The Sound of Water

Actually ended up swimming just two of the tail-waves below the Big Cahuna (which apparently has my number big time at present). This is what I wrote my old friend and current Idaho boss Curt Chang:

"Apparently I'm catching up to you but quick. 3 flips (two on YouTube) in Lava. Two in Humpback Chub, one in the Big Cahuna.

And last week, got dumped on once again. Only 8 or 9k, and the wave seemed to be timing itself well, with the claw dumping only once every 8 or 9 seconds. Not bad odds.

Everyone else hit it. Everyone else came through dry as a bone. We got hammered, however, once again. And when my eyes could see, the boat tilt to starboard was like deja vú all over again. So rather than hold onto my now useless oars and bring the boat the rest of the way over, I tried a new technique: I dove off the starboard side whilst pushing hard with my feet against the port side of the boatman's footwell. Came up quick and ready to try and push the gunwale up from my moist position (a useless endeavor no doubt), but saw that the boat had miraculously righted itself. As my crew started to realize I wasn't where I was supposed to be (once again) and began calling out, I calmed them by saying all was well, and clambered aboard with the agility and quickness of someone half my age (which is still damned old). Maybe 5 seconds in the drink?

Carrie tells me you've seen that movie before. I hope not to catch up to you, with all due respect.

cheers bro,Jeffe"

Onwards...

Lots in this newsletter. In between trips on yet another big season (assuming the old body and mind hold for a bit longer), and finally back in Broadband Heaven. So...

I got a slight spanking from Scribner regarding the last newsletter. Kevin Fedarko's publisher loves that I love his book so much I'm putting quotes in the newsletter, but they'd prefer if I kept them a tad shorter than 700 words. Kevin, like The Dude, abides. As do I:

from Page 323 of "The Emerald Mile", pretty much about being graced by being a boatman, or simply floating on the Colorado through the Grand Canyon (see the link below):

http://www.amazon.com/The-Emerald-Mile-Fastest-History/dp/1439159858

" ... (Rudi) Petschek was forced to concede that he had found happiness. Not as a birthright or as an entitlement, but as something that had been bequeathed by the place itself, this river and this canyon, by virtue of its strangeness, its majesty, and above all by its peculiar ability to distill the essence of those who had been drawn into its orbit–their courage and insanity, their beliefs, and their delusions–into something urgent and compelling. As the last of the night cupped the river in its hands, Petschek knew in his heart that it was simply impossible to come away from an extended encounter with the greatest canyon on earth without acknowledging that human life, despite its frailty and insignificance, represents a bestowal of grace for which one has done nothing whatsoever to deserve–and that for this reason, the river world vibrated with a harrowing beauty whose principal dividends were gratitude and joy."

Pure poetry, if you ask me.

But moving on:

Check this vid I compiled from some vids made by a crazy sumbich who chases flash floods named David Rankin: 

https://vimeo.com/92683906

And here's a couple of emails I recently received out of the blue from a guy who saw my 83 high water video online. He was on the Western motor rig that flipped a week before the Tour West and Georgie flips, and wrote up a very good remembrance of his experiences. Beware, its a tad long (along with a request for photos...):

"Dear Jeffe Aronson,

I recently ran across this line from your "High Water, Grand Canyon 1983 (anexcerpt)"...

  "Suzanne joins me at Phantom’s boat beach and we observe as the nervousclients pack. She watched a thirty-seven foot Western Expeditions motor rigflip end-over-end against the wall in Crystal last week."

...and it gave me a bit of a chill. Why? Because I was one of the passengerson that ill-fated raft...June 18, 1983.

Since you have apparently been collecting photos and videos from Canyon rafttrips for a while, I was wondering if you have ever run across any showingthat particular Western River raft flipping. At the time of the accident, weknew that there were quite a few people on shore off to the right ofCrystal, scouting the rapid and watching to see what others were doing. Wewere fairly certain that a number of them had cameras and one of the thingswe tried very hard to do in the following days and weeks was to get WesternRiver Expeditions to try to track down some of those folks to see if wecould get some sort of record of the event(much like those photos that you have showing the Tour West rig flipping thefollowing week). Western claimed that they were unsuccessful, but I don'treally know how hard (or if) they actually tried. Thirty years later, I'mstill hopeful that something will eventually turn up.

