It was the hardest thing I ever did as a Trip Coordinator, but by the time the day was over, I was very glad I had done it!! I've been coordinating trips for the Rocky Mountain Canoe Club [RMCC] for quite a number of years before this had ever happened to me. Let me start at the beginning. A friend and I decided the Gunnison River would be a great Memorial Day weekend trip to go on. My health had been getting worse the last few years, and doing two day trips on three day weekends still allows me to enjoy camping and paddling. He said most folks stop at the middle, and take day hikes the 2nd day, so we could eliminate that day, and make it a two day trip. Sounded great to me, as I had never done this trip before. Unfortunately, my friend was out of town the last week before the trip, when most folks called. I gave directions the to the put-in and a brief trip description to all who called, explaining the situation, etc. On the morning of the trip, it became obvious that I hadn't done my job as a coordinator. First, I couldn't follow my own directions!! I had told everyone "650 Road" and on our way, we found there was a "G50 Road" and from the maps, I figured we just couldn't read it well, and turned there. Nope, 8am came and went, nobody else there... we wanted to get an early start, before the outfitters. Since I knew there were a total of almost 20 people, I knew we were in the wrong place. Our goal was to shuttle by 8, for a two-hour shuttle, and paddling by 10am... We met up with our group at 8:45, and were shuttling by 9am, a quick 45 minute round trip, and we were pushing off the first row of boats [see figure 1] at 10:15am ... not bad, for such a late start, but we recovered quickly, or so I thought. As we pushed off the first boat in the second row, the person in boat "A" asked me a simple question, "how do we get back to the shore, once you've pushed us off?" I didn't know how to respond at first, the water was 5-6000cfs, and about 3 times higher than it had been just 3 weeks earlier... it was moving. My partner and I had done a lousy job explaining the situation to this paddler, who was here with their child, standing there, asking an innocent question. Then, I asked questions about paddling skills, etc., and found this paddler was not ready for this trip. Here they are, boat loaded, 1/3 of the members of my party was down river, including my co-coordinator. He had no idea of the saga unfolding at the put in. I asked more leading questions of this beginning paddler, hoping they would decide on their own to not go. No, I had to say "I am very sorry, but I don't think you are ready for this trip, I think you should stay behind." There, I had done it. I hated myself for it. I couldn't imagine how long they had planned this trip together, and now, boat well-loaded, and balanced, appropriate rain attire, well fitting PFDs, etc. Now I had to be the bad guy. Luckily the folks in boat "B" were the shuttle drivers, and they were able to give these folks their keys, and then they would also get their car back to the take-out. My family was last, running sweep. We got the group mostly "together" on the river, and as I turned for a last look at the put in, parent & child were standing there, hugging each other and crying. My stomach knotted, I turned, and we paddled down river. I wasn't aware, the worst was yet to come. We hadn't been on the river 45 minutes, when the sky crashed and roared with thunder and lightning. Quickly our group huddled under the riverbank, when hail started falling. People scampered for their raingear, others just pulled themselves closer to the bank, and whatever shelter they could find under the root and branches of the shore side bushes and trees. Three waves of hail hit us, and by the time it was done, we had 2 inches of hail and water in the bottoms of our boats. Everyone bailed their boats, and pulled out to see what adventure waited around the next corner. The thunder and lightning scared my daughter, and the roar of the rivers first rapid was the straw that broke her back, and more importantly, her confidence. Since this was her first river trip, with a loaded sea kayak, I didn't try and persuade her to continue, we would turn around... we would go back to the put-in. As we all gather to scout the rapid, I informed my co-leader of the decision we had made. We quickly transferred the port-a-potty to another boat, and wished everyone luck, as we watched them all safely and successfully run the rapid. Later, we would all decide we could have done it, and continued, and it would have been a lot easier to have continued following, instead of turning around. It was 11:15, an hour into the trip. I had warned the parent/child team I turned away that "turning back, if you find yourself having to, would or could be difficult." We were about to find that out for ourselves, trying to line the boats back upriver. We had two loaded tandem canoes, and a kayak, pulled by four adults and one child. We shifted all the gear out of the kayak, and put it in one of the canoes. Cat was able to drag the empty plastic kayak on the shore, while each couple pulled their own canoe upriver. By 1pm we had succeeded in going 1/2 mile up stream, to find we were on an island, we still had to cross the river. Cat was first to cross, powering towards the closer riverbank. We lined her up, and pushed her off, and she paddled for all her might, to arrive safely on the bank. We had decided on that bank for two reason, the first, our car was on that side. Second, it was the closer of the two. We hadn't swum yet, and didn't want to either!! Mike and I hiked through "guardian" bushes, and mud-bog swamps to the railroad tracks, hoping we could drive the access road back from the parking lot. No such luck, half the tracks were on trestles!! We took the shortest route back to the river, to scout the upper banks, and realized, we were across from where we ducked under the river to hide from the hail. Then we watched a truck roll down the road on the other side of the river, 20 feet above our "hiding place." By the time we pulled the boats to a safe place to launch, so we could ferry to the landing zone on the far bank, it was 3pm. We were all across in 20 minutes, safely. From our vantage point we could see the rapid we had stopped at. In four hours, we had gone about a mile upriver... Melody and I walked up the driveway we had seen from the far bank. It was three miles to the main dirt road, though we wouldn't know that until we measured it on the return trip. There we hitch hiked to our cars, 20 miles away. Mel and I returned to our group, where we loaded our cars by the last light of the day. We were on the road again by 7:30pm, eight hours work to go back 4 miles. It had been an interesting trip. We all laughed about it as we camped that night. It had been a rough trip... My daughter learned the meaning of commitment, if she says she can, she will at least try. My heart went out to the folks I turned away, but had they followed, and joined us in turning around... They would have to have fought the bushes and brambles and mud. No, maybe they were the lucky ones. Hopefully the parent/child will ask more questions next time. Yes, hindsight says they were really the lucky ones!! When I lead trips again, I will ask a lot more questions. I will make sure the folks paddling with me understand the level of competency required, and I understand their abilities. #------canoeist[at]netbox[dot]com-------------------------------------- mark zen o, o__ o_/| o_. po box 474 </ [\/ [\_| [\_\ ft. lupton, co 80621-0474 (`-/-------/----') (`----|-------\-') #~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~~~~_at_~~~~~ http://www.diac.com/~zen/paddler [index of Paddling websites I manage] Rocky Mtn Sea Kayak Club, Colorado River Flows, Poudre Paddlers The Colorado Paddlers' Resource, Rocky Mtn Canoe Club Trip Page -- Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:33:00 PDT