So, I’ve mentioned that I bring the rain. People used to laugh, but they aren’t laughing anymore. They realize that it is not a joke, and that I do in fact bring the rain every time I come up. Friday night I made a grievous mistake. I was setting up the Taj Mahal, my 2 bedroom tent with a living room and a screened in front porch. I usually bring my little dome tent that I’ve had since I was 8 or so, but my wife was planning on coming up the following night so I was setting up the big tent so that she can sleep in some comfort. Anyways, since I was setting this tent up alone in the dark, I decided not to put the rain fly on. After all, I looked up and could see every star in all their blazing glory, winking back at me through a cloudless sky. Putting on the rain fly is a two man job. The tent is so tall you have to get one person on each side to walk it over the top.
So, the next morning, I was woken up at 7 AM by screaming boy scouts. Ugh. I thought to myself, “I’m never going to be able to sleep through this” right before I went back to sleep. I believe that my body is all about proving my mind wrong…
So I wake up again with the sound of rain, and the feeling of rain pattering against my face. The rooms on this tent have roofs that are all mesh, so with no rain fly, it is like sleeping under a net. So I wake up all groggy, and attempt to put my rain fly on myself. Luckily, one of the Boy Scout leaders (being a good Boy Scout leader) offered to help. I guess that this was my punishment for being so arrogant in believing I could get away with not putting on my rain fly.
So, that day I got to R2 the Upper Ocoee. For those of you not familiar with river lingo, R2 means Raft 2, which means you just get 2 people in a raft built to hold 6 + 1 guide. I love R2. It is a blast, since the boat can maneuver a lot faster, and doesn’t take anywhere near as much work to turn. I have only been down the Upper twice, and now I was guiding it. I rocked all the rapids before the Olympic section (Mikey’s and Screaming Left Turn). Now, before we got to the Olympic section, the other trainee in the raft with me looked at me and said, “I don’t want to do Humungous, let’s just go around the left of Indecision rock”. Now, I don’t mind hitting the big stuff, but this guy was really afraid of Humungous. The problem is, Humungous his a huge hole that likes to pull rafts back into it if you don’t paddle through it hard enough. If it sucks you back into it, it will turn the raft sideways and put it up on its end, dumping everyone out. It is really hard to get the raft out. You pretty much have to turn the raft so that you put the front end into the hole so that it sucks in the front, and then spits it back out straight up into the air. At that point you might be able to level the boat out.
So, I hit Smiley’s and Calahan’s with no problem. I come across Oceana (a name made up by Bryan Burch, because the rapid is like being in the ocean). No problems. So we come up on Humungous. Blake (the other trainee) is paddling his ass off trying to get left of Indecision rock. It is named that because if you suffer a moment of indecision, you are done. The rock likes to pull you right into it, which will definitely throw someone out of the raft. So I thought I had a good line, but then the current quickens, and pushes the raft sideways into Indecision. I manage to get us far enough forward to just catch the last fourth of our raft, which slung the front around and smacked us into the side of the rock.
Kissing Indecision rock
Making it through
We made it through ok, but I thought Blake was a goner for a second there.
The next day I was able to get my wife in on a ride. This time it was the Lower Ocoee, which I just got checked out on. I didn’t have a raft of my own, so I rode along with another guide, who let me guide most of the trip while he just explained the lines he liked to take through certain rapids. It is always nice to get a new outlook on how to run a rapid. We made it down with no major problems, and I didn’t fall out of the raft once for a change. We got a good surf going on Double Suck too. It took me a minute or two to figure out how to get from the eddy out to the hydraulic, but I was able to nail it. My wife understands now why I am so exhausted when I come home from working on the river. She was wiped out from one trip. I usually pull 5 or 6 in the two days a week I am up there, not to mention loading and unloading rafts, cleaning and putting gear away, taking out garbage, cleaning bathrooms, etc…
What a great weekend. So now I’m checked out, so I can take customers. I can’t wait to go back. I really needed this weekend to work out some of the stress from my day job.
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