November 2000
Volume XII
Issue 5
Abridged Edition

West River Weekend

By Nancy Gero

The West River was great this weekend! Our fearless trip leaders did a great job this weekend coordinating everything and timing the trips just right. Jeff Lamping was on top of everything and did a great job leading. Rod Dore was our co leader.

On Saturday, we ran the lower section twice, once on each side. We had a couple of spills that were easily rescued. Debbie and Kerry dumped and rescued themselves. They are really good at self rescue! We all just waited and watched as they got their boat to shore and bailed it out. They were on their way in no time. I was very impressed.

Ruth was another swimmer as she tried to surf a nice tempting wave. She's getting really good with that new boat of hers. It's an Outrage. What a great boat. She's having so much fun with it!

On Sunday we timed our upper and lower trips to meet at the put in at the school field. It made for a nice long trip for those of us who ran the upper. On the upper trip, we had a good group. Carol -Ann met with us and helped lead the way down. Rod Dore did the sweep and Jim Lewis stayed in the middle. We all did great without incident.

I had to laugh when Rod had to borrow a bailer because he forgot his. The sun was in our eyes for part of the way down and the reflection off the water was blinding. It was hard to tell if you were looking at a wave or a hole. It certainly made it more interesting for those of us who didn't think to bring sunglasses. The other paddlers on the upper were John Jenkins, Pat Taft, and myself. We all got our first class 3 rating signoffs from Rod.

We met with the rest of the group and proceeded on our way. The river was feeling pretty tame to me after the first half. I think that John felt the same way. It felt like a float trip. When we got to the last rapid before the RT 100 bridge, we all stopped to play. Rod stood on the shoreline ready with his rope. One person who joined our group ended up swimming and Rod threw him the rope. Right on target! As he pulled him in, other boaters were coming down. No sooner did he get that rope back in the bag, there was another swimmer. Rod threw the rope right on target again! Two for two! He must have thrown that rope about six times and snagged every swimmer that came down.

John decided to try to catch the surfing hole on the left side and try his hand at surfing it. He also went for a swim. He was too far for Rod to reach so Kerry snagged him with his rope from the other side. We were all having such fun. We finally made it down to the take out and did our shuttles and loaded up and were on our way.

As we were heading back to the campground I saw that John and Helen had both pulled over on the side of the road so I stopped to see what was going on. Helen said that there was an injured girl down the slope on the river and Rod and John had gone down to help. Pat and I went down to see what we could do. Pat used to be an EMT. The girl and her boyfriend had been cut off by a raft and ended up in the water. She did what she was supposed to do which is swim with your feet downstream, but she hit her tailbone on a rock and probably broke it. Needless to say, it is hard to sit or walk with a broken tailbone.

John and Rod took the floatation out of the middle of the boat and got her in it. Then they paddled her down the river to an easier place to get off the river. The slope to the road where they were was a very long and steep climb. She could have never gotten up it. Her boyfriend got the car and met them on the riverside. Rod and John! Our heroes!

The boyfriend and girl insisted that we take a case of beer for the help and we refused at first, but it didn't take much coaxing to have one after the long day that we had. We were all walking down the road to our cars with beers in hand and I thought "I hope that a cop doesn't drive by." Where do you hide a beer in a wetsuit? We laughed and hurried back to our cars once we realized that we could get in trouble.

I said to Pat that Debbie and Kerry missed out on all the action. When we got back to camp, they had their own story to tell. I seems that the girl wasn't the only victim of the river. They stopped for 2 kayakers walking up the road. One of them had a dislocated shoulder. Kerry offered them a ride to the hospital and they said they wanted to get their car. So Kerry and Debbie ended up bringing them to their car. People were not the only casualties of the river. There was a beautiful Mad River Canoe wrapped around a rock and broken. May it rest in peace. There was also a report of a kayak (which we did not see) trashed on a rock.

When we all finally got back to the campground, we all felt pretty good about ourselves and what an excellent weekend we all had. We had a nice big dinner at John's camp and packed up for the long haul home. I was tired but happy. I think that we all were. What a great weekend! Hope you liked my little trip report. I had to say what a great weekend we all had while it was all still fresh in my mind.