My sister-in-law Vickie use to give her husband a trip each year for father’s day and I got to go along on two of them. One of them was a weekend canoeing on the Rifle River here in Michigan, and the other was a trip down the Youghiogheny in south central Pennsylvania. The ride down the Rifle, I’ll cover at some later time, but the one down the “Yo” was one hellava ride.
The ride to Confluence, Pennsylvania is an 8 hour ride so we left a day early to set up our tent, and check out the area. Around here, we have miles and miles of water to play in, down there they have only the rivers to use. When we pulled into Confluence we could see that the only reason that town was there was to serve as a center of operations for the river. All of the buildings were filled with canoes, rafts, and kayak’s, either for rent or sale, and the usual stores for campers. These were all located on the East side of the main road, and the river was on the other. The river at that point was a hundred feet across and strewn with boulders the size of Volvo’s. Upstream, there’s a city park with a 10′ waterfall as a centerpiece. At the falls, is a plaque that tells of George Washington having to stop there because of it. At the time George was a surveyor and they were looking for a way to get across the mountain’s to the Western Frontier. After looking at the countryside, and at the boulders in the river, I was amazed he had traveled that far! Anyway, Mike checked into the rental shop to confirm our reservations for the following day, and received instructions on where to go the following morning.
The next morning we arrived at a parking lot with a dozen or so other people, loaded onto a bus and headed up the mountain. The hills around here are high compared to the flat lands down state, but compaired to those hills in Pennsylvania, we’re flatlanders. I imagine that at one time, those hills were mountains the size of the Rockies, but after a few eons they wore down some. Still, when your sitting on a school bus, you can’t see up high enough to see the tops. About half way to our starting point, I noticed a lady sitting with her two children in a seat across from us, her husband stareing blankly out the window. She was holding onto those kids like a mother would have on the way to Auschwitz. She had that “We’re all going to die, but were going to die together” look in her eyes. I nudged Mike and pointed to her and I think he got the same impression. Our worries were confirmed when we arrived at the drop off point. There, pulled up on the bank was a 15′ aluminum canoe with 12 cubic feet of styrophoam packed into it. There was just enough room for one person in the back, and one in the front with NO leg room. It didn’t help much to see it looked similar to the lifeboat at theWhitefish point museum. When Mike first asked me about going on this trip, he had asked me if I was familiar with canoe’s and I was stupid enough to tell him that I HAD NEVER been flipped in one. Suddenly realized I was a loooong way from the Jordan River, and maybe my record was going right down the, well, the river.
The river there is maybe 200′ across but the current is somewhere around 15 miles per hour. There isn’t any shoreline to it either, it’s all just huge boulders and sheer cliffs coming down from the top’s of these hills. In this wide expanse of river are boulders of various sizes, but for the most part, it looked like open water so once again I felt reasonably confident in getting through this intact. We were then given instructions on what to do WHEN, not IF the canoe flipped over and my dreams of my record were gone. The guy told us that no matter what, stay with the canoe and while floating down the river, to keep your feet out in front of you with your knees bent. That way, “When you get slammed into one of those boulders, you might survive”. With the vision of that lady on the bus in my head, we loaded up and headed out. We got to clipping right along real quick, but after a couple hundred yards we began to get the feel of the canoe and the river, and settled in for the ride. It was just then that we hit our first boulder. That sumbitch was hiding just under the surface and with all the other ripples on the river, we couldn’t tell it was there. It’s amazing how fast one of those things can flip, and after realizing I was still alive I got my feet out in front of me. I couldn’t see Mike, which scared the daylights out of me, but when I yelled his name, he answered right away. He came up on the other side of the canoe not long after I came up. We both started laughing our butts off until I realized I’d lost my paddle. Fortuanatly, he’d hung onto his so we worked our way over to a shallow spot and flipped the canoe back over. It was nice to get back into the boat and we were able to warm up some. The river is damed up aways up river and the water is released from the bottom of the dam, instead of over the top, so that water is cold! I asked him since he had the only paddle if he wanted to sit in the back, and he just handed me his paddle and said he’d look for mine. We found it about a half mile farther down the river and we were able to retrieve it. We had another couple of mishaps, but we were able to stay verticle the rest of the ride and really enjoyed ourselves. Something I should mention here is when the sign says to “GET OUT NOW” be sure and get out now. 50 or so yards beyond that sign is the waterfall we saw the day before.
