San Juan - April 1999
Well, the 1999 rafting
season started back in early April when my brother Tom, my girlfriend
Angie, and I were able to get on a San Juan River trip. The permit
was held held by a guy named Jay. We
joined Jay and three other kayakers and helped to support them. Usually, it's not
a big deal to carry some extra weight/gear - in fact, sometimes it helps
because it makes the boat ride lower in the water and that helps the
boat go faster, since there is more friction between the raft and the
river, the river does more work! I said usually! This time well -
the extra gear gets piled on the boat and takes the shape of a sail or
at least a big wall! At this time of year, the San Juan is usually
running very low and this year was no exception. Rivers are
measured a number of ways - and one is cubic feet per second. The
San Juan was running less than 1000 cubic feet per second. This is
actually a lot of water if you think about it but doesn't really fill up
the San Juan's river channel too well. In fact, in spots the river
was quite shallow. Shallow water tends to run more slowly than
deeper water as the amount of friction between the bottom of the river
and the water is high in comparison to the total volume of water
flowing. The stage then is set - we have lots of gear in a
big pile and not much water. Now enter the third
player. The southwestern river canyon winds. Now I haven't
been on many rivers outside the southwest so you'll have to forgive me
if this occurs everywhere - but usually in the afternoon as the heat of
the sun expands the air, the air rises, and in canyons rising means
going up river, opposite of the way the river runner wants to go.
These are the typical afternoon winds we get and we expect them and deal
with them.
But this river decides to
throw two straight days of wind at us. And not just in the
afternoon. It's not much fun to buck the wind in a kayak.
It's even less fun to buck the wind in a raft that rides high, has lots
of gear piled on, is running in shallow water, and has only three crew
members.
I want to take a moment here
and thank my crew - Tom and Angie. They may not have liked every
second of the trip but they did what had to be done - paddle against the
wind with a huge load and little help from the river. And they
even seemed to enjoy it sometimes. I apologized to them a bunch
but they would have none of my apologies. "It's just what the
river does", they'd say. You'll see this same attitude
later. They are two of the strongest, most determined paddlers I
have ever had the pleasure to be with.
I felt so bad about this
wind. But there was nothing I could do to change it. Is this
a lesson on life that nature is sending my way? Perhaps.
Lessons on being humbled by the wind (and nature) and about working hard
to get where you want to go in the face of resistance.
There isn't a lot to tell
you about the sights on this trip as we were pretty bone tired at the
end of the day's paddle and could do little more than eat and sleep.
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