There were some great highs this spring as I hit some of my favourite rivers, The Grasse, St. Regis Silver Staircase, Bonniebrook, Achigan, Upper Mississippi and yesterday, The Upper Pet. This was fricking the BOMB!!!! You know how you finish a day and you think to yourself that it ended too soon. Not on the Upper Pet. At the end of the day, we were all spent! This was 26, Class IV, pushy, ear-to-ear grinning hmmm maybe we should have scouted, ooops...no time, side surf the hole, maybe a garage sale, maybe not, rapids?.many with boat hungry holes around the corner that left you making last second micromoves (or not in some cases) ....kind a day. Plus there was time to cast a line and catch some bass at lunch time. Waterfalls, slides, horizon lines big roller coaster crashing wave trains, blind corners, should I check, oops to late, paddle hard, correction strokes, surf out the soft spot of the hole, punch the eddy line, catch the eddy....remember to breathe...ahhhh.
At the end of the day, most of the crew is ready to take the portage around Poplar Falls. I forget the my own advice about good judgment and instead of scouting Poplar Falls, say oh what the heck the river is twice the volume and I know that Lake Travers and the take out are right after this 1 K stretch -- perfect time to run it blind... flip after the second drop, roll up at the lip of the third, pencil over and go slamming down vertically into an exposed rock, :
boat stops dead, body keeps going like a crash test dummy, Salto turns snub nosed, bone crushing pain shoots through both ankles, Salto splits open at the welds on the sides, chin smashes against front deck, boat topples over upside down, boater makes two roll attempts while head pinballs off a couple of rocks, another good hit to the back of the head and left elbow, I can see stars on the back of my eyelids, my ears are ringing, Poplar Falls does the Ground N Pound on Monti, I do the boaters version of the tap out and pull the grab loop, pop to the surface, get feet out in front, submarine through a couple of more holes, end up in a wave train, float out into Lake Travers on my back, while Adrian, who stayed center and safe, recovers my boat and paddle, as I appreciate the simple act of breathing AIR, waiting for my head to clear and wondering if I broke one or both of my ankles on the piton. Backstroke to the beach, test the ankles, nothing a little ibuprofen wont deal with suitably.
As I ice a swollen ankle and munch ibuprofen like smarties, I am already planning the rematch with Poplar Falls. You know anyone who wants to sell me an Eskimo Salto. ;
