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- Sep 29, 2014
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I haven't paddled much lately, ankle surgery last August has kept me out of boats, off bikes, and generally far too sedentary.But the doc gave me a green light last week, so I can start thinking/planning/dreaming of dipping a blade again into cool running water.
I started reading Calvin Rustrum's "North America Canoe Country" last night. Written in 1961, he describes in intoxicating detail wild rivers that course throughout Canada-just dotted lines on the map, where voyageurs may not have gone.
My paddling is far more meager than both Rustrum's accounts and many of you who post here. A few, few overnight trips in the Okeefenoke, similar length trips on the Shenandoah and Potomac, none of the really exciting and far flung waters where others go.
I started paddling after meeting a working buddy who had worked his college summers as a ww guide on WV's wild and wonderful rivers. We would R-2 his 16" personal Avon, tagging along behind the customer boats, hitting holes that they didn't want to, eating lunch left-overs after the paying customers had their fill. I'm willing to bet there is one rock on the Gauley that is still streaked with my fingernail impressions from my first big-water swim. This was the early 80's, before the Rt 19 bridge over the New River gorge was complete. One night, during a river guide's party, I remember driving out to the soaring, but not-yet-connected spans, and watching them climb the structure to the edge. Perhaps my slightly greater sobriety, or the understanding of physics from my engineering degree, prevented me from venturing out onto the steel. (And that, Brian Williams, is my story, I'm sticking to it.)
Canoeing came a little later. My first was a 15' Coleman, complete with aluminum pole through the keel and vertical connector post to the mid-thwart. I laced two inner tubes through that post, my first flotation. Unfortunately, my paddling wasn't good enough to not need that addition on Slippery Rock Creek, downstream of the dam. My first white water canoe adventure was a long carry back to the put-in after realizing I was in over my head-literally-many times...
Between then and now its been 30+ years of paddling in many different canoes and kayaks, but not nearly as often, and for as long, as I would like. I guess I'm in that huge category of intermediate, but I've probably got far fewer hours and many thousand fewer strokes than some of you. I've been lurking here for several months, joined last summer, and have only posted a few times. I thought it was time to officially say hello. I hope I haven't worn out my welcome by this introduction. Had we been around a camp-fire, I would have first offered good bourbon. And I will, if and when we get together.
dan
The pix is the nearly frozen Gunpowder River in Maryland, my "back-yard float." After reading Rustrum last night, I had to get out this morning and at least see it, drink coffee, and dream of paddles to come.
I started reading Calvin Rustrum's "North America Canoe Country" last night. Written in 1961, he describes in intoxicating detail wild rivers that course throughout Canada-just dotted lines on the map, where voyageurs may not have gone.
My paddling is far more meager than both Rustrum's accounts and many of you who post here. A few, few overnight trips in the Okeefenoke, similar length trips on the Shenandoah and Potomac, none of the really exciting and far flung waters where others go.
I started paddling after meeting a working buddy who had worked his college summers as a ww guide on WV's wild and wonderful rivers. We would R-2 his 16" personal Avon, tagging along behind the customer boats, hitting holes that they didn't want to, eating lunch left-overs after the paying customers had their fill. I'm willing to bet there is one rock on the Gauley that is still streaked with my fingernail impressions from my first big-water swim. This was the early 80's, before the Rt 19 bridge over the New River gorge was complete. One night, during a river guide's party, I remember driving out to the soaring, but not-yet-connected spans, and watching them climb the structure to the edge. Perhaps my slightly greater sobriety, or the understanding of physics from my engineering degree, prevented me from venturing out onto the steel. (And that, Brian Williams, is my story, I'm sticking to it.)
Canoeing came a little later. My first was a 15' Coleman, complete with aluminum pole through the keel and vertical connector post to the mid-thwart. I laced two inner tubes through that post, my first flotation. Unfortunately, my paddling wasn't good enough to not need that addition on Slippery Rock Creek, downstream of the dam. My first white water canoe adventure was a long carry back to the put-in after realizing I was in over my head-literally-many times...
Between then and now its been 30+ years of paddling in many different canoes and kayaks, but not nearly as often, and for as long, as I would like. I guess I'm in that huge category of intermediate, but I've probably got far fewer hours and many thousand fewer strokes than some of you. I've been lurking here for several months, joined last summer, and have only posted a few times. I thought it was time to officially say hello. I hope I haven't worn out my welcome by this introduction. Had we been around a camp-fire, I would have first offered good bourbon. And I will, if and when we get together.
dan
The pix is the nearly frozen Gunpowder River in Maryland, my "back-yard float." After reading Rustrum last night, I had to get out this morning and at least see it, drink coffee, and dream of paddles to come.
