumb was Borb. His boat was the longest in length, the lowest in profile. His bow went under a jutting tree branch, preventing him from taking the turn. Holding him in a vice like grip, making forward progress impossible! The river was only about 10 feet wide here. Typically 50 feet or more, it was all now channeled into a minuscule 10 feet. The volume passing thru the tiny passage was incredible. Borb's boat tipped to the left as the pressure drove him even further into the downed trees. Unforgiving tree limbs gripped him, tons of warter forcing his boat deeper into the cataclysmic inundation, altering instantly the angle of the boat to the surface so that gallons of warter now cascaded into the deepest reaches of the kayak, sealing his fate. There was nothing he could do. He was being sucked under! Worse, the peckerheads behind him, were careening down the same channel, gripped in an unchangeable course all aimed squarely at Borb who was now in a life or death struggle with Mother Nature!
Bam! Dave hit him first, squarely in the upper back, just below his head, almost decapitating him. Dave then went in. Focused entirely on holding his boat away from the struggling Borb, Dave was quickly run down by Charlie's green woodsman kayak. Dave thought, "Christ, now I'm being pinned. The hell with Borb, it's every man for himself! Torm on his big orange boat crashed into Charlie, Matt into Torm. Torm's glasses flew orf, Borb somehow got himself freed from the vise like grip of the boats, and crawled on hands and knees onto the gravelly sandbar, dragging his Kayak behind him. This island of stability provided a way out for the others, the frantic cries of "Oh Shit ! This is IT!" and "Mommmmy", changed to: My Fuc&**% camera!" "My God-Da*&%# Hat." "There goes the freekin drinking water." and "I can't drive without my glasses!"
Like drowned rats they crawled and stumbled onto the banking, each helping another, boats rescued, debris plucked from the shallower water, other stuff rapidly moving downstream, out of sight. It was over. Cold and wet, but safe: no-one required CPR, the worst damage was water invading their ear canals and the loss of an expensive digital camera. Egos bruised, losses tallied, glasses found, water emptied from the boats, one by one they got back into their kayaks, and paddled on. Each contemplating what might have been. Each slyly contemplating the next year's awards that this would surely bring.
