Return to Bill Moran's home ...
Many moons ago, my cousin Ben let me try out his whitewater kayak. I was instantly hooked. It took quite a while before my life got to a place where I could afford such a toy and have time to play with it, but that time finally came last fall.
So, I wasn't a very skilled kayaker at the time of this tale. In fact, I'm still not now, but I'm a lot better than I was then.
Ohiopyle is probably one of the best places to kayak in all the world. No, it's not full of super-dangerous class VII rapids, and that's what makes it so great. The lower Yough is the perfect combination of challenging rapids and reasonably safe passages. Granted, there are accidents all the time, but overall Ohiopyle provides one of the best places I've ever heard of for safe and exciting whitewater.
On Memorial Day of 2007, I went with some friends of mine to paddle the lower Yough. This was the first time I'd paddled it, and I have to admit I was terrified. At this point, I could succesfully roll my kayak about 75% of the time, but had very little confidence in my ability to control it. Truth be told, the river usually decided where I was going and not my paddle, and that fact is an important part of this story.There were some adventures getting through entrance rapids, but they're hardly worth recounting. The real fun comes when we get to Cucumber rapid, with is the most challenging rapid on The Loop.
Keep in mind, this is the first time I've been through here. Spencer Clark, who'd been teaching me, explained that the river pulls your toward the right, into the worst part of Cucumber. The trick is when you see the huge rock just in front of you, hug it around the right side and you'll avoid being pulled even further to the right into the nastiest part of Cucumber.
Cucumber rapid is what's frequently referred to as a "hole" or "hydraulic". What this means is that the water (lots of water!) pours over a cliff in the river bed, then comes up against a rock. The result is a waterfall, then water just below the waterfall rising up the rock and pouring backwards in a never ending breaking wave.
"Is that the big rock?" I ask, pointing down river. "No," answers Spencer. "You can't see the rock from here."
To describe the scene, we're sitting in a pool of calm, flat water. Downstream, the river drops like a flight of stairs, with uncountable tiny rapids as it cascades over and around small rocks. At the bottom of this staircase is Cucumber rapid, which is so far down that we can't even see it from where we float.
Against my better judgement, I follow Spencer out into the current and down the staircase. (To be honest, I really didn't have any choice, and I don't actually have any better judgement)
I floated down the river after Spencer, dropping over a myriad of tiny waterfalls, and grinding over or bouncing off uncounted rocks, desperately trying to keep my boat upright and pointed downstream. (remember my comment on how poor my ability is to control my boat at this point)
Suddenly, it's there. Cucumber rapid is right in front of me. The huge rock is on my left, and I'm in the wrong place! I've let the river pull me too far to the right, and there's really no time for me to correct. (Keep in mind that an experienced paddler could probably have corrected easily.)
Despite the fact that this is the most exciting part, I want to pause for a moment to point out that the folks from Ohiopyle Adventure Photography wisely choose this location to have a photographer on the shore shooting pictures. Lucky for you, dear reader, since you will now have visual aids. (feel free to click on any picture to see the hilarious looks on my face in 32-bit high-definition! But be warned, these are truely hi-def pictures, and about 1.5M each (that means big download in layman's terms))
This first shot is about the time I'd realized how utterly screwed I was. Notice the complete panic, the utter lack of any attempt to fix my predicament. I've frozen up so utterly that I don't even have my paddle in the water!
This next shot is me heading over the "waterfall" part of the hydraulic. You can see the "wave" part in the lower left of the picture. Notice the utter terror on my face, and the complete lack of any activity. I'm still foolishly holding my paddle out like I'm walking on a tightrope or something ...
This next one is my favorite. This is how you play "Where's Waldo" with a kayak. Experienced kayakers are probably laughing themselves silly at this point, for those of you not in on the joke, I'll clue you in.
Remember when I described a hydraulic. The water pours over the cliff, then flows uphill and back upstream where it breaks like a wave and is recycled back into the rapid. The result is a strong current that pulls things (like Bills and kayaks) under the rapid.
The reason that all you can see in this picture is my head is that the kayak is about a foot below the surface of the water at this point.
I paddle a kayak called a "Hoss", made by a company called Liquid Logic. It's a nice boat. Kayak sizes are frequently reported in "gallons", which describes the amount of space inside the kayak. The Hoss is a 70 gallon boat, which means when I'm on board, it's about 10 gallons of Bill, and about 60 gallons of air.
I want you to grab 60 milk jugs full of air, go out to your pool and try to hold them under the water. See what I'm getting at? Add in the river current and that kayak was squirming around underneath me like you wouldn't believe. Add to that the fact that the water on top was trying to push me upriver, while the water below the surface was pulling me downriver, and my forward momentum essentially stalled at this point.
Luckily, I had the presense of mind to dig my paddle in and pull, which leads to the next picture ... bam! the kayak shot out of the water like that submarine in The Hunt for Red October.
Unfortunately, the boat squirted out to my right, and I lost my balance and went over the left side. There are some additional waves after Cucumber proper, and I simply couldn't keep the boat upright through them.
This one's my absolute favorite. I'm getting tossed around like a rag doll.
Cucumber rapid isn't as forgiving as one might wish for, and the wavetrain after the main rapid was violent enough that I wasn't able to roll myself back upright, and had to come out of the boat and swim to shore. If you're not familiar with the area, there's a large portion of slow, flat water after the rapid, so, with some help from other boaters I was able to recover all my gear and get back in the boat.
Since then, I've gotten a lot better. I still tend to get flipped at Cucumber, but I'm usually able to roll myself back up afterwards, and I sometimes manage to stay up through the rapid.