Pikes Peak Whitewater Club (kayaking stories)

Kurt & Dave tackle the Ark! | Up the River With Half a Paddle

Kurt & Dave tackle the Ark!

by Dave Smiley

Well, sometimes a day starts out all crazy and ends up begin the best day going! On July 18^th, I was dropping my son and a friend off at a rafting company and then going to the CWWA / PPWC ‘meet and boat’. A car behind me flashed it’s lights and I recognized Kurt Schroeder! He followed me and I dropped the boys. It only took a few minutes to get to the campground where we found that (unlike last year) the campers were early birds and all the boaters were GONE! ARGH!

And someone had stolen the river! It had been at 2100 cfs on Thursday but now 2 days later it was down to 850! I want to find the guy with his hand on the tap and ‘explain’ some stuff to him.

Well, I’ve boated some neat runs on the Ark but I’m not good with take-out spots. We discussed the runs I knew. I’ve boated with Kurt before and feel comfortable with the two of us on some of the runs. We’ll skip Parkdale without even discussing it. A third and fourth boater would be best for that run. Tin Cup would be good and I felt comfortable with that run. Five class III rapids but the flow was down. I’d scouted Tin Cup so I knew it was down to a big class II. Andy at RMOC was nice enough to let us leave a car there and review the take-out options with us. We shuttled to Cotapaxi and got back to the boats.

The river was really nice at the put-in. Green waves about 6 inches tall and a decent current. Just right for getting loose in the boat! We had about ½ a mile to Tin Cup and we played all over the river. Brace this way, lean that way, getting all sort of good hip action in the boat. Coming up to the rapid, we pulled over and walked down to scout. The two killer hydraulics were rather tame but you still had to hit the line just a bit off the river left wall. We spotted our landmarks (water marks? "Just to river right of that white wave peak …) and put back on the water. I ran first and plowed through the drop and standing waves. Nice refreshing water in the face waves! I pulled the first eddy to spot Kurt and he had the same fun ride! We rode on down to where Red Rocks Rapid (III) was supposed to be but it wasn’t there! Just some standing waves. The eddies on both banks were good so we played with ferries back and forth through the waves and current. Boy, has Kurt got great control on his boat angle! I worked my stern draw ferry and was able (after several tries) to get down to one good quality stroke to cross the river. We had a long way to Railroad Rapid (III) but the river was working hard to provide us with fun. We came upon several islands where the river split. Choosing a path that had enough water was the challenge. Then once you were in it, the current would speed up making nice white waves and give you the opportunity to adjust to the other currents coming in to join yours as the river reformed. So here you are, bouncing along, with the river saying ‘watch the left bank or I’ll push you into it’, when that sneaky river starts dumping more flow in from the right! Cross currents, converging currents, and confused waves! Lots of fun! Balance! Pivot, lean, pivot, lean, lean, pivot! Stay loose in the boat and play those waves! Normally, I don’t like the braided sections of the river but today it was great. The current sped up, the waves got chest high, and lots of skills were called into play.

We hit about 3 more of these braided sections before we got to Coaldale. The biggest one was where Railroad rapid WOULD have been. The waves got nice and bouncy there. However, at this section, Kurt showed he was a better river reader than I am. I stayed mid-river until I decided which branch to take. He jumped right on the correct one way back. So to get to the good channel, I got to cover 40 yds of 3 inch water and rounded rocks by pushing my boat. I should have carried it! Bump Bump push Bump bump bump push. Kurt was way ahead and found an eddy to pull into. I was tired due to my route. When Kurt asked my to spot him while he rolled, I jumped at the chance to rest! We floated along with about 7 feet of water below us and Kurt popped several very nice rolls. Kurt and I let the current carry us along with just the occasional whitewater where the river bent a bit. We talked of ships and sails and sealing wax (well, actually more about our lives and hopes and boating). He asked about when we’d hit the next rapid and what it was like. "Well Kurt, when the canyon walls start to climb we’ll be close to Cottonwood. It’s a III and should still be a III. Mostly pourovers and hydraulics at this flow. Right below it is Little Cottonwood. It’s also a III and had BIG rocks in the middle of the channel." And the next thing I knew, the canyon walls had jumped way up above us, the current was speeding up, and I could see just the tops of whitewater beyond a horizon line. Whoops. No more eddies. Whoops. This calls for … BOAT SCOUTING! I remember that at this flow, river center was the start of the correct line. "Kurt, stay river center and adjust your line as you crest the first wave!" Running ‘probe’ for him, I accelerate and lead in. Drop, crest the back side of the wave, look, pivot, stroke, drop, crest, look, …. Looking about 3 waves ahead while I made my move on the wave under me, time slowed down. There was all the time in the world to adjust my angle or hit another stroke. Looking down, slicing between two little hydraulics while lining up to miss the next one was like a slow motion thrill ride. When the waves finish, I spin the boat to spot Kurt. Look how fast he’s going! Was I traveling that fast on the water? He has this huge grin on his face as he finishes the final few waves. I notice my cheek muscles hurt and realize I have a BIGGER grin on MY face! What a rush that was! Lots of little hydraulics and lots of little drops. Not only did we have clean runs, we were moving all over the rapid at will! My strokes felt crisp and the boat did just what I asked of it. All right! That was BOATING!