We awoke the next morning with the temperatures already in the 70’s, with a hazy white sky. We could tell from the deep red sunrise that it was going to be a scorcher, a perfect day to spend getting and staying wet. This was the day of the main attraction; White water rafting.
There were two or three different companies that dealt with rafting and after a little looking around, we found the one we were looking for. From the parking lot, we could see the piles of rafts stacked up along the river, and there was already a large group of people getting their gear on. As we came down to the group, there was a man there that handed us our PFD, and we had a seat on the bench.
The leader of the group first asked us if there was anyone there who’d allready been down the river before. After a show of hands, he told them that they’d be in the rear of the raft, because they knew what was coming and could handle it. He continued; “The rear seats are only for those who know what the hell they are doing” he said. He went on; “People may die here today; we have a long list of people who’ve met their maker on this river, and God has a long list of those who are about to. If you listen up and pay attention, maybe I can get you back off HIS list”. Well, that got MY attention. We got the same spiel as the day before, about keeping your feet out in front of you and a few other things. “There is no way that one person can haul another’s body out of the river, so it’ll take at least two of you, to get them out. If you see a person who’s fallen out of a raft from a different group, or as stupid as this may sound, someone who’s tried to run the river on their own, YOU WILL NOT HELP THEM OUT. In the process of pulling them out, you may get pulled in yourself, and that wouldn’t be good.” “On the fun side of this” he said, “You CAN hold a muitiny and throw the boat’s captain over the side” If your captain keeps getting your raft into trouble, THROW HIM OUT! Someone in the group will pick up the poor shmuck and return him to you at the next opportunity. There will be three guides in three of the rafts, and three more in kayaks running along with us. There are handle’s on the sides of these boats, and when you fall over, they will assist you. It is the captains responsibility to give out orders on which side of the raft the most power will be needed, and your lives may depend on him or her. That’s why it’s so important that you have a good captain. Before every rapid, we will stop before hand and give instructions on how to get through them. Then, one of the guides will go first and position themselves where the rest of the group can see him. This person will guide you through the rapids with hand signals. The second guide and the raft he’s in, will be responsible for picking up any of those who’ve fallen over the side, and the one in the middle is there to help where needed.” At this point he showed us what the signals were; Left arm up and everyone on the right side of the raft paddles, Right arm up and everyone on the left side paddles. If both arms are straight up, your doing good, keep it up. If both arms make a motion of ‘GET DOWN’, that means your all going to die, real soon. Fortunatly or unfortunatly, we had one of the guides with us. On the good side, he carried a paddle with him and could help steer from the rear. On the bad side, I’ll get to here in a minute. With that happy thought, they pushed us out into the current so we could practice a little before heading into our destiny.
Each of the rapids have their own name, it either describes what the area looks like or what happens while your there. The first rapid was, obviously enough, called Entrance. This is a class II rapid, so it’s easy enough to get through, and hard enough to let you know your in for a ride. We were given our instructions and as far as I could tell, we all made it through. At the end of that rapid, the guide that was sitting in the rear leans forward and tells me to get up off the bottom of the raft. Everyone else was sitting up on the sides like they should be, but my momma didn’t raise no fool. There was no way I was going to sit on the side and get thrown from this thing. He said the reason they all sat on the sides was in case we hit a submerged boulder. If we had hit one while I was down there, I could have shattered my knee cap. Remembering back to the day before, I got my butt up on the side. I have a picture of Mike and I in that raft as we went through that rapid, and I’m clearly on the bottom, and paddling like hell. Cucumber and the Camel & Walrus were a little tougher, so our team got to pull a couple people out of the river. The guide was right, it not only took two, but three of us to get them out.
Each rapid had it’s own challenges, some routes were in the dead center of the river, with huge, house sized boulders on each side; some were right next to the banks with boulders blocking any other method of getting through. There are stretch’s where it’s just wide open water, and this is where the mutiny’s started.
We had just passed the railroad bridge, which is a loooooong way above us, when the guides suggested that those boats whom arn’t happy with their captains, to just “Throw their ass’s over the side”. Boy, action started then! Five or six rafts had “Change of Command” so our raft, being in the middle, picked up three or four of them. We were getting a little loaded, so we started pulling up to the other rafts and delivered the “baptised” personnel. It was around “Dimples and swimmers” that we stopped for lunch.
We got to land first ’cause we had the lunch with us. After stepping out I looked up and thought I recognized the trees, but wasn’t sure. I’d had some education in trees and such, but this just didn’t add up. I was use to seeing these things as bush’s, and here they were 40′ tall! So, I asked one of the guys what they were, and sure enough they were Rhododendrons. Then I grabbed my sandwich’s and sat down next to a good looking older lady who really looked familiar. I introduced myself and asked her if she was from the Detroit area, she smiled and said no. I asked her if she was ever in Norfolk, or in the Navy? “No, sorry” she said. “People always seem to think they know me from somewhere, but I’m just a regular person, who probably looks like someone”. “Ok” I thought, but I didn’t forget her, or her voice. Some years later, I was watching a movie on t.v. when I heard that voice again, and when I looked, it was her! I asked Jan then who she was, and she told me it was Coleen Duhurst. Small world.
At the end of lunch the guides told us that if we wanted, we could walk back upstream some ways, and ride it down just using our PFD’s. What a ride that is!!! You hop step out to the center of the river, and then just jump in and have at it. You pass by large boulders, but your traveling so fast and with such force that you never get rammed into them. By the third time, I was wore out and ready to get back on the raft for the second half.
I think it was at “Bottle of Wine” where we were in the first position, so it was our guides turn to direct traffic. Instead of just passing over this waterfall, we manuvered our way up along this boulder that was a flat as a table top and maybe 20′ in diameter. After securing our raft, we all got out and had a look. Right next to this boulder, the water dropped 4′, and all the rafts had to go over it. While I was standing there, I started watching, and the rafts were doing well, but they were twenty or so feet from where I was standing. Then when I realized we were still going to have to get over those falls, right next to the boulder, well, I pissed myself. I tried to stop it, and the Lord know’s I tried, but there you have it, and as cold as that water was, it felt pretty good. From there we traveled down to the “Double Hydrolics”.
A hydrolic is a standing wave caused by a submerged boulder, and if you get caught in one, nasty things can happen. That’s where I got to save a guy’s life. As we were the first in line from the preceeding rapid, we were last, for this one. Our responsibility was to pick up stragglers, or bodies if things went really south. The raft in front of us got caught in this water feature, and a guy was thrown out. As we went by him, I reached down and grabbed hold of his vest and somehow, we got caught up on a boulder so he was hanging over a hole. His feet wern’t even getting wet, he was just hanging there in my grasp. I looked down and told him, “You ARN’T GOING IN GODDAMNIT!” and I hung on until I could get some help. I’ll never forget the look in that guys eyes as he hung there over that vortex. Mike and another man came over and lent a hand and we threw him into the raft. A little ways further downstream, we delivered him back to his raft. The only other rapid I remember was near the end, and I think it was called; “Rivers End, or Killer falls”. Anyway, this was a pretty complicated set of boulders we had to get through. There is a mountain of a boulder coming out from the left side of the river, maybe 30′. Then there is an opening of 20′ or so and then a line of boulders continuing all the way across the river. Once we got to the first boulder, we had to make a very fast left turn and then right in front of us, is another boulder bigger than the one we just cleared. There, we had to make an immediate right turn and then a fast left to avoid another boulder. All the while, the river is dropping about 10′ in elivation. We cleared the first boulder just fine, but as we made the right turn, I saw plastered against that boulder; an overturned raft with arms and legs sticking out the sides. When things calmed down again, someone asked our guide if we were going back for those people? “No” he said, “They arn’t with our group”.
So, if anyone out there want’s a little something out of the ordinary, and maybe die doing it, go to Google and type in Youghiogheny River, and take it from there.
