Day 6 - Swiming Sockdolager

Our sixth day was in a lot of ways similar to our second day on the river. It rained on us just a little bit and it was another big water day. After packing up for the day our first stop was on the Unkar Delta. It is a nice little spot on the river that is full of Anasazi ruins. In this area you can see the foundations of houses, along with pieces of pottery. There were self guided tour maps to explain what everything is. The maps would give details to the ruins, which were marked with numbered posts. It is interesting to see the remnants of centuries ago, and wonder what life must have been like back then. I especially wonder what they thought of the river and the rapids.

After leaving Unkar it was time to get ready for the big day of rapids. The first scout of the day was Unkar rapid. We kind of scouted it by default because it is visible from the delta. Next we made our way toward Hance the first of the big six rapids on our trip. To be honest it was a little daunting to actually be there. I have heard about this rapid so many times over the years. Invariably if you have heard stories about a rapid, the stories are about what can go wrong.

There are really two ways to go down Hance Rapid. On river left there is a rocky left hand cheat. River right is known as the land of the giants. It is not a place that boats our size usually like to be. I have a little bit of ritual when we scout. I try to look at the river by myself first. I find what I think is the best plan. Then I discuss with the group, and make a decision about which route I will take. Most of the time my original route, or a pretty close variation ends up being the group consensus. After we are done I will take off my hat and shove it inside my PFD, while my sunglasses are stowed in a zipped pocket. I think of it as being a way to show the rapid respect. I also feel like I am not going to flip when I am ready for it, so I try to be ready for it. The more nervous I am about a rapid the sooner my hat goes into the PFD. For this rapid the hat came of pretty quickly.

I had a good run through Hance. I started out left of Muffin rock went down river a little bit until we were past some bigger rocks. On the left run the main thing is to avoid the rocks by shore That proved not to be a problem as I drifted out toward center, and actually caught some of the big waves at the tail end of the rapid.

The next big rapid is Sockdolager. This rapid was named by John Wesley Powell himself. If you are up on your 1860’s slang you will know that sockdolager means knock out punch. The run on this rapid is river left. It is a big rapid, but there is not really a place to scout so we went in blind. Starting out I realized that I did not set up very well. I was too far right, and I knew I would not be able to make the necessary push to the left. I quickly brought the stern around and went into the rapid backwards. On the plus side I have a lot of power rowing backwards. I made the initial pull and started out fairly well. The bad thing is that you cannot see nearly as well going backwards. I could see well enough to know that there was a giant wave at the bottom. I could not see well enough to make a good move around. I knew I could only take it straight with as much power as possible. I kept looking back trying to get good strokes and brace against the wave.

We hit the wall of water, and our back end went pretty high up. Then the water came over the stern. The first wave washed me mostly out of the boat. Rodney, one of my passengers, tried to grab my leg to hold me in. The second wave finished me off. Once in the water I first verified that my hat and sun glasses were still attached to me. I guess I should have shown more respect to this rapid. Fortunately they were there. The next thing I knew Rodney had moved the oar right in front of me. Meanwhile Stu, my other passenger, blew his whistle to alert the other boats. Before I knew it I was pulled to the side of the boat and Stu was helping me in. Both my passengers handled themselves like pros in a chaotic situation.

Probably the most distinct memory of the whole episode was looking into the front of my raft. It looked like a giant bowl full of chocolate milk. My boat is a self-bailing boat, which means that the floor is inflatable and there are holes between the tubes and the floor. This lets the water drain out of the bottom of the boat. I was back in the boat so quickly that it did not even have time to drain. All in all I would guess that I was in the water for less than ten seconds. A few people were confused by the whistle. By the time they could see us there were three people in the boat. One of the funny things to me was that the water felt fine. Though it is very cold water, it felt like a dip in the rec center pool.

There were still a lot of big rapids that day, but our trip through was uneventful. Though we covered a lot of ground we made it to our camp site in good time. Cremation is a nice camp spot, but unfortunately I think it is aptly named. By the time we got to camp it was burning hot. The camp site is specifically for boaters who are doing exchanges at Phantom Ranch. That night we said goodbye to our three group members that were leaving. It was sad to see them go. I had really enjoyed our time together.