Monday, March 6th, 2006. Elwha River, Washington.
The seventh episode in the written work of Tony Morgan on kayak Americana.
Do you ever do something then at that very instant think, ‘No!’… One of mine was turning the fan on in the car, which in turn released several pounds of dust, deposited in the ventilation ducting from the previous day’s rally escapades to the campground.
Coughing and choking, with the internal visibility dropping down to zero, I pulled over and got out.
Four weeks ago this had been an almost new white Escort, it looked like a 4 wheeled compost heap now. Close inspection of the inside as the dust cloud settled revealed a leaking bottle of sun tan lotion in the passenger foot well, mixing with several grades of soil and foliage. The driver’s seat had stains of an unknown origin that looked similar to those found on the soft coverings of a retirement home. The rear carpet was stained red from a combination of a leaking Pepsi can and a cardboard box. Banana skins in various stages of fermentation complemented escaped popcorn, nachos and a lonely French fry seeking refuge in the concertina of the hand brake cover.
It could have been worse, the previous day a truly pathetic attempt at securing two boats to the roof nearly wrecked the bonnet. Rather than correct the obvious engineering flaws in attachment method we simply blessed it with the words, ‘we are not going far’, usually this sacred mantra works and has defied the laws of gravity on many occasions. To cut a long story short, both boats were travelling forward at the speed of the car independent of being attached to the roof. If the car deviated from this speed, i.e. slowed down they would simply keep moving, heading for the bonnet.
What followed was a synchronised event that the Red Arrows would be proud of. Both front windows were opened whilst maintaining speed, then the brakes were gently applied until the car came to a stop.
The boats continued their forward trajectory, came free of the useless straps, and were just about to put a large dent in the damage collision waver insurance, when we both reached out of the open windows with one hand to slow them and quickly slipped out of the door to halt further progress. It was the only time the two of us had managed to do anything in unison. As an aside to this I remembered a previous conversation regarding the use, and abuse, of rentals, related to paddling. Apparently in North America the companies get extremely upset if you do any damage to the roof. In Alaska though they don’t care what damage you do to the roof as long as you don’t crash into a moose. I guess size matters.
Remember the Elwah. This was another dam realise river that wasn’t releasing, but it did conveniently run next to the camp site, coming extremely close to the road 2 miles further down stream.
An evening paddle was the objective, but before that erect the tent and read all these yellow warning signs. The signs all referred to animals that most civilised countries keep secured in a zoo. Apparently these beasties not only like to run wild around the local neighbourhood, but they view us outdoors types as a legitimate part of the food chain; worse than that they are looking down the chain when they do it. Luckily the forest service advises members of the menu on various ways of protecting themselves, this appears to involve various forms of running away, pretending to be asleep or, if that fails, unarmed combat. Strangely no mention is made of the high calibre weaponry most of us admire the Americans for. I read the information intently hoping that I would never need it, and wondered if, during an attack, people confused their defensive actions and thus offended wild animals. Bored mountain lions, prodding hapless campers with a single claw, trying to chivvy them from a ‘pretend to be asleep position’ to a ‘fight back aggressively’. With a laughing bear in the adjacent bush mouthing the word ‘eejit’.
No sooner do I turn away from the noticeboard than I am confronted by a hairy four legged beastie, fortunately this is a deer and is not on the list. So I can confidently use the ‘shoo, shoo’ method to assert my mental and physical dominance over this dumb woodland creature, which I later find out has been helping itself to the contents of my
unattended food store. Now who’s the dummy?
Back to the boating, the camp lies within a park and an admission fee is paid at a roadside booth, this is where I will take out. I drive the car to the booth, scouting the only rapid I can see from the road on the way there. This mighty rapid must be all of grade II (graded chesty cough) and turns out to be the only real rapid of the trip. Leaving the boat at the campground I drive the car to the take out and I prepare to enlist my secret weapon to transport me the 2 miles back to the start, the magic thumb. However I notice that the current car at the pay booth is equipped with a canoe, he pays, moves on, I chase after him. He eventually stops and I breathlessly ask if we can be friends, does he want to paddle the Elwah and can he run shuttle. Please, pleases mister, go on mister, please. In a polite but firm way he says ‘not a chance’ to any of this tom foolery and any way he’s only a beginner and surely I wasn’t planning on paddling such big rapids alone, had I actually checked them from the road. At this point an involuntary puffing of the chest occurred and before I could stop myself I’d mumbled something about no worries, my ego was not only stroked it had been tickled under the chin.
As I strutted off, the thumb started itching to be released, and I thought I heard him say, ‘be careful’. No sooner was the transport mechanism released from the palm than a pick up truck was compelled to stop. A big finger on an equally big hand pointed into the open bed of the truck and on my second ungainly attempt I managed to climb aboard, banged on the roof and mouthed ‘c-a-m-p-s-it-e’ through the rear window. I looked, or so I thought, like Ben Hur in his chariot, wind in my hair, bugs in my eyes. Getting down from the truck at the campsite was as clumsy as my attempt to get in but I banged the truckside confidently as if I was giving some international symbol to move on, chocks away.
On with the paddling paraphernalia, in the boat, and bump, bump, scrape, bump. This was like paddling in England; I abraded my way down the riverbed until the water became a little more channelled. I eddied out at a small surf wave on a bend and was happily playing when I noticed a movement in the corner of my eye on the opposite bank. There it was, ‘large as bloody life,’ a cougar, taking a drink, now what did that yellow sign say?
The cougar looked up and walked back into the trees, just as well for me it had because I wasn’t really in the mood for wrestling. Now was it just me or would you then spend the rest of the trip wondering…
A. Are there any more,
B. Can they swim,
C. Do they like plastic wrapped pre packaged food?
Coming from a nation that considers a wasp a dangerous animal this really impressed me. I’d actually seen the star of the warning sign. The roadside rapid I’d seen earlier turned out to be great fun, breaking in, out and ferrying, but there was little else like it before the take out. I loaded the car and I was about to leave when I saw the canoe man, gathering wood, and gave him the thumbs, he shouted back ‘you made it then, that was quick’. This time I suppressed the puffing chest thing, got in the car and headed home. Back at camp I was relaying the cougar thing to a fellow camper who was asking about my day, he confessed that in the twenty years he’d been in the area he hadn’t been lucky enough to see one. That chest-puffing thing started again but was soon deflated by his next gem of information. After telling him I’d just paddled the river alone, he too started the ‘including the roadside rapid’ song. I was just about to answer when he asked how far up the road past the campsite had I got in.
‘What?’
‘The big rapid, upstream from here.’
Later that night I walked up the valley and found a rapid that you could puff your chest out over. A fifty-yard stretch of boulder choked, quickly descending gorge. Hmmm.
Next day I drove past the canoe guy on my way out of the park and he gave me the sort of wave that Spitfire pilots would get as they headed of to battle with Jerry, one lesser mortal acknowledging someone made of the sterner stuff, the real thing, true grit. I felt my foot press the accelerator a little harder as a sheepishly half waved back. What a spanner I had been.
[Ignacio Wenley Palacios]
in Humour
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Response: Elwha RiverThis blog has lots of good kayak and canoe info....
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