NEWTOT_at_mail.modot.state.mo.us wrote: Even more irritating than ads showing people being "unsafe" are the SUV and 4-wheeler ads showing their vehicles destroying the environment - they always drive through a creek at a high rate of speed. This is ILLEGAL due to the sediment stirring up and choking the stream. In my mind, there is nothing worse than romanticizing such destruction and encouraging customers to attempt such things! Tim Boat'n in the Ozarks => We don't have to go as far as SUVs to witness destructive behavior. Here's a (positive) excerpt from "A Primer for Folding Kayak Builders". The text describes first that one of the original European white water greats, Franz von Alber, was indeed deservedly considered thus (no sissy paddler this guy) and secondly how careful he was of his paddling environment: -QUOTE- ... E. Wallecek, who was himself a fearless white water paddler, in one of his accounts mentions that Alber Franzl [Bavarian way of turning surname and given name around] was not shy of taking high risks if there was an exhilarating run at hand. He entered the Salzachöfen [the most difficult passage at that time] at a time of an unusually high water level and found himself turned upside down nine times before the exit. Each time he brought his kayak back onto an even keel and brought the run to a successful conclusion, mightily impressed, but under his own power. ... I first came face-to-face with Franz von Alber in 1953. We agreed on a meeting on the river Möll. I was completely fascinated by his Kayak: The deck was white, set off against the burgundy hull by a deep blue detail stripe along the seam. The stem ends were equipped with small wooden balls (Herbert Slanar’s hallmark, as I was to find out later), just as the Greenland kayaks had been with equipped with similar devices made from walrus tusk. I was fascinated also by the way in which Franz von Alber handled his boat. I am not merely referring to the fact that he meticulously chose the softest grass area on the rocky river bank, but to the way in which he melded into a single entity with the boat, once he had wriggled into the tiny manhole and had snapped his hips into position beneath the tight fitting carlings on either side. The form of his sinewy, muscular torso flowed smoothly into the shape of the lean kayak. Calm paddle stroke guided the boat past rocks, braced it effortlessly over smaller waves and nonchalantly shouldered the foamy crowns of larger standing waves. I was speechless: I had never before met a fifty year old like this! I was to be amazed yet again by his touring speed after the [wild] Möll had released us into the [calmer] Drau. [Mr. Mayr, the author of the German original text, to whom the first person singular refers in the excerpt above, recently referred to this memory in a conversation we had and again reiterated how Franz von Alber never allowed his boat to touch the ground or shore while entering or exiting and certainly never when under way. It was not that he was afraid for his boat, but that this was just the right way to conduct oneself on the river.] -UNQUOTE- Ralph C. Hoehn Ralph_at_PouchBoats.com htp://www.PouchBoats.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Sep 06 2000 - 09:33:13 PDT
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