EW’s Outdoors Issue 2012
Lost on a Boulder
A cautionary story about idiots and Class 5 rapids
By Rick Levin
S
ome weekend during spring term of my
sophomore year at college, a group of us decided
to go rafting down the Columbia. An old, old
friend of mine, Scott, organized the trip, with
promises that he’d take care of everything. All I was to do
was grab three or four of my college buddies, and provide
a second car for setting out.
Scott’s purportedly well-nigh professional preparations
consisted of: A raft, four mismatched paddles, two fi fths of
whiskey and six waterlogged life preservers that looked to
be circa 1953 or so.
Within a quarter mile of setting in, we went over a
waterfall. One minute we’re tranquilly
fl oating down the gentle Columbia River,
and the next we’re falling backward into a
30-foot abyss. In slow motion, I watched
my friend Erik levitate bodily out of the raft
while this macabre warble like a rooster on
crank came out of him.
Whump!
We were still capable of laughing at that one, believing
it to be an aberration — perhaps some temporary rip in the
time/space continuum like in Land of the Lost. Little did
we know the waterfall was not the end of our troubles but
the beginning of a low-brow psychedelic odyssey that was
part Deliverance and part Dante’s Inferno.
At one point — after we’d lost two life preservers,
busted one paddle and suffered various minor contusions
and sprains — we came around a bend in the river and
sluiced into a misty, spouting, gurgling, grinding stretch
of whiplash rapids punctuated by quick, sucking eddies
formed by leeward pressure of the current pushing against
the underside of massive sedimentary boulders.
We did our damnedest. Scott shouted directions from
his perch on the stern — “Left! Left! Paddle, asshole,
PADDLE!” — and we’d almost cleared the shitstorm,
emerging only seconds from another, less turbulent bend,
when the raft got hitched up against this gargantuan rock.
Wild water gushed around the raft, shooting rooster tails;
slowly, the boat was being pushed up and over the boulder.
“Jump!” Scott screamed.
There was noise, and then not-noise — or rather, sound
became muddled and amplifi ed, as though I’d been sealed
inside a washing machine. Coming up for air, I was hurled
the warning was retroactive rather than preventative: The
park ranger who found us said we’d traveled through Class
5 rapids. The ranger wasn’t impressed. He gave us the
universal expression of a parent who is “disappointed” in
you.
And, to tell you the truth —
as spring blossoms, snow
melts and we get word
already of folks being beat
down or even killed by
the McKenzie and other
local rivers — even now
our ignorant stunt
contains nothing
of heroism or
courage. Just
folly. ew
Within a quarter mile of setting
in, we went over a waterfall
against another boulder. For all I was worth I scrabbled to
get on top of the thing. I stood — and continued to stand,
stranded, smack in the middle of the mighty Columbia, lost
and alone like some fuckpenny Robinson Crusoe.
It took them more than an hour to coax me off that rock
and into a relatively unaggressive pool of water where I
could dogpaddle ashore. Scott found a tree branch that was
long enough to reach the middle of that pool. The idea was,
if I went under, I could grab the limb and be hauled to
safety. Or get skewered like a hotdog in boiling water.
One crucial piece of data might have saved, even
prevented, that trip, but — as befi ts the whole fi asco —
/(77(5
&$55,(56
Daily McKenzie Trips (Half & Full Day) • N. Umpqua • Deschutes & More
Mild to Wild River Rafting
Groups Discounts
541-746-5422
Family owned & operated
24th Season of Adventure
THE KIVA
GROCERS,
WINE MERCHANTS
& BOOKSELLERS
. k iv
www
ag
ro
ce
ry.
com
DOWNTOWN EUGENE
125 W. 11 TH AVENUE
20 MAY 10, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
Specialty, gourmet
and organic goods
Fresh organic produce
Bulk foods, herbs, spices,
coffees and teas
Specialty deli
Wine, champagne and beer
Hormone and
antibiotic free meats
Vitamins and
body care products
•
Sandwiches
Kosher foods made
for Passover
order daily
to
Chanukah
Holiday items
)22'
'5,9(
6$785'$<
0$<
+HOS\RXUQHLJKERUV
IDFLQJKXQJHU/HDYH
DEDJRIFDQQHGRU
SDFNDJHGIRRGE\\RXU
PDLOER[0DNHDFDVK
GRQDWLRQRQOLQHDW
IRRGIRUODQHFRXQW\RUJ
%DLOH\+LOO5Gf(XJHQH25
IDFHERRNFRPIRRGIRUODQHFRXQW\
WZLWWHUFRP)RRG)RU/&
Sunday–Saturday 9 a.m.–8 p.m.
541-342-8666
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM