The Last Ride With Carl

Pushing our luck with the River Angels

"Carl, this is nuts. The water's really high." I felt a twist in my belly, knowing full well the man possessed some magical power making it impossible for me to ever say no to him. 

"Come on. It's perfect. It'll be cushy."

Our boats perched half on shore, half in the upper Clackamas River, pumping huge volume that day. I was stupidly concerned about not looking weak or timid. Being the only woman in the group and the newest at kayaking, I had something to prove…mostly to myself. Plus, trying to explain intuition vs. fear to that guy was useless.

We pushed off into the narrow eddy

Electric nerves searing through my body calmed when I felt the water's support under the boat. Carl, Joe, and Darren were hashing out who was going to take point. I ignored them, placed my hand on top of the cold, murky surface, and whispered a silent prayer for safe passage - a ritual with every river I rode. Asking the River Angels to guide me down was the wisest thing I could do before hopping on the back of that powerful Water Being. 

Carl barked, snapping me from my reverie, "Okay, let's run this safe. Stick together. Above the big drop, stay left of the boulder and catch the wave train. See ya on the downside." He smirked and winked at me.

Carl suddenly looked small

His bright, forced smile lit up his face in an awkward way. He looked out of place in the dreary, gray light of the falling rain and churning mess of water beyond us. The main current raged by just outside the calm nook we were floating in. Carl patted the top of his helmet with his right hand - the kayaking sign for "all good," then dug his paddle in the water and pulled himself across the stout eddy line into the main body of the river.

"We got this!" He yelled over his shoulder as the current grabbed his little red boat and tossed him into the fray. 

I still ask myself why I followed him across the eddy line that day. Why didn't I call bullshit and paddle back to shore, get out of the boat and shout, "I'll meet you at the takeout!" 

We put in where the canyon is narrow

The river, nearly out of its banks, was dramatic. Big hydraulics dug new holes behind boulders, making it hard to read where the safe downstream line was. The sound of huge rocks grinding on the bottom, shoved around by sheer force, gave me goosebumps. The entire river span was whitewater in the upper canyon. Safe eddies were far and few between. 

I put myself on a line behind my friends. It looked like they were riding orange, red, and green plastic candy someone flung out a window into the river. Seeing them was good enough for me. It meant they found a passable path through the whitewater maze. My mind and body shifted into complete present state. Meaning every single fiber of my being was in the now. Second-guessing was over.

Up ahead, the boats were tiny, disappearing into tumultuous water features and shooting back to the surface again like they were fighting some insanely powerful liquid dragon. Time disappeared. It was a fast, wild ride with split-second decisions; which holes to punch through, which ones to miss, when to paddle hard, when to go with the flow. 

Swiftly we were downriver where the canyon widens

The current was still ripping fast with large spans of smooth water to ride. We rested while moving after I caught up to the guys, "Holy shit, that was nuts! You guys are crazy!"

They were smiling huge, except Darren. He was not amused and looked worked over. 

"Man, did you see Darren window-shade in that beast of a hole?" They laughed and started retelling the adventure before it was even over. I sort of listened but kept my eyes forward. 

Never take your eyes off the horizon line. 

Joe piped up, "Hey, that big drop is coming up. When we scouted, it seemed easy. There are two boulders. Go right at the first one, then immediately hook left around the second one to hit the cushion."

Carl was floating backward, facing the rest of us

The man is a wizard in a kayak. He could ride gnarly Class V runs all day and make it look like a stroll in the park. Carl nodded, beamed his magic flirty smile my way, then spun around, taking point again. The "big drop" Joe warned of is a staircase waterfall. The river bends in a deep trench, gouging the left bank in a long line of deep waves - a wave train. When you ride one of those, it's fun, like an amusement park ride. Soft, cushy, and typically way safer and easier than the long string of foaming, grinding holes dropping down river right.

My kayak - a Diesel 6.5 - was bigger and more stable than the boats those guys were paddling. But it made me slightly slower. My friends hit a sub-current and got out ahead of me. I knew what the moves were. On the broader part of the river, it felt less frenetic. I watched them do the jag, then drop below the horizon line. When I reached the same spot a minute later, there were no huge boulders or rocks to mark the moves. My eyes darted across the span, trying to discern where I was in relation to the drop. A split-second stab of terror hit me when I realized the water level had come up steadily while we were on the river. The boulder marking the first jag was submerged and out of sight. 

My eyes caught what I thought was a disturbance below the surface. 

Is that the first boulder?

I jagged right around it and, within a heartbeat, knew I made a grave mistake. It was the second landmark, fully submerged. 

The horizon line disappeared

Roaring, white spray erupted above the line of sight. My eyes flicked river left. The guys were at the end of the wave train. Digging in, I paddled as hard as my body physically could, trying to move into the left-pouring current that would take me to them and away from what was below me. There was too much volume, too much water pushing towards the drop. The current stopped me still mid-river, even while paddling hard enough to explode my arms. It was the moment the wave train option slipped. My choice was to panic or to brace myself for one hell of a ride. 

I spun my angle from ferrying to aiming downriver and tried to find another tongue of water. There was no visible difference, no clear path to take. The last thought I had before slipping into survival mode was, "This is stupid. WTF am I doing out here?"

Then just like that, I was dropping, dropping, dropping, frothing white water surrounding me with incessant roaring. The boat jerked, sucked under, and flipped upside down. I tucked my body close to the deck and held a death grip on the paddle. The hydraulic was too strong to roll up in; I didn't dare put an arm out to brace. Before my brain could think of an option, I was upright. The boat banged into a boulder kicking it around, knocking me into another rock before the next drop sucked me under. This hole felt looser. I rolled up, then rolled up again, and rolled again before it spit me out. 

A loud roar thundered downstream 

I was powerless to move away from it. It took every ounce of fiber and strength I owned to keep the kayak upright. Imagine being in the ocean at the bottom of a massive wave when it crashes down on you. This drop was like a long string of those, but it never lets up. It is perpetual — one crash after another, one hole after another. 

The river yanked me down a narrow chute and scooted me past an enormous churning hydraulic large enough to swallow a train. I would have died in there of this, I am sure. And still, the constant howling below me getting louder. 

If the giant train-eater I just passed isn't making that sound, what is?

There was just enough time to catch my breath, get my bearings before a deep green tongue of water led me into a moderate pit behind a tall, round boulder. It was like being tossed into a giant washing machine. I couldn't tell which direction was up or down. I tried to roll the boat toward what I thought was up. But, the water was too ragged and broken in there to brace on. It spun me in circles behind the rock. 

I focused on holding my breath 

My chest wanted to explode. I felt gravel, hoping it was the bottom, and reached my paddle out for the current shooting up. I caught it, launching toward the surface like a rocket. As soon as my face left the waterline, my lungs involuntarily sucked in air, partly choking on residual liquid washing down my helmet. Sucking in deep and hard, trying to replace lost oxygen, I looked upstream. The current shot me out backward, facing the place that just worked me over, river thunder getting louder behind me. 

I dug the paddle into the mess on my right trying to pivot the nose downstream, but it was too late. I felt the earth leave me and drop away under the vessel. I was falling, falling, falling; then suddenly, the thundering changed to a higher pitch, and I was underwater. Big water. For a long time. 

I'm not exactly sure what happened down there. 

I remember seeing a lot of white, the current trying to tear the paddle out of my hands, the boat smashing against a rock, or maybe it was many rocks. I don't know if I was in one place or several. The boat jerked hard. I opened my eyes to a murky green underwater landscape full of bubbles and gravel and calmly watched a big underwater rock heading straight for my face. I remember thinking, How strange, that rock is running toward me. Then the nose of the boat rammed it and tossed my helmet into the boulder next to it. 

I came too, sprawled forward, laying across the boat

Lucky for me, it happened to be floating upright in the pool below the drop. My hands, still in a death clench around the paddle, had no color. I'm guessing my face looked similar. I heard a voice and felt someone grab my left wrist. When I could focus, I saw Carl's face smiling and impressed, lips saying something like, "Way to go, you aced it!"

I glared back at the wizard and muttered, "You son-of-a-bitch."

That was the last ride with Carl.

                                                                         ☆

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My day trip to the Deschutes River last week brought back this memory. Names have been changed. The boys are all still alive, Joe has a kid now, they don’t boat much anymore. I guess Carl got really worked on a big river a few years later, but he survived. Here’s to the River Angels and the crazy ones who ride shotgun with them.

© 2021 Michelle McAfee

Photo from Author’s archives