Since I've been out here I've done a lot of wind surfing, tried white water rafting, and generally tried to take advantage of what Oregon has to offer. I'd heard a lot of good things about the white water kayaking classes offered at OSU so I decided to sign up. As it turns out my friend Hamid was one of the instructors for the class and he couldn't say enough about how much he loves kayaking. Hamid is a very cool guy who I play racketball with.

Before they take you out on the river they have to teach you how to kayak. I naively thought I would have very little to learn since I've canoed a lot in the past. Wrong. If anything my canoeing experience hindered me, they are two very different sports. We had three three hour sessions before our trip; each session consisting of about an hour of classroom stuff and two hours in the pool. The main instructor for the course was Barry (I liked to think of him as Beary since he was reminiscent of a teddy bear). Barry's philosophy of kayaking was summed up by the three things he made you remember before he'd let you run rapids: 1) Paddle! 2) Loose hips. 3) Smile. Barry wanted to make sure you did the right thing, but it was at least as important to him that you were having fun. Getting into a kayak is a strange experience. Its not very big, in fact its designed such that your basically packed as tightly as possible into the thing. Barry's "loose hips" reminder was important because to a large extent you actually control the boat by moving your hips. The trouble with being packed that tightly in is that you know you are going to be turning over at some point and you have to wonder if you could ever get out. I mean it takes several minutes to get in! You certainly don't want it to take that long to get out. So what do they do? Well the first thing you do in your first pool session is practice the "wet exit." You paddle to the middle of the pool, roll your kayak on purpose and get the hell out of it. Now I love water (see the above activities), but I have to admit I was a bit nervous about this, even in the benign setting of a pool. Happily I discovered that the wet exit was a piece of cake.

Over the course of the three sessions we also learned basic paddling techniques. My first experience was that I was completely miserable at it. In the first session I couldn't steer a straight line for the life of me. I basically thought I'd be doomed come river time. I caught on pretty quickly in the next two sessions though. The real keys are being relaxed and being balanced. The trouble with being relaxed is, well its not a normal reaction to things your bad at. From what I understand this makes kayaking yet another sport that women tend to learn faster than men. Men try to overpower the boat, big mistake, while women let things take their natural course. We also learned the eskimo rescue, a technique by which you can right yourself, once capsized, by using the boat of a fellow kayaker. Finally we learned how to roll. Amazingly, I was a rolling fiend in the pool sessions. Barry warned us, however, that even though we could all roll our kayaks, it was likely that none of us had a "river roll." Prophetic words.

Our trip took place on the Mackenzie river, about 45 minutes east of Eugene up in the Cascades. Naturally you can't take a trip like this without getting up at an ungodly hour, heaven forbid you'd be well rested or anything, so there I was setting my alarm for 6:30 on another Saturday morning. To be honest it was a pretty ugly day, overcast and cold, I don't think the high was much over 50, and there was a chance of rain. I figured it didn't matter though, I was sure I'd be making friends with the river anyway. So I packed up my brand spanking new polypropylene underwear and noseplugs, a lunch, and some warm clothes, and I was on my way.

My first stop was to pick up Nicki, one of my fellow kayakers. Nicki is from New Zealand and can't get used to men being polite to her here in the states. Nicki wanted to try kayaking basically because she saw it as a challenge. I think she was nervous about the trip, but felt like she'd feel good about herself once it was over.

Upon arrival, we gathered with the rest of our entourage. There were Martin and Wolfgang, a pair of exchange students from Germany (apparently you can't take a kayaking class at OSU without it being at least half full of Germans), Katy, who actually had some prior experience, and Toby Wright (who shares her name with the best defensive back in the National Football League!), who might have the nicest legs I've ever seen. The final instructor was Lisa, who's job at OSU entails training people from foreign countries and who has lived at various times in Spain and in Africa. A very diverse group (Hamid was also foreign born, living in Iran until he was about 12).

So, after arriving there at about 8:00, I think we made it on the river sometime after 1:00. First we had to get our gear - wetsuit, helmet, paddle, river jacket, life jacket, and spray skirt. Then we had to load the kayaks onto the trailer, and of course there was the mandatory stop at the Good Morning Bakery. We took two vehicles, a van and a car. Due to the threat of country music in the van, I rode in the car with Lisa, Nicki and Katy (ok, maybe there was a little more to it than the music) where I was put in charge of tune selection. The trip was quite pleasant if not long (about an hour and a half, maybe two hours). All three of the women were exceptionally nice and quite interesting. I have been very impressed so far by how cool the people who go on these trips are.

The area that we kayaked in is gorgeous. Set in the Cascades, the Mackenzie is a relatively wide, winding river and the surrounding landscape is dotted with pine trees, and not a whole lot of civilization (with the notable exception being a place called "Mom's Pies"). Basically what you do is you drop one car off where you intend to get out and take the other up to where you want to get in several miles upriver. Once there you get your gear out and change. Now as I mentioned before, the kayak is pretty tight, even in the pool just wearing a bathing suit. But now I'm in the same kayak wearing polyprop underwear, a wetsuit and various other gear. I mean I was packed into that thing like a sardine. But before that, of course, we had to go over a zillion thing, mainly having to do with all the ways that we might die if we do the wrong things.

Finally its into the water. Being in a kayak in a pool is weird, being in it on a river is downright bizarre. By Oregon standards the Mackenzie's current is not terribly strong, but it is fast nonetheless. In a kayak you feel like you are literally a part of the river, you are right down there in it. My worries about stearing were somewhat laughable. Steering in current is not a whole lot like steering in a pool, the river pretty much decides where you're going and mostly you are making adjustments (loose hips!).