Now with little time to re-group, we’re into Little Cottonwood (III). It looks like a slalom course with BIG rocks set as the gates. Looks like left of center is a good path. Drive for the line, put a sideways angle on the boat, pass a rock, 2 forward strokes to bypass that little hole, spin the boat and take 3 hard strokes around that next rock, spin the boat, 2 strokes, sliiiiiiddde by that rock, and the hard work is done. Now, just find the biggest waves and go bash them! Solid water on my chest! I love it! Too bad it doesn’t last very long. It’s a short rapid.

We had about ½ mile left to the takeout. The first 6 miles of the trip went slowly but this last 5 miles has been so fast. I check the time and find out that it took just as long as the first 6 mile section. Gosh, how adrenaline plays havoc with your sense of time. We play with the river some more. Leans, braces, and such. We’re hunting any white waves we see sniffing them out and diving from one side of the river to the other to catch them. We get to run another braided part of the river and make the most of it too.

This was a great river day. Good company, a good feel about the moves I made on the water, some good practice spots, and some GREAT fun in the rapids. You know, for a low-moderate flow like this, we found a LOT of whitewater and lots of waves to hit. The rapids were just right too – lots of adrenaline and nothing that put the ‘fear’ into you.

OK, Bottle this day and I’ll take a case.

by Kurt Schroeder

The last weekend of September I had the great fortune to accompany a group (seven rafts, four kayaks) over to Utah to boat Westwater Canyon. We put in at Loma Colorado for the fairly leisurely trip through Ruby and Horsethief Canyons prior to entering Westwater Canyon. Ruby and Horsethief are primarily class 2 with a few class 3's thrown in whereas Westwater is solid class 3 and 4 that at high water can provide some Grand Canyon-esque waves and holes. The water level was pretty modest for our trip, about 4,000 cfs, but would provide me with the biggest water that I had ever kayaked. I should preface this with the fact that my first ever whitewater rafting experience had been Westwater Canyon about ten years ago. The year after that first trip came another Westwater trip and then two trips in subsequent years down the Grand Canyon. So I had seen the canyon before and have had experience with big water, just not in my kayak. It was the fourth and final day of our trip that put us into the meat of the canyon and the biggest rapids. The later part of canyon is very narrow and has walls of Vishnu schist that stretch vertically into the water allowing for no beaches, a few very small eddies, and few if any stopping places. About two-thirds of the way through the canyon you come upon Skull Rapid, not the longest rapid in the canyon but the one with the biggest hole and the greatest consequence if you screw up. It is also the only one you can scout because a nose of jumbled rock on river left constricts the river, gives you a place to walk and provides an itty bitty eddy that allows you to stop. Double parking our rafts in the eddy allowed us the chance to scout the rapid, the only one we scouted on the entire trip. Up to this point I had been doing great. Big waves and class 4 rapids presenting no problems whatsoever, feeling good and paddling great.

At Skull Rapid the river takes a bit of a left turn. Lower in the rapid on river right is the "room of doom" which is an area about the size of a three or four car garage that the river has carved into the canyon wall. At high water the eddy line at the "room" becomes so strong that you cannot break it to get out if you're unfortunate enough to land in there. The canyon walls are nearly vertical so climbing out isn't an option. At 4,000 cfs getting out of the room wouldn't be a problem but it's still not a place you'd want to be. A monster raft-eating hole lies just right of center. Even at this level if you go in the hole you're trashed, raft or kayak. The hole is created by skull rock, hence the name of the rapid. A little left of center is razor rock that lies a little below the surface (at this level) and runs parallel to the water flow. You can imagine what caused a rafter to give the rock its name. Just left of that is clam rock (about 15' away from razor) which juts out of the water looking like a clam shell. The run is to start a little right of center, stroke hard across the tongue and break the left lateral, split calm and razor rock and then paddle on down through some squirrelly water and a few 3'-4' waves and you're home free. If you go right you're utterly destroyed by the monster hole and possibly in the room of doom. Go center and you're still munched (and probably upside down) by a couple smaller but still very nasty holes. Break the left lateral and you're in great shape. You can go too far left like one of the rafts did and have some trouble with clam rock but it pales in comparison to what could happen on the right. My turn comes, I paddle out to the top of the tongue facing right. I see where I want to be and plant my paddle to swivel my hips to turn the boat (that is so easy to do with flows this strong) and I hear this craaack. It was the kind of noise you hear when you break a chicken leg in two. I look down and I have half a paddle in each hand. Actually, it was more like 1/3 and 2/3's, but nonetheless I had two pieces of paddle now. I try to hold the two halves together, no good. I over lap them trying to grasp one on top of the other. Can't do it. From the bottom of the rapid I hear J.W. (one of the other kayakers who is an Arkansas River ranger and killer kayaker) yell, "you better start paddling"! I toss the shorter of the two ends over my shoulder (ask Jim McGee, club member, who was behind me what that looked like) and start paddling like hell to get to, and break the lateral. On the way down I switch from side to side to stay upright and on course. The guys at the bottom couldn't believe what they had seen. I couldn't believe it. I made through upright but the experience blew every bit of my concentration. From then on it was like I couldn't see past the end of my kayak. I used J.W.'s breakdown paddle (different weight, angle, length and feel from mine - sound like I'm making excuses?) for the next two rapids and got trashed, blew my roll and swam. They weren't even the worst or toughest rapids we'd been through. I jumped in a raft for the final rapid as we exited the canyon and rowed to takeout.

I learned a lot on the trip. It was the biggest water I'd ever paddled and now know much better what to expect. I'd like to think that if I had my paddle I'd have done fine through the bottom part especially with how I had done earlier, but that I'll never know. Regardless, I had a great time and it was an awesome trip.