Contributed by: Karl Gesslein
Location of put in: Friendsville,
Maryland
Approximate class: Class
V
Estimated length: 6 miles
Last Sat I ran the Upper
Yough for the first time. In a word, it was awesome. Imagine the
kind of crowds you've seen
at events like the Bottom Moose Fest without the carnage. I
started out at 3:30 AM driving
like a bat out of hell to get to Friendsville by 11:00. Oooops,
I got there at 9:30. OK,
wandering around I ran into another paddler named Dave from
Buffalo whom I had meet
at the Bottom Moose. We had breakfast at the diner, it took
about an hour for our food
to show up, but hey the coffee was only $.25 with free refills, so
I'm not complaining. I was
a little apprehensive, this was the first time I had run a class V
river without knowing the
people I was paddling with. I did not know who would be a
stronger paddlers in the
group and who would be the weaker paddlers. Then I
rendezvoused with Ratticus
Maximus. I think he was as taken aback by first impressions of
me as I was with him. You
always have a mental image of what people on the internet look
like. It is always wrong.
Rattso was tall, very tall, almost as tall as I was. I noticed right
away since to me everyone
is short, no matter how tall they are, unless they are within a few
inches of my height. He
had printed out my Mug shot and used that to identify me.
http://www.ne-ww.com/whome.htm
One problem, the mug shot was of me 10
years ago when I was young
and reckless. I've got much less hair now. Almost none in fact.
There was the usual shuttle
confusion, Mr. Ratt Boy wanted to try out my Mr. Clean. I
didn't have a problem with
that except that left me with the squashed RPM/ wannabe squirt
boat which had never been
paddled on whitewater. I wasn't sure what was going to happen
to me. We got to the put
in then we waited. We waited and waited and waited.
Switch to: Dam operator sleeping on his desk
Switch to: A hundred paddlers laid out in the sun waiting for the bubble.
Turns out the water didn't
get turned on at the right time so we were waiting an extra couple
of hours. It was fun talking
to other paddlers. I saw the Franken RPM, an RPM with a
wooden stern and an end
cap on it. Cool. My super squashed RPM attracted lots of
carnage vultures who were
making bets on whether I was going to get hammered. Rattso's
friends were also making
bets on how many times he'd swim paddling that ridiculous looking
elf slipper boat the Mr.
Clean. I wasn't worried, my Mr. Clean is a damn fine river runner, I
knew he'd be AOK. It was
about 2:00 before the water showed up, I imagined sleeping till
8:00 AM instead of getting
up at 3:30 AM and still making it to the put in on time. Then I
imagined the drive home,
then I immediately started talking to someone trying my best to
forget about having to drive
home that night.
Then the water finally came,
everyone ran and hopped in, only to paddle a bunch of
flatwater and have to wait
some more. Mr Rattso had a few problems squeezing in the
Clean and asked me several
times how I managed to do it. Zen pain management technique,
that all I can say. At first
it seemed awkward to him, little did I know that within an hour or
two he'd be cart wheeling
the boat in pourovers and landing right on top of me. Cool.
OK, so for those of you who
have not paddled the Upper Yough it goes something like this.
Wait, then wait some more,
then keep waiting for the water. When the water finally gets
there then keep waiting.
After about 30 minutes you can put in and start paddling flatwater.
Then you start getting into
some Class III rapids. Now sit and wait. OK, paddle some more
flatwater, OK now you start
hitting the named rapids. 14 in all, and I don't remember any of
their names or how to tell
them apart. Thats what makes the Upper Yough class V, its not
the rapids, its dealing
with the confusion factor. Where am I? Where should I be? What do
I need to do? The rapids
are one right after another and there are definitely places you want
to be and places you don't
want to be. If you're paddling it for the first time you want to
paddle with someone who
knows it. Don't just ask if they've run it, ask how many times
they've run it. If its less
than 5 times then start looking for the older dudes paddling the
old-school handmade fiberglass
boats with the faded PDF and hook up with them. Each
major rapid went something
like this.
Rattso: "OK this next rapid
you want to ferry right, catch the micro eddy, then ferry out left
behind the hole and boof
right the left of the big rock in the center with your boat pointing
right. Then catch the eddy
and whatever you do, don't get swept into the next rapid. Got
it?"
Me: "Um yah whatever sure, Is there anyway to eddy out where I can see the line?"
Rattso: "Well not really"
Me: "Hmmm, well we're not gonna scout, eh?"
Rattso: "No, you don't need to scout"
Me: "OK, well you want to go first?"
Rattso: "Sure"
And we'd go merrily along.
Sometimes I would see my Clean doing unintentional cartwheels
or launching in the air,
and would adjust my line accordingly. The squashed RPM did
surprisingly well with the
following exceptions, I blew my skirt 3 times in the middle of
rapids. When boofing drops
and landing on the eddy line my RPM would do major mystery
moves where the whole boat
and sometimes my head would go underwater. It was weird,
but cool. There was lots
of really fun runs where you got to ride up on the pillows of rocks
and drop into eddys run
narrow little slots and stuff. Mr Rattso was nice enough to not
show me the pansy lines,
but to run me down the really fun lines. It was really a good time.
I was really inspired by
a nice woman who was hand paddling with gloves with webbed
fingers and by watching
Jeff Snyder striding standing up in his ducky. I kept thinking to
myself, how cool it is to
discard convention and work the river on your own terms. Its all
about finding your place
in the water and where you belong. I must confess I am still
looking. After seeing the
rows and rows of plastic boats I wanted to break out and do
something different and
special. Not just buy an Angst or a Sin, I wanted to do something
that no one else is doing.
Whitewater is a difficult medium to experiment in though and can
be awfully unforgiving.
All and all I would call
the weekend a smashing success even though I spent about 13 hours
on the road and only got
to paddle one day. The Upper Yough is an excellent river for solid
class IV+ boaters. It releases
every Monday and Friday, and usually the first sat of the
Month. So starting planing
to skip work and get you butt down there.