The first thing we practiced was entering an eddy. An eddy is an area of the river where the current flows in the opposite direction; generally its behind a rock. Eddys are great places to stop, rest, figure out where you're going next, etc. They do have this disconcerting property of going the wrong way, however, meaning that when you go into one the forces on your boat suddenly change rather dramatically. The big rule of kayaking is to lean into your turns. This is not at all intuitive, if the river is tipping you over in one direction it hardly seems natural to go ahead and lean in that direction. Our task was to ferry across the river and enter an eddy. Now we didn't have to, Barry saw that it was kind of a strong eddy and so gave us the option to bag it. Martin was the first to go. Martin was also the first to swim. Figuring there's no time to get wet like right away I went next. I managed to ferry accross somewhat respectably (not an easy task by the way to go perpindicular to where the river wants to take you), hit the eddy line and all of a sudden found myself upside down and quite wet. Remarkably I didn't immediately panic and started banging the bottom of my boat (which was above water at the time obviously) with my hands. Sure enough eventually Barry's boat banged into mine, I grabbed it and pulled myself up. My first flip! My first Eskimo roll! I got major kudos for hanging out underwater long enough to get Barry's boat. I wasn't particularly pleased with having blown the eddy entrance, but was glad to have survived my first flip.

I guess Martin and I managed to scare the rest of them off (except Katy who looked like a pro). We practiced some more, got more instructions, and soon were off down the river. Pretty soon it was time for our first rapids. Yikes! I have already told you the three rules of shooting rapids. Paddling is definitely the key. Before hitting any rapids we always carefully discussed exactly what was ahead of us, what to expect and where to go. Mainly, follow the person ahead of you and don't stop paddling for the life of you. As exciting as rafting was, it doesn't really compare to kayaking. In a raft you're pretty much going over the waves, up and down a lot true, getting wet also true, but to a large extent you're on top and pretty much not in control. In a kayak you are right in there staring at waves which are over your head and going right through them. Actually the waves themselves are more fun than dangerous (despite how it looks), its really the rocks that you have to watch out for, rocks and holes. So there we were heading into our first rapids. I'd like to tell you that my feeling going into this was one of giddy anticipation, in truth I was pretty damned scared. So paddle, paddle, paddle. Paddling isn't what you feel like doing though, since a) it doesn't seem like its doing any good since your boat is being rocked by huge waves, and b) mainly you're trying not to tip over (actually this is why you paddle, it helps keep you stable). I'll be damned if we didn't all make it through the rapids. And when you do the feeling is VERY exciting, a strong feeling of accomplishment too. And I even managed to make an eddy entrance afterwards. Wow! Right after us came some expert kayakers. This took a little wind out of my sails as they made it look like the easiest thing in the world. They also did what kayakers call "surfing" where you get right behing a rock that is just sticking out of the river (making a big current behind it) and point upriver. You can actually hold a stable position and ride the big wave in one spot. Apparently its one of the cool things about kayaking, but I'm not ready for it yet.

After the rapids it was practice, practice, practice (I think I'm ready for Carnegie hall). Eddy entrances, turns, ferrying, etc. Now we practiced ferrying at the end of the rapids where it was very difficult. Martin was first again and Martin swam again. Iwas second again and I swam again. Again I tried for the Eskimo roll, but it wasn't coming fast. However, I hung out, knowing that Barry was near and sure enough eventually my boat was banged and soon I was back up. Again more kudos for waiting so long, and more frustration for going over in the first place.

The third rapids was where this story began. I actually made it through the rapids and was turning around to look back when I went over. Unfortunately I wasn't particularly near anyone and no one was paying attention to me (since there was no good reason for me to be tipping over) and so even hanging out for a while no one was banging on my boat. After a while pride at waiting quickly turns to fear. So it was time for a wet exit. Turns out that a wet exit isn't so easy when a) you're almost completely out of breath, and b) you're wearing tons of stuff which has you wedged into the kayak. However, I finally made it out and I was swimming. Fortunately Lisa was nearby. It was about this time that I noticed how cold the water was (we're talking mountain water here). Anyway, Lisa paddled over and I grabbed her boat. Meanwhile I can literally feel the heat draining out of my body. Unfortunately we weren't anywhere good for getting out so she had to take me well downriver (I sort of dragged off the back of her boat) before finally depositing me on the bank. Holy Mackinaw I was cold!

The next rapids was one of the bigger ones. Barry suggested that if we wanted to take a simpler route to follow Hamid. I debated, but decided that I could stand a breather so follow Hamid I did. Since we're talking about me that particular route was not the simple one on this day (these things can vary a lot with the river level). I plunked a rock and over I went. This time no one was even close and another wet exit ensued. Fortunately we were close to an easy place to get out so I wasn't under for long. Hamid's immediate reaction was to worry about me. My immediate reaction was to be mad for not having loose enough hips. He's probably thinking "god, I hope Eric doesn't get too cold, I hope he's not miserable." I'm really thinking "I'm a complete dufus!" By this time I'd had my fill of kayaking for the day, at least in terms of being upside down under water. There was one last rapids which turned out to be easy and I was heading for shore.

Once on shore we had to wait for the instructors to finish (they wanted to do some surfing before coming in). Then, being gentlemen, we allowed the women to use the vans to change while we shivered down at the river. Oddly enough when they were done it didn't seem that they were equally obligated to hang out somewhere else and so they stood around while we put on dry clothes. At that point I didn't care though, there could have been photographers from People there, I just wanted warm clothing.

Our last stop on our way back to Corvallis was at Mom's Pies for some of the worst hot chocalate I've ever had in my life (the pie looked good though). White water kayaking isn't for everyone (especially in November!), but it sure delivers a rush and when you're done you can look back and think, "wow, I really did something today." I think I'll wait until May or so for my next kayak trip though.