But I suppose that if I'm asking you for a favor, I should provide somethingin return. So, what I'll try to do, if you've got the patience and theinterest to read it, is to recount to you my experience of that adventure asbest as I can recall. (Although on rare occasions I've told the story, or atleast parts of it, to an interested listener, I've never actually tried towrite it all out before. And never before related it to anyone who mightunderstand the experience from a river runner's perspective.)


June 18, 1983 - just about high noon. There were two large motor rafts inour Western River Expeditions 7-day trip, one with a full load of (I think)15 passengers, and the other (which I was aboard) with just 12. The leadraft had a guide (whose name I long ago forgot, since the notebook in whichI wrote things like that down ended up at the bottom of the river) with 5years experience with the Colorado River (but just 21 years experience withlife). The other guide on the lead raft, andboth guides on ours, were making their first trip through the Canyon asfull-fledged guides.

For all four of the guides, this was their first trip of the season andcertainly none of them had ever seen anything remotely near such high waterin the Canyon before. (It seemed like each day of the trip, to that point,the reported flow had increased another 10,000 CFS, reaching something like60,000 CFS by the time we stopped briefly at Phantom Ranch that morning.)So, as we approached Crystal, the two rafts rendezvoused so the guides couldassess the situation and decide how to tackle the rapid. Unfortunately,despite several strong suggestions, our lead guide decided not to pull offto the right, tie up, and scout therapid from above. He felt like he could see a clean way through it fromwhere we were, despite what he said was a 30-foot wall and a pretty wildhole. The guides on our raft had little choice but to follow his lead.

The lead raft then headed for Crystal, while our raft slowly circled aroundto watch the route the lead took. It looked like a pretty wild ride, but hemade it through cleanly and we prepared to follow, hoping to duplicate hisroute.

I should mention that for each significant rapid that we had alreadynavigated, two passengers on each raft had the "honor" of riding the snout.With Western River J-rigs having basically 5 snouts, one rider wouldstraddle the 2nd tube from the right and the other would take the 2nd fromthe left, grabbing hold of the ropes as if they were bronco riders at arodeo. Having watched others enjoy the exhilaration of that snout ride onthe previous couple of rapids, I had earlier claimed the privilege for thenext one, which turned to be Crystal. I wasn't about to chicken out now.

Once we two snout riders had taken our positions, with me on the right andthe fellow on the left, and everybody else had arranged themselves whereverthey felt reasonably safe and secure, our guides pointed the raft towardCrystal and we were on our way. The closer we got to the rapid, the louderit got, pretty quickly drowning out even the loudest yelling and laughinggoing on behind me. As far as I could tell, we were following the exactroute that our lead raft had taken, but I suppose even a foot or two one wayor the other made all the difference.

When we hit the wall, I expected the snout (and me) to punch into it, betotally immersed for a moment, then ride up and over the top, to comecrashing down in a torrent of whitewater on the other side, just as I hadseen the lead raft do. As it turned out, it didn't happen quite that way.

The part about punching into the wall and being totally immersed went prettymuch as expected, but somehow the "up and over" didn't. This became one ofthose "time dilation" experiences where time slowed to a crawl and my brainsped up. It felt like I was waiting forever to emerge from the tumult. Then"gradually" (in my altered universe) my left hand was wrenched from the ropeupon which I thought I had a death grip. Then my right hand, finger byfinger until my middle finger felt like it would be pulled from its socket.And then the raft and I parted company.

Boy, was I embarrassed. Not frightened or scared, or even particularlyworried, just embarrassed that I was the first wimp on the trip who hadn'tbeen able to successfully ride the snout through a rapid. Sure, I wastumbling around under water, in the middle of a violent rapid, holding mybreath, with my eyes tightly closed. But somehow I never doubted that mylife jacket would get me right side up and on the surface momentarily, whereI'd then have to face the hearty (although hopefully, good-natured) razzingof my fellow passengers (including, most likely, my wife) when the rafteventually chased me down and they hauled me back aboard. Never in thosefirst few moments did I ever consider the possibility that the entire rafthad done a complete backflip.

While my brain was frantically trying to figure out how I was going to livedown this debacle once I got back aboard, my head bumped up againstsomething that felt like it was the underside of the raft. I didn't try tofigure out how I had gotten into that position but knew that I had to getout from under it and get some air. However, when I reached up (at least itfelt like "up") to push myself away from it, in fact I wound up pushing "it"away from me. It certainly seemed odd but by then I was tumbling again and,finally, beginning to get a bit concerned. Eventually, after what felt likeabout 15 or 20 seconds, but was probably much less, my head popped up longenough to catch a quick breath before going under again. A few secondslater, another opportunity, and then another.

About the fourth time my head bobbed to the surface it stayed there, and Ihad my first chance to actually open my eyes and look around. Perhaps "lookaround" isn't really accurate, as I still had no control over my movement ordirection, and my field of view seemed to be reduced to something akin to"tunnel vision". I was floating backwards, looking upriver toward Crystal,though I couldn't see it. What I COULD see in that narrow tunnel, about 10feet in front of me and looking straight back at me, was the head of one ofthe women who had also been on the raft....with a lot of blood streamingdown the right side of her face.

That was, without a doubt, the most shocking moment of the entireexperience. Embarrassment, of course, immediately vanished, replaced by whatI can only describe as a highly focused, one-step-at-a-time attempt tofigure out what was going on and to determine what I needed to do next toget myself out of this predicament. I wasn't thinking very far ahead at all.It was now moment-to-moment.

At first, I still didn't realize that the raft itself had capsized, justthat there was at least one other person in the river with me. But as thecurrent caused my body to slowly rotate clockwise, my perspective changedand I saw debris in the water nearby, other small rafts and dories that hadpreceded us through Crystal heading in my general direction, then our leadraft, and then, "Oh Shit", the actual underside of our own raft with,unbelievably, our two guides hauling themselves back onto what was now the"top" of the raft and then reaching back to pull up another passenger, a12-year-old boy who had been having the time of his life (and in some ways,I think, still was). Floating close by was also an item that filled inanother piece of the puzzle. It was the plywood top from one of severallarge ice chests that had been lashed to the raft. That big piece ofplywood, rather than the raft itself, was apparently the ceiling that myhead had first been thrust up underneath.

As I completed that first full rotation, I found that the current wascarrying me away from the woman with the bloody face (which was now facingaway from me, as well) and toward our lead raft, whose passengers I couldsee were frantically trying to pull another person out of the water. Infact, I drifted to within perhaps 5 or 6 feet of that raft and, althoughseveral hands were reaching out, it was not able to maneuver toward me whilethey were rescuing the other person. However, when the current pulled meaway from that close encounter, it then pushed me in the direction of theoverturned raft.

I don't recall how long it took for me to meet up with that raft. Icertainly tried to hasten the process, but I don't think my contributionamounted to much relative to the push of the current. In any event, Idrifted and paddled my way right to it, and the two guides were able toreach down and haul me aboard. They were also able to pull up the woman withthe bloody face (who, if I remember correctly, was the mother of the12-year-old they had rescued first). My memory is unclear as to whether shewas rescued before or after me. It turned out that all the blood I saw wascoming from what was actually a very small cut aboveher eyebrow which, although it bled profusely at first, seemed to clot upfairly quickly once she was out of the water.

So now we had five people riding on the bare neoprene bottom of a vesselwhere no passengers ought to be. Crystal had apparently completely strippedeverything from the topside of the raft, taking all the ropes and such alonginto the river. The only handhold on the bottom of the raft, if you can callit that, was about a 2-inch strip of floppy neoprene along the bottom (nowtop) of each of the five tubes, emanating from the joint where the tubes hadbeen sealed shut.

Of course, we very quickly found ourselves in more rough water. I don't knowif it could be classified as a rapid, or maybe it was only just someripples. It certainly didn't matter to us as we, and our by-now ratherjangled nerves, started getting rather vigorously bounced around and all wecould do was crouch down or lay down and grab onto those flimsy neoprenestrips with all the strength our fingertips and knuckles could manage.

I don't know how long we continued like this. It probably wasn't that long,but I think "time dilation" was still in effect, so my perception ofduration is not particularly reliable. In any event, at some point our leadraft came charging after us, having pulled a few others out of the water andapparently being reasonably confident that the other rafts who had joined inthe rescue could account for the remainder of the swimmers.

We three passengers then hopped over to the lead raft, while the two guidesstayed with the overturned one. I vaguely recall that our lead guide musthave given them something, perhaps an emergency oar, to act as a rudder, andprobably a few other supplies, as well. The plan, I believe, was for them totry to control that raft well enough to find a place where they could beachit, allowing it to eventually be flipped back over again.

By then, though, my focus was no longer on that raft, or my own rescue, buton my wife.  She had been riding on top of one of the ice chests along theleft side of the raft, but the last time I had seen her was a few secondsbefore we hit the Crystal wall. I hadn't seen her in the water afterwards,and she wasn't among the few people that our lead raft had pulled from thewater. One of the lead raft's original passengers thought that, "perhaps",she had seen my wife being pulled up by one of the small oar-powered raftsor dories that had been hanging out below Crystal, but she couldn't be sure.Our lead guide also felt like he had counted the appropriate number of headsin the water, and that all had been, or at least were being, rescued (at hislast look).

Now, since we couldn't power our way back upriver from the point that we hadreached, our lead guide found a relatively calm spot on the left side arounda bend in the river where he could turn around, pull up right against therock wall and hold a position with minimal effort. We were by now well outof sight of Crystal and the other rafts below it.

For now, we mostly had to wait, but the guide did begin to radio for help.Not a simple exercise from the bottom of the Grand Canyon, as he had to senda signal on an emergency frequency that could be picked up by a passingairliner and relayed to a ranger station up at the rim of the Canyon. Idon't remember if he actually had voice communication, or at least anacknowledgement from "up above", but eventually (half an hour, perhaps) itbrought a helicopter down to us.

In the meantime, I found myself shivering uncontrollably. I thought it wasmy nerves finally kicking in, or worry about my wife, or perhaps just theadrenaline wearing off. At about 100F or so down there, it certainly wasn'tthe temperature! But then one of the women suggested that perhaps my soakingwet T-shirt was actually chilling my body as the water evaporated. Sureenough, taking it off caused me to feel warmer instantly. Taking it off alsocaused that same woman to gasp and point. When I looked where she waspointing, I discovered the largest, ugliest purple bruise that I had everseen, running from just above my leftelbow, up the back of my arm and about half way down the side of my ribcage. It apparently covered some of my shoulder blade, too, but I wasn'tprivy to that view. It was a very strange experience, because I didn't feelthe slightest bit of pain or even discomfort (and never did afterwards,either, so it wasn't just shock). My arm movement wasn't restricted in anyway. It was just that it looked absolutely awful!

I certainly didn't recall hitting anything while I was being tumbled aroundin the Crystal Rapid washing machine, other than the mild head bump intothat plywood top from the ice chest. The bruised area wasn't bloody, cut orscraped, as I would have expected had I been slammed into a rock or two inthe middle of the rapid, and my T-shirt wasn't torn. It seemed to be quite apuzzle. Thinking about it later, I can only assume that as I lost my grip onthe ropes, my left arm was flung upward first and then when my right handlet go I must've been thrown back sideways into the flat front of one ofthose very same ice chests, causing a massive bruise but no cuts or scrapes.That's my best guess, as I don't actually remember it happening that way atthe time. I was certainly very fortunate that it wasn't my head that madesuch hard contact with whatever the object was.

About this time, one of the dories made its way downriver to our location,bringing a list of all the survivors that had been picked up by each of theother rafts and boats involved in the rescue. The tally showed thateverybody was safe, though perhaps not entirely sound, as there did appearto be a few injuries. After a while, one by one, other rafts began to reachus, gradually bringing everyone back together. Fortunately, my wife was notamong the injured. What we did have, though, were two people with sore backsor necks (later diagnosed as cracked, but not broken, vertebrae), and onewith chest pains and difficulty breathing. We thought perhaps he had brokenribs but the eventual diagnosis turned out to be a bruised lung, which wasthe worst injury out of the group.

When the helicopter finally arrived, it hovered some distance out in frontof us, close enough to see the pilots but not so close as to hit us withtheir downdraft. Our guide then discovered that he had some sort of radioproblem, making the subsequent "conversation" somewhat one-sided. I believethe situation was that, while the pilot could hear us, we were unable tohear him. This led to a rather protracted pantomime routine from which ourguide was eventually able to deduce that we were going to have to continueon downriver until we could reach a place where helicopters could actuallyland. Our guide had already determined that all of the passengers from bothrafts were going to have to be evacuated, given that some of the equipmentand supplies lost from the capsized raft were necessary to sustain theentire group, not just that individual raft.

So now we had 27 passengers on a raft designed for 15, and no idea how farwe might have to travel that way, given that so many of the beaches andlanding areas that might normally have been available were well submerged,thanks to the high water. Just finding camping spots the previous couple ofnights had been a bit difficult. One night our guides even had to wake upsome folks in the middle of the night to get them moved to higher ground, asa lot more water had apparently been releasedfrom the Glen Canyon Dam after we set up camp.

First, we had to try to make our fellow with the bruised lung as comfortableas possible under the circumstances, which involved basically creating asort of cushioned nest for him up on top of the duffle bags in the middle ofthe raft. Then everybody else had to just arrange ourselves as best we couldand prepare to hang on for as long as it took. And off we went!

The journey downriver took about four hours, and our best guess later on wasthat we traveled about 20 more miles below Crystal. Each rapid, ripple, ormild disturbance that we came to tended to cause all the passengers a bit ofworry and a collective intake of breath. But, at least in this scenario, ourlead guide seemed to know what he was doing, turning the raft around andbacking as slowly as he could through each rapid, using the motor to counterthe current as much as possible. Every bump was still quite painful to thefellow with the lung injury, but there was no way to make the ride anysmoother on that turbulent river.

It was a wonderful sight when we finally rounded a bend and saw a helicopteralready sitting on a beach up ahead on the right. And the overturned raftwith the other two guides had already arrived at the same beach, too. Thecopter that had landed was just waiting for us to arrive and then they setin motion a helicopter relay to evacuate all the passengers up to GrandCanyon Village. Each copter could only take four passengers at a time but Ithink they had three in the rotation so the process was at least somewhataccelerated.

I think my wife and I were tapped for the third or fourth trip, along withanother man and his 12-year-old son. (If I recall correctly, we actually hadfour or five 12-year-olds in the group, out of the 27 total passengers.) Ihad never been in a helicopter before and was a bit apprehensive about it,but we strapped ourselves in and off we went. And then my nerves reallykicked in as the pilot pretty much headed straight for the closest wall onthe south side of the Canyon. What he neglected to tell us ahead of time wasthat, since we were loaded fairly close to the copter's weight limit, he wasplanning to take advantage of the Canyon's late afternoon / early eveningupdrafts (it was now after 5:00 P.M.) and the closer he could get to theCanyon walls, the greater the assist we would get. It seemed to work, Iguess, because the closer we got to the wall, the faster we seemed to rise.Not knowing this in advance, though, made me initially fear that the nextday's headline would read: "Survivors of Grand Canyon Rafting AccidentKilled in Helicopter Crash". Thankfully, in the end, that headline onlyexisted in my imagination.

Of course, the Canyon being something of a giant staircase, this process hadto be repeated a number of times on the way up. Fly straight at a wall, ridethe updraft, reach the next bench, turn slightly to the right or left, flystraight at the next wall, rise, repeat. It was an enormous relief when wefinally cleared the Canyon rim and headed for the helipad, where we were metby National Park Service and Fred Harvey representatives.

Since I was deemed to be one of the injured, due to my huge bruise, my wifeand I were whisked off to the clinic to be checked over. This actuallyturned out to be a big benefit for us as, once I had been cleared (nothingbroken, no danger of infection, not likely to be any clots breaking looseinto the bloodstream, etc.), we were taken to a room in Thunderbird Lodge tospend the night. The other two with back injuries got the same bonus,although I believe the fellow with the bruised lung had to stay underobservation for the night. In the meantime, since it was mid-June and allthe lodges at the South Rim were almost completely booked, the rest of theevacuees ended up having to spend the night sleeping on cots in a gymnasiumor some such open dormitory-like arrangement.

Before we got settled into our room, we were also given the opportunity todash into the gift shop (which apparently was being held open an extra houror so just for the benefit of our group) to pick up some basic necessities,like toothbrushes and toothpaste, at Western River's expense. My wife and Ialso convinced them that sweatshirts were a necessity, as well, since ourthin T-shirts, which had been more than adequate in the heat at the bottomof the Canyon, were clearly not going to be a match for the late evening andearly morning temperatures at the rim. Along with those items, they gave usa card allowing us to charge dinner and breakfast to our room and sent us onour way. We were to meet up with representatives from Western RiverExpeditions the next morning, after they arrived from St. George.

