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An essay about why we paddle Class V by Doug Ammons

Trip asks:
"why do you do it? Why do you paddle class five? why do you fling yourself over huge drops, through monster holes, into places that by all rights should kill you deader'n dirt? what if you mess up?? what really keeps you going over those horizon lines? (be honest,kids)"

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First, a comment or two: It seems to me the problem here is that Trip's question is really backward. None of us started out doing what he's talking about, so we've got to go back to the beginning for the answers to make sense. For each of us, the meaning comes from what's happened along the way.

Ultimately, I think all answers are personal, so the following is a personal sketch of one path. Everybody takes their own, but hopefully others will see some of themselves here as well as places where we differ. Since we all learn and change over time, our answers change. At least that's been true for me.

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The Real Shit

I started out paddling because I loved the water. I learned the basic skills and after a couple of times on the river, found it was the wildest, funnest, most playful, and beautiful damn sport I'd ever done. The people were great, the rivers were beautiful and every horizonline stirred all the fun and questions anew. It was challenging, exciting and there seemed no limit to what I could do or where I could go. By my second or third time on the river, I was hooked. By the end of my first year, I was a fanatic.

I ran my first class five after I'd been paddling about two months. I didn't know very much, but as they say, maybe ignorance is bliss. I was paddling with a group of older guys on a wilderness river they knew well, and we came to a rapid that they had always portaged. I'd been told the rapid was unrunnable, and at first I believed that. But after looking closely I suddenly realized there was a straightforward line in an otherwise class six drop. The key was seeing past the intimidation around the line. I committed, and ended up running it twice with no difficulties. It was a little scary, sitting in the eddy above and feeling the river surge beneath me. But what led me to paddle over that horizonline was a quiet sense of certainty. I knew what I'd seen. The mindblower came afterwards: realizing if you looked just right you could find a thread that carried you through all the dangers, right into the heart of the river. I'll never forget that feeling. The river opened up and beckoned so enticingly, so exquisitely, that I just had to follow. I couldn't help it. Somehow, it had to do with seeing something true and deep about the water and myself. More than the excitement and more than the challenge, it was that sense of truth that led me on.

So I had a new goal that added something even more compelling to the fun and excitement. By the end of the first year, I was doing class 5 with regularity, paddling with the best guys in the area. Well, with good role models to learn from and great rivers to run, you can bootstrap yourself up pretty quickly. I went looking for new places, mostly steep creeks tucked away in remote canyons. Thing led to thing. There was exploring, topo maps, recon, first attempts, failures, waterfalls, rappells, complex portaging - all to find wild lines down beautiful sparkling streams. I shared them with my best buddies, made new friends, committed to little adventures. Sometimes we'd get thrashed but we always came back. Who could ask for a better world to live in? I found a place clean and pure, where the sun and snowmelt laughed with you as you paddled over the edge of the drop, and the next and the next... We solved outrageous puzzles of movement and timing - playing games of speed chess with the water, just at the edge of what we could handle, weaving ourselves completely into the river. We lived for those moments of clarity, when you were totally committed to the line. To that thread of truth. And all those days of friendship and worry and concentration and smiles melted together into the best feeling...

The water is so beautiful. All that power and complexity, all that mystery and unknown. I found myself sitting and watching little eddies, tiny whirlpools and subtle turbulence. I could sit for hours watching and feeling there was something magical there, that I couldn't quite touch. And who wouldn't be mesmerized by 10,000 cfs pounding off a 30 foot ledge into a massive hole? Do you like looking at reality? Do you like seeing truth laid out in front of you, sunlight glinting off the spray while the boulders you sit on shake with its power? And do you answer when you hear it calling?

I got asked by my mentors on more committing trips, and I went. In some ways it was more of the same, but with the greater commitment came new territory. The places got more spectacular, and more dangerous. More importantly, the trips changed their tenor. I found it was one thing doing first descents near home, whether it was class five on steep creeks or big water. Even on the most remote runs, at least you weren't far from people. But doing it up in the wilderness of Canada, Alaska, the jungle, or farther away still, was another thing altogether. The pure fun of zipping a clean line becomes less the point, and something else steps in. The moves might be similar, but a new set of emotions becomes important when you're out in the middle of nowhere, deep in the bottom of some canyon, alone with a friend or two. You look up at the vertical walls. The river disappears in front of you around a corner, and all you can hear is a roar. Then you know the whole game has changed. I call it the real shit. Lots of people, even experienced paddlers, don't necessarily like it. But some people do. You start paying attention to different things when you're totally committed.

Every sense comes alive. Your awareness heightens in every way. The water is your life, and you see and sense everything about it. You listen to yourself and your partner and there's no bullshit. You stretch yourself out and there's no dividing line between you and the beautiful, dangerous place you're in. Every decision you make has huge consequences and so you treat it with care, with a delicacy and intensity that puts you entirely in that moment. The smallest details become immense. Each surge of the current, each paddlestroke, each word has an importance beyond what it could ever have in any other place. And for those minutes, hours, or days, you become a different kind of person.

At some point over the years, I realized that for me kayaking was no longer a sport, it was much more. The decisions I made out there gave me something I needed. I needed the water and its beauty, its power and subtleties, its challenge and inspiration. I needed the friendships it had helped me make. I trained like mad, concentrated on every skill I could, and committed myself to my judgment. The harder the trip and the more it stretched us, the more humbled and small I felt. And the happier. It was like seeing a little farther into a special world. Sharing something beyond friendship with the people I went with.

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