Well Hello Everyone :)
I write you now from one of our boss's house. He's been working at Ace for over 20 years, and lives in a cool little house on a beautiful ridge on property. With intense old stories, a hot tub, hot shower and internet access, he's become one of my closest buddies :) He's actually one of our trainers as well, the type who might yell something like "Paddle harder you maggots!!" at any given time...
Things here seem to get more intense as time goes on. The more we learn about the river, the scarier it seems to get. They say "Ignorance is bliss" a lot here, and I personally believe that to be the case. I never feared these rivers over the last four years, as I do now. I think the veteran guide trainers, actually I know, make a point to scare the living shit outta us as frequently as they possibly can. For example, we hear horror stories such as, "I saw a whole boat with seven people on it get sucked under that rock..." "He broke his back on that hit..." "Oh she was a good guide, but quit the day one of her customers almost died..." And I'm thinking, are you freaking kidding me?! These people are seriously confident, somewhat cocky, and definitely badass. I mean you have to be to have the mental strength to at the very least make it through training...
Life off the river is no less intense. I've been recruited into construction here, where we're building a shower house and a gear room. And earlier when I said I was doing manual labor, well I must have been confused, because I am now getting worked like I'd never believed. I have a time card that I push into a machine to clock me in and out everyday, I'm constantly covered in saw dust, mud, paint and high on the fumes of some sort of sealant. I lug and stack lumber, I fill pot holes all over our 1,400 acre property with gravel, and I ache like crazy. I actually took the day off today because I thought I might keel over and die after four days straight this week. I need to get my act together today though, because my tent is taking on water and I've been sleeping in a puddle. So I need to re-tarp my A-frame structure today while it's sunny, which is super rare by the way... to be sunny that is. That "April Showers" saying is no joke here. But I can now comfortably hang out in the rain while it's 35F outside with no problem. When you live outside, you either get used to it, or you get out...
We definitely find ways to amuse ourselves as a pack though. Building and playing with fire is now standard, but someone introduced the game of "Hot Coals" to us. It's like Hot Potato, but with 500 degree coals yanked out of the fire pit instead. I think I'm pretty good at it... We have a Wing Night at another rafting company's bar, and we throw some of our guys up to sing with the local musicians. I even almost got into a bar fight last week! Great fun. It was awful actually... I was targeted as a newbie trainee, and surrounded by six local river veