Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/118157
MER 1 . K 10 . SU ❂ M AYA K W h i t e w a t e r B a s i c s – fo r t h e I n t i m i d a t e d P a d d l e r by Tyee Bridge p h o to g ra p hy The White Salmon River, WA I'm a sea kayaker. I'm used to a 16-foot fibreglass boat with a rudder – a craft that, compared to the whitewater version, is about as manoeuvrable as an RV. Though I've admired river paddling for years, it's been hard to imagine myself doing it. Whitewater kayakers don't chart a course on a map: they cavort in the river like aquatic centaurs. Ocean paddling is a challenge, but whitewater is an altogether different game. Standing waves, boulder gardens, eddy lines and "funny water" make moving with the river – and not tumbling about in it like driftwood – a bit of a trick. I meet up with instructor Susan Hollingsworth on the bank of a narrow, frothing river. A lean blonde in her late twenties, the Columbia Gorge resident is a nationally ranked whitewater racer who has paddled the Yangtze River in China, the Urubamba in Peru and the Mekong in Tibet. She also has an iron handshake. I'm a little intimidated, both by her and the region she calls home. The Gorge attracts paddlers of Hollingsworth's calibre for its smaller, rapid-filled tributaries that empty into the massive Columbia River – such as the White Salmon River frothing below and the Klickitat that we'll paddle tomorrow. However, Hollingsworth assures me I'll have a great time. I trust her on this because the stretch of Washington's Lower Klickitat we'll soon tackle – "we" being a class of eight whitewater newbies, age 22 to 69 – is one of the best beginner rivers in North America. Translation: it's a forgiving, not-too-steep "pool-drop" waterway with a dozen rapids ("drops") broken by long, flat sections ("pools"). The pools are where we'll catch our breath, learn how to IT'S ALL ABOUT "READ-AND-RUN" On a simple whitewater rapid, paddlers "read" the river "on the run" and improvise as they go (left). But when drops, rocks and narrows turn rapids technical, the savvy seek out good "beta" — well ahead of time. Chris Morin/Wet Planet Whitewater p26-37_Summer101.indd 33 by C h r i s M o r i n "eddy out" and, in theory, learn the basics. Flipping a kayak in whitewater is not a question of if or when, but how often. Which means we spend most of day one practising "wet exits" in a pool and on a sun-warmed lake, overturning our kayaks and figuring out how to swim free. We also learn how to wait for a T-rescue: hanging underwater like an inverted rubber ducky until our partner presents their kayak bow – so we can haul ourselves up, and out. On the lake we're reminded of the core paradox of whitewater: strong, forward-focused paddling, combined with loose hips that slosh side-to-side with the river. Yang on top, yin below. "It's about finding that balance between wanting more control and having to let go in order to find it," says Hollingsworth. "When you learn this 'relax and engage' principle, suddenly everything comes together." On the banks of Klickitat the morning of day two, its landscape of dry-grass hills, Ponderosa pine and scrub oak is still and quiet. But the river – now seen at duck's-eye level from our beached kayaks – appears as a series of standing whitecaps roaring by like the proverbial freight train. Wedged into my yellow river runner, I feel parts of my anatomy shrink up into my torso. The surface of the river is only moving between eight and 14 kilometres per hour, but in terms of physics – force equals mass times speed – the locomotive metaphor has something to it. In late summer the Klickitat runs at about 2,000 cubic metres per second. It is the irresistible force; we, the very movable objects. Before I have time to think too much about it, we scoot off the beach and paddle toward the main channel. Rivers and rapids come in five classes, Class I being a lazy stream, Class V a technical and possibly violent stretch of river. This section of the Lower Klickitat is mostly Class II. Rapids here – as on every river – are formed in three ways: by a drop in grade, a narrowed WESTWORLD >> S U M M E R 33 4/19/12 7:17:45 AM