Sometime on Friday (it was a rare slow day at work!) I landed up on Doug Ammon's website and signed up to be notified when his new book on the Grand Canyon of the Stikine is released.
I spent the rest of the day exchanging emails with a living legend. It was SO COOL that I felt like a gushing giggling school girl...
Very down-to-earth. I am tickled and it made my day, nay, week.....
And then on Sunday I went out paddling on the Sky. I was supposed to paddle with a few others. When I got to the Big Eddy take, there were a couple of guys (don't even know if they were paddling with us but they seemed to know the one person I knew in the group I was supposed to be paddling with). A random comment from one to the other was enough to turn me off and saw me quit that group and choose to paddle solo.
I put in above Boulder Drop, did a few laps on Boulder Drop, paddled down to Split Rock and ran back to my truck. The run back was the scariest!
I paddle to leave an "alpha attitude" behind and even an hint of that attitude in the group I am considering paddling with, makes me quit then and there. Being on the river is about as spiritual as I get and anything that messes with that is, to me, like pissing in a temple or church
This is not the first time and it will not be the last time either. The last time, I drove away from the Sierra City (NF Yuba) put-in after not liking the group I was supposed to paddle with and instead soloed the Goodyear Bar section further downstream.
Pat now knows that there are certain people, who if included results in my mysteriously need to walk my non-existent cat!
Paddling the Sky solo was still a lot of fun. Boulder Drop, even at 800cfs remains a significant Class IV rapid, it's now about 5 back-to-back Class III technical drops that will scare the hell out of a Class III paddler but allow a Class IV paddler to work various lines. It is beautiful
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1 comments:
I really thought that you had a cat that you needed to take on walks. :-)
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