Re: [Paddlewise] "Knockdown" and other books

<< Good ideas for interesting reading, Leander.  One note: having finished 
"Knockdown", I'm seeing a lot of connection to what John Winters said in his 
last post --- paddle with your equipment, but make your judgements as if you 
didn't have it! --- and even to what James Lofton said originally, setting 
off some less than PaddleWise dialog.  (I felt as if James' comments were 
completely off base at first --- as did Chuck Sutherland --- but I think 
maybe I'm reading some of the same sense in John's comments now, and I find 
myself in agreement. >>



This discussion on homeowhatsis reminds me of a quickly put together canoe 
trip down the lower canyons of the Rio Grande back in 1976.

It is an 83 mile trip through some 1500 foot deep canyons.  If you get into 
trouble, you got to climb the canyon wall, hike about 20-30 miles to a road 
and then you are only 50 and 80 miles from a town of any size.  These do not 
have hospitals.

Cells phones don't even work in that area.

Anyway, I had just gotten out of the Army as a combat medic and I sat the 
group down and told them I had been thinking about worst case scenarios for 
the trip.

A broken arm did not worry me too much as you were just going to hurt for a 
couple of days while we paddle you out.

The two things that did bother me were a broken leg and a snake bite.  If you 
got either of those, you might just die before we could get you to a hospital.

Anyway, the group mostly was young bulletproof males in their mid twenties.

After supper at the first nights campsite one of them decided to hike up the 
canyon wall for some photos.  There was a large stand of river cane he had to 
go through.

In a few minutes he came back with an adrenaline rush and white as a sheet.

His statement was "that damned thing was as big as my leg".  The are has a 
large population of western diamondback rattlesnakes.

He never left the open river sandbars the rest of the trip.

Seeing is believing.

       John LeBlanc
            O           
     (____/_______)
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Bluecanoe2_at_aol.com
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