It was relatively uneventful from there, except for one other humorousincident that I should relate. After meeting with Bill George and otherWestern River Representatives the next morning, we received plane tickets,vouchers, and some spending cash to get us all home. Later that day, aSkyWest plane took us from the Grand Canyon airport back down to Las Vegas,where we had originally caught the flight up to Page. We had stored an extrasuitcase at the SkyWest counter, with clothes and other items (including carkeys and house keys, thank goodness) that we had needed for our earliershort stay in Vegas, but which were nonessential for the rafting trip.Naturally, though, I had locked the suitcase before leaving it behind andthat particular key was now at the bottom of the Colorado River!

To me it really didn't seem like that big a deal since, as I explained tothe SkyWest customer service representative, it was a Samsonite suitcase andwith Samsonite, as far as I knew, one key fits all. So if he could justscrounge up a Samsonite key for us, we could unlock the suitcase, changeinto some fresh clothes and head off to the hotel where they had booked usfor the night.

Well, the interchangeability of Samsonite keys was news to everyone at theSkyWest counter, and no amount of scrounging, in drawers or pockets oranywhere else, could turn one up. Which then led me to ask if there was aluggage store anywhere at the airport where a key might be found. Indeedthere was, and the SkyWest rep pointed us in that direction. I had topolitely suggest that it might be best if he accompanied us there, since acouple of rather scruffy looking individuals showing up by themselves at thestore, dressed in sweatshirts and shorts, with no identification whatsoeverother than plane tickets, and lugging a suitcase for which they needed toborrow a key to gain access, might promptly result in the clerk summoningthe nearest airport security officer.

So he reluctantly agreed and we made the trek down to the luggage store.However, even after we and the SkyWest rep, in full uniform and with namebadge and all, had explained the situation, the clerk was still clearlysomewhat suspicious of the whole enterprise. Surprisingly, she too had neverknown that all Samsonite keys were the same, but she reluctantly went aheadand pulled one of her suitcases off the shelf and, without even untying thekey from the handle, I was able to stretch it over to my suitcase, insert itin the two locks and, "turn, click, turn, click", had both latches open. Wethanked her for her assistance and headed back toward SkyWest, while shejust sort of stood there shaking her head. Crazy tourists!

After that, we headed for our hotel, got a reasonably good night's sleep andcaught our flight back to D.C. the next morning, where we spent the next fewdays of our unexpectedly truncated vacation canceling credit cards, applyingfor replacement driver's licenses and other identification, and putting in aclaim for lost traveler's checks (where we got a look that basically said,"I'm pretty sure I haven't heard THAT excuse before.")


So there you have it. My Grand Canyon 1983 high water adventure story! Ihope you can understand why I've always wished that I could see some photosor video taken from up on that bluff (or bench, or whatever you call it offto the right of Crystal). My perspective of the incident was rather narrowlyfocused, to say the least, and I think it would have been fascinating to seewhat it looked like to an outside observer.

If you've taken the time to read this far, I thank you very much, and I hopeto hear from you if you already have, or may in the future, run across suchphotos or film.

Not being a river rat, I probably got a few things wrong (especially after 30 years).

When we first tried to get Western River Expeditions to track down any photos or video, it was with the knowledge that all the boats running the Canyon had to have NPS permits and certainly each company must've had a passenger manifest. Ergo, it should have been possible to actually identify just about everybody who might have been perched up above Crystal on that particular day and at that particular time when we went through (and over, and under).  So we certainly had high hopes for positive results. Now, whether Western River actually followed through on their promises or not is the big question. They claimed they did and were unsuccessful, but we'll never really know!

Now, with the Internet, there are so many photos and videos of every conceivable sort online that every once in a while I get the urge to go trolling to see if anything turns up. Which, or course, is how I stumbled across your web site. Great job!

Sincerely,Jeff Buck"

To which AzRA boatman Scottie Imsland replied:

Scott wrote: "Unfortunately Melville had my movie camera shooting me running down far right. i watched the first rig go thru and hit the hole, boat shuddered and came out. guide looked like he had seen a ghost after the impact. He turned to watch the other boats fate and it hit the hole more square than he had. Boat disappeared then soared up like a salmon, on its tail completely, bow tubes wiggling back and forth, fell back down to earth on its stearn, and continued his endo. What an amazing sight, beautiful day too. I presume this is the Western flip you were thinking of."

And finally, some musings on how boatmen get themselves through the winters from the OARS blog:

http://www.oars.com/blog/river-guides-love-season/

May you all get to float a river, any river soon! Cheers, Jeffe