View photo/Mike Griffin Kayakers gather along the banks of the Arkansas River before a January run of Brown's Canyon.

Scare interrupts rare winter kayak trip

By MIKE GRIFFIN
The Pueblo West View

The Bald Eagle watched for a while from a short tree that overhung the water. He saw 15 brightly colored kayaks floating down a river that was supposed to be quiet this time of year.

As the humans began to float past, he leaped from the tree, spread his massive wings just 20 feet above the heads of the intruders and leisurely flew away.

As I floated under that eagle, delighting in my return to the river after an eight-week absence, I took my closest-ever personal encounter with our nation's symbol to be a good omen. This would be a great day.

But maybe his flying off was a sign of nature's disdain. Not long after, our large and merry group would be reminded that nature must be respected, and even a leisurely day on a mild stretch of river can turn serious - especially in the dead of winter.

The day came together when a guy kayaked Brown's Canyon in early January, then posted on a well-traveled Web site that the run was free of ice and had enough water in it for a fun run. He wanted to go again, and now that people knew the run was ice-free, many were eager to join.

There were boaters from Durango to Denver and many places in between who said they would make it, and the meeting was set for Jan. 18 near Nathrop.

I got there first, and in a little while, there were 15 of us standing around, smiling in the unusually warm weather. The temperature was approaching 50 and the sun shone strongly. There were many comments along the lines of "I'm happy to see there are so many other boaters around who are as crazy as me."

While many of us were meeting for the first time, there was an instant camaraderie as we delighted to find so many others who share the same passion for the sport. And that's the beauty of a community Web site like Mountainbuzz. It brought us all together on this day.

But the danger of a Mountainbuzz-originated trip is that you end up paddling with people you don't know, which has inherent risks. It's important in paddling to trust your partners and to know how they are going to act and react. And it's important to know the abilities of those on your trip.

But this day was too much fun for some of us to think about these things. And after all, Brown's is a pretty mellow run that gets even more mellow at low flows.

Still, as I was getting suited up and climbing into my boat, I felt a tingle of an alarm somewhere inside me when I heard that one of the girls paddling with us had swam at Shoshone on the Colorado River a couple of weeks earlier. Shoshone isn't a tough stretch of river, and swimming there indicates that a boater probably isn't very advanced.

And while swimming on Shoshone or Brown's Canyon in the summer isn't usually a big deal, it's different in the winter. With water temperatures in the 30s, hypothermia becomes an instant concern if a paddler becomes separated from their boat.

But the sun was shining and the faces were grinning. I was one of the first into my boat and off the shore. While everybody was excited to be paddling in January, some still were a little concerned that the water would be too cold. But I quickly found a deep enough pool, threw the nose of my boat down and cartwheeled over. I landed upside-down, quickly rolled my boat upright and grinned as the icy water poured off my helmet.

One of the paddlers playfully said, "Somebody control him." I didn't even know this person two hours earlier, and already she was playfully poking fun at me in a manner that reminded me decidedly of something my sister would have said when I was growing up. Ah - the beauty of kayak camaraderie.

As the sun continued to shine and the temperature continued to rise, we floated down the shallow, sleepy Arkansas River.

Soon we entered the canyon proper, and the more significant rapids approached. I hurried ahead of the group as we approached one of the bigger drops, and I hustled through the rapid and grabbed my camera to shoot the others as they came through.

One boat flipped, and I got a shot of it upside down. The girl paddling it tried to roll, and failed - going over a second drop upside down. She appeared to try to roll one more time, failed and bailed out of her boat - swimming beside it in the icy water. As I put my camera away, a few paddlers rallied to her and helped her get to shore as quickly as possible.

She said she was okay, and not too cold, and when she was back in her boat, we headed downstream once more. But as I came through the next rapid and caught an eddy below it, I saw another of the guys working to get the same girl's boat to shore again. Apparently, she had swam again, though most of the group didn't see it happen.

But the guys who did see it said it was bad: She had washed under a little apron of ice skirting a rock, which happened to be slightly undercut. For perhaps 20 seconds or more, she was trapped against the underside of the rock and under the ice. She eventually wiggled free of her boat, pushed herself off the rock and emerged from under the ice.

When she got to shore, she was cold and very unnerved. Nobody trusted her to get back in her boat and paddle the next rapid in her current state, fearing another swim and the onset of hypothermia. She didn't argue.

The problem is, in the middle of Brown's Canyon, there is no quick escape. You can't climb up the bank to a road, hitch a ride and get into a warm car quickly. You're in the wilderness.

Furthermore, we had started a little late and the sun was already getting low in the sky. We had at least 6 miles between us and our cars at Stone Bridge, where we intended to get off the river. Everybody realized we had a developing situation that could get serious if not handled correctly.

We decided that the swimmer and one of her friends would use the railroad tracks along the river to walk around any serious rapids, while two of the stronger paddlers would use a tether to tow the girls' boats downstream. The girls could get in and paddle on the flat stretches.

We intended to get to Hecla, halfway between us and our originally planned takeout, and we would leave the swimmer and a friend or two there. Meanwhile, two of the strongest paddlers would sprint ahead of the group to get downstream to the takeout as quickly as possible, and then drive a car back up to Hecla to pick up the swimmer and anybody else who decided to get off the river there.

So while two sped downstream, the rest of us worked our way toward Hecla. When we hit a spot where mostly flat water remained between us and Hecla, the swimmer climbed down to the river and got back in her boat. The group, in a hurry, began to head downstream - leaving just the swimmer and one of her friends behind as the swimmer was slow in getting ready to paddle again.

I didn't like the idea of leaving these two behind by themselves, even if it was only in flat water. So I hesitated, and then decided to stay behind with them.

It's a good thing I waited. Only a couple dozen yards after starting out, the friend of the swimmer inexplicably flipped over in very shallow water. Banging her head on rocks, she decided she wouldn't be able to roll and she bailed out of her boat.

Now the girl who was supposed to be looking after the swimmer was swimming herself. And the somewhat shell-shocked girl who had already swam twice was the only one there to help, aside from me. I looked downstream as the rest of the group was vanishing from sight and yelled, "Swimmer!"

But nobody appeared to hear me.

So I hurried over to the girl in the water, who was frustrated with herself but apparently okay. She needed little help getting to shore, but I got out of my boat and stood in the icy shallows to help her lift her swamped kayak out of the water and help her drain it.

When we got the second swimmer back in her boat, we paddled on to catch up with the group. Finally, we saw them pulled ashore and I realized there was another rapid they felt the swimmer should portage. A couple of the guys were obviously anxious for us to hurry and catch up, wary of the setting sun and unaware that there had been another swim.

We explained what happened, and everybody looked at us with incredulity. They said they hadn't heard my whistle.

The tethers were reset, boats were towed briefly once more, and we reached a place where only a little flat water remained between us and Hecla.

A couple of people agreed to stay with the swimmers and get out at Hecla, while a few of us decided to race the sunset to Stone Bridge. Having never paddled Brown's Canyon before, I decided to join the group going all the way.

Finally having left the struggling boaters behind, I found myself in a smaller group composed only of excellent kayakers. We knew we had to hurry to avoid losing daylight entirely, but the mood still became decidedly more relaxed.

We paddled hard, nonstop, for about 4 miles, but we chatted and laughed as we went.

Finally we reached Stone Bridge and got out of our wet paddling gear.

I drove home that night pondering the vagaries of a Web-inspired paddling trip. I had met some fun new people and was able to get on the river in January. But the group had been too large and didn't work well together, and we approached the line where a fun day crosses into being a survival situation.

I'd rather paddle with a small group of people that I love and trust, but I am glad nonetheless that I got to paddle.

It's below zero in Salida now as I type this, and it might be another month before I get to paddle again. But the season is coming.

For some of us psychopaths, it never really ends.

Reporter Mike Griffin is an avid whitewater kayaker and regularly shares his adventures with View readers. He can be reached by email at mgriffin@pueblowestview.com. 

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