Desolation and Gray - June 1999 - Page 2

So the old pattern of river travel sets in quickly.  Wake up, make breakfast, put everything away, load the boat, shove off, and paddle, stop for lunch or side canyon hikes, shove off and paddle some more, stop for the day, unload the boats, set up the groover, tents and kitchen.  Not a bad life if you ask me.

We hike up Rock Creek Canyon where there are some more petroglyphs.  It's a nice hike up and along the way you can see a section of vegetation that had been burned about a month ago.  On the way backto the boat, we stopped and soaked our feet and heads in the cool water of Rock Creek.  Cold, clear water is something you really enjoy on a hot day!

So the river is working its magic again.  We are all happy to be paddling, eating, and sleeping.

Around this time, I got onboard Don's boat to see what the trouble was.  In the first two strokes, I knew what the problem was.  Oars on a boat can be either freely rotating or they can have what are called oar rights.  Oar rights keep the oars at a certain angle to the oar locks.  Don's boat had oar rights.  Basically, when you mount the oars in the oar rights, you want the paddle to be perpendicular to the water.  This puts the most power from the oars into the water.  If you have the oar rotated either way from perpendicular, it pusshes water up or down but not back and forth.  So it's like shoveling snow all day and you don't get aanywhere.  This was the problem.  The next morning, we backed out the screws holding the oar rights in place and set the oars to the right angle.  We were getting into the first rapids and I felt it would be a good idea to coach Don a bit.  This meant that Angie had to captain the raft.  She was nervous at first but she warmed to the job and was reluctant to give up command afterward.

So as Don and I went downriver, we talked about dangers on the river - strainers (anything sticking in the river which acts like a sieve allowing water to pass through but solides like a body to stay trapped behind), holes (where water pours over rocks and sets up a back wash of water that can keep you tumbling over and over).  We talked about the mechanics of the river, the several causes of rapids, eddies, and how to handle the boat in each of these situations.  He made great progress, though one time, we were swept over a rock and into the hole behind it.  I can tell you now that a cataraft is a very stable type of boat.