I'm allowing myself one self-indulgent post. This is it. Feel free to skip past the Kellie action shots to get to the content you might actually care about. If you're interested in learning about the mechanics of rowing, read on, but you've been warned.
3/29 Soap Creek Camp (11.3) to 21.7 Mile Camp
Another beautiful day to be on the river. We packed up camp, left later than expected (LTE count: 3), and set out to log some more miles.
Beautiful flatwater framed by the walls of Marble Canyon
Photo credit: Chris Inman
The early stretches of Marble Canyon have a ton of flatwater, which means that yours truly got to spend plenty of time behind the sticks. Because if there's one thing I love, it's rowing without fear of gnarly consequences!
Some context: I rowed a boat or two in college:
That's me on the far left
I'm third from the right. Looking out of the boat (naughty!) as per usual.
Now, as you may expect, rowing a racing shell is pretty different than rowing an oar-rigged raft. For one, racing shells have sliding seats so that rowers can generate power from their legs (if you've seen an indoor rowing machine AKA erg, it more-or-less looks the same inside of the shell). Secondly, oar rafts position the guide to face the bow, so the primary motion is a push, rather than a pull, as in the case of rowing (or crew, if you want to call it that, although "crew" is technically a synonym for "team," so when folks say "crew team" it's like saying "team team" but I'll die on that hill another day...).
Raft guides will definitely also use a pull, particularly if they're needing to generate a ton of power (pulls are stronger than pushes) to row into wind, get out of an eddy, pull away from an obstacle in the river, etc., but pulling in a raft has drawbacks because it means that the guide can't see what's in front of them (the stern is facing downriver).
On the early days of the trip, my push was atrocious, mostly because my brain was so hardwired to pull that every correction (needing to turn the boat left or right) was almost always the opposite of what I actually wanted to do. That said, 16 days of practice will eventually yield some positive results, and by middle of the trip, my push had come a long way. My Texas Hold 'Em mantra is "Don't Try Hard and Never Take Risks" and I applied the same philosophy to rowing rapids for the first portion of the trip ("Don't"). But after about a week, my ability to read water improved, I had *excellent* on-the-water coaching from Brad, Cory, and Joe (sadly never made it into Steve's boat 😞 ) and I felt pretty confident in my ability to manage lower grade rapids.
Because this is my one self-indulgent post, I wanted to include some action shots, and I scoured our shared Google Photo Album containing THOUSANDS of pictures, and I'm pretty sure there's only 2 or 3 photos of me actually pushing vs. pulling. But I did figure it out eventually, and now I'm pretty stoked on pushing because rowing is more fun WHEN YOU CAN SEE WHAT IS IN FRONT OF YOU!
Yep. Still pulling.
Photo credit: Cory Inman
Thought I was pushing until I saw a video. Definitely pulling.
Photo credit: Chris Inman
I'll be damned! I'm actually pushing!
Photo credit: Chris Inman
A standing push!
Photo credit: Chris Inman
Pushing with a unicorn!
Some debate among the crew as to whether her name is Princess Sparkles or Skull Crusher.
My vote is for Skull Crusher.
Some debate among the crew as to whether her name is Princess Sparkles or Skull Crusher.
My vote is for Skull Crusher.
Photo credit: Chris Inman
The real kicker is that reading water (staying in the current, avoiding eddies, etc.) is actually the most efficient use of energy on the water. I think back to the first few days on the water when I was (comically) trying to muscle my way down the river and wasting so much energy by ending up in eddies and not reading the current. Row smarter, not harder. That said, my desire to row the long, boring (not that anything on this river is actually boring) stretches of river did earn me my River Name: Autopilot!
And thus concludes my self-indulgence. Thanks for humoring me. Now back to regularly scheduled programming.
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On the docket for Day 2 were House Rapid (7) and North Canyon Rapid (5). We scouted House Rapid and everyone kind of took a hero line, but we all made it out without incident. North Canyon, on the other hand...
North Canyon (mile 20.7) is listed as a "read and run" rapid. What that means is that these types of rapids don't generally need to be scouted; you read the water onsite and run it as you deem appropriate. For this rapid, Andy was moved to another boat to make sure each raft had someone in the bow that could assist with throw ropes and pulling swimmers in if needed, which left Chris and me in the bow of Cory's boat. Chris had been battling a pretty nasty illness for the first 48 hours of the trip, so I was on swimmer-rescue duty (if needed), which is all well and good...unless you're the one that's swimming.
We were about 80% through the rapid when we got hit with a pretty significant wave just off the starboard bow of the boat--immediately washed both Chris and me out. Luckily, we were both able to stay next to the boat. Cory has the video footage of the rapid and the swim:
Video Credit: Cory Inman
It took Cory about 10 seconds to pull Chris back in the boat and about 25 to get me back in. In case you were wondering, the Colorado River is really f*cking cold. Thankfully, we were only about a mile from camp so we were able to warm ourselves up pretty quickly, but yeah, I'd put my Grand Canyon swimming experiences (yep, there's another one coming up...) in my "Top 5 Coldest Experiences of My Life." I was wearing a wetsuit, but I honestly think in this sort of situation I might have been better off (warmer) without it after getting back on the boat.
We made camp at the creatively named 21.7 Mile Camp. Dinner: Chicken and Veggie Fajitas with Mexican Rice.
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Chilling on the beach at 21.7 Mile Camp
Photo credit: Avery Higgins-Lopez
21.7 Mile Camp
Photo credit: Avery Higgins-Lopez
The next post will cover one of our two longest days on the river and I'm hoping to do a crew spotlight on Chef Ada!
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