PaddleWisers... In the past 10 days or so ( ...while I was off work for a year end break ) local weather brought the following: (1) a booger of an ice storm starting late Christmas Day with over 2" of ice accumulating in about 6 hours with the subsequent loss of electricity, blown transformers, broken trees, and broken power lines, and (2) sustained daytime temps of well below freezing with nightime lows in the 'teens, AND (3) a real live 7" dry, powdery snowfall on top of it all. My plans for a Sabine River-Big Thicket-Gulf of Mexico trip changed quickly into just trying to get my generator to act right so the house would be habitable. After having the obligatory snowball fight in the front yard in our house-shoes, and then making a big pan of SnowIceCream, I suggest to my holiday group of 3 daughters, 2 husbands, and boyfriend that we do some "winter water time". The GoodWife does not agree. Now, this is some serious winter weather for around here. Our entire normal winter mostly consists of a few heavy frosts and maybe a short sleet-freezing rain weekend or two. Each cold day is usually balanced out with a couple of warm-up days mixed in. This year is something else entirely ! The kids and I take the Overflow X to a local hill for some sledding one afternoon. I don't paddle this boat much any more. After banging both elbows hard on my "show'em how-to instructional run", I now remember why I gave up whitewater. Perhaps I should give up kayak sledding as well. Thankfully it doesn't snow here that often. A couple hours of hill kayaking is about all we can stand, enjoy. The rides down the hill are great, but we all could use some practice on our steering and stopping. There is a bloody nose, an ugly case of road rash hand, and my 2 banged-up elbows in our group by the time we med-evac ...make that, return to the house. Ahhhhh, some hot chocolate, some hot soup and we begin planning tomorrow's water time. The GoodWife pronounces us all "certified crazies" ! Truth be told, I do not have the proper gear for this type paddling so my take on this "cold weather" paddling is probably a bit biased. In a normal winter here I typically go with a possible mix of heavy polypro underlayer, fleece layer, neoprene vest-shorts, windbreaker, and a waterproof paddle jacket. Heavy fleece socks under neoprene socks with neoprene booties have always kept my feet fairly comfy ...up til now that is. My main objective in winter paddling is "NOT to get wet" ! My definition of cold weather has been drastically modified over the last week or so. Today I put on just about every piece of paddle clothing I own. We decide to go to a small neighborhood lake for a shake-down paddle first. Two people will carry rope bags on the bank, two people will be observers-helpers, and the two paddlers will stay close to shore until we see how this plays out. I am fairly comfortable in my "WinterMax" outfit. The physical exertion of carrying the bow toggles of the SeaLion and the Spectrum some 100 yards from house to lake helps more than I realize. Noses are red and running, and exposed ears are starting to hurt by the time we reach the lake. I adjust my facecover pullover so only my eyes are exposed. I feel quite fluffed, pumped up, padded out ...like a big pillow. Still not cold I start adjusting the PFD straps so I can buckle the thing over my increased bulk. My fingers quickly begin to feel like they belong to someone else. I put my gloves back on and hide my hands under my armpits. There that's better. I check my boat over and prepare to launch. The safety rope people are cold and want to go back to the house. The observer people are not observing anything at all. They have turned their backs and have hunkered into their jackets against a slight wind straight out of the north that bites at exposed skin like a fire-ant attack. Now and then large puffs of snow and pieces of shattered icicles blow out of the overhead pine boughs and somehow fall straight into ones face. The other paddler is having trouble with his skirt and I go over to help. He still has his gloves on, mine are off again. A slick patch of ice-mud-slickgrass-frozen whatever throws me to the ground in a split second. One instant I am standing, walking and in a nano-second I am flat on my back thinking someone has played a nasty, sneaky, mean trick on me. The laughing seems to warm everyone up enough to stay a bit longer ...yeah, and see what happens next. After getting the other paddler's skirt secured, he suddenly remembers that he did not check his boat flotation. Since it is my boat, I dog-crawl slowly to the stern bulk and begin to use some "warmer, more colorful" words that I hope will have some effect. I question my friend's IQ and pass judgement on his parental lineage. I question his brain mass. I slander, defame, and blaspheme his parents once again, just for good measure. Getting air into the stern float is not an easy task. The valve is frozen solid, open. After inflating the float, the valve will not close. I hold the valve in my mouth, like a popcicle, for several long, cold minutes to free it. More laughs from the support crew. Once again, huff-puff, huff-puff, huff-puff. ...gloves off, gloves on, warm armpits again. Go for it, my man. Yeah, you're ready ...I swear it ! What ? ...you want a push-off ?? Now... I know a "push-OVER" isn't really what he wanted ...but enough is enough ! We've been friends long enough anyhow. He'll get over it, and besides, I never really liked him that much to begin with. Really... no since in me being the ONLY one with their backside covered in caked snow, grass, and mud ...AND sore elbows. Out on the lake there is semi-frozen slush-water on the surface at the deep end, near the road-dam. The shallow end, about half of this 3 acre lake, is frozen solid, bank to bank ...has been for 4 days now. There are a few white egrets and 1 tall heron standing on top of the ice at the far end of the lake. The local mallard flock looks like racked billiard balls ...clustered for what shred of warmth there might be, I suppose. The phrase "misery loves company" crosses silently through my head as I brush crackly, frozen something-or-stuff out of my beard and off my upper lip. Hands that can't feel, rub my nose that can't be felt, and something cracks and breaks away. I hope that it isn't my entire nose breaking off. At least I can breathe now. We ease along doing more pushing than paddling to a thick scratching, scraping, bumping noise of solid-state water against polyethylene. It isn't a pleasant sound at all. It grinds and cracks and sounds ominous, almost sinister. I am not used to this. My paddle feels heavy and uncoordinated, almost useless. That other guy's hands at the ends of my arms are also useless. I feel like a cork crammed into the cockpit opening ...I mean really crammed. I know my feet are on the pegs because I am secure, but I can feel nothing in my feet. Overall I am not too cold, but the bulk of clothing masks any feel I usually have when paddling. The sensation is much like paddling by remote control. I move and twist, but the physical sensations are drastically different. I dismiss the rope people and the observer people since it looks like both boats will float okay. Everyone immediately disappears and then it gets kinda nice. I'm not saying I want to paddle ice, or even really cold weather very often. But, the flat, cold, sunless, gray sky..., the tree tops wrapped in thick low lying swaddling clouds..., the white and green woods mixing in odd shapes..., the dark, thick water with various hues of white, ivory, and gray striated across the frozen surfaces..., the close hush of muted sound over a thick snow blanket, even on top of the lake ice... it is all a beautiful, new sensation for me. Albeit one I need to develop a bit more appreciation for to truly enjoy. We ease our way further from the bank into more open water, out toward the edge of the ice. The water has a dark, heavy, almost syrupy look as it laps, pops, and gurgles at the edge of the ice sheet. It is an eerie, weird, strange sight ...then, the water just turns hard ...birds stand on it and ducks sleep on it. What a marvelous, wonderful world. We better get back to the house, and check on that generator, and haul in some more firewood... footnote: after some discusssion my friend and I think we have discovered the source of this blast of unusual winter weather here in bayou-land. The New Orleans Saints football team actually WON a playoff game, so it is fairly certain that a large portion of the "Nether-World" has indeed frozen over as referenced in the above captioned subject line. 8-> ...adieu ...Peyton (Louisiana ...where yesterday it was 45 F and the strange white visitor is mostly gone...) ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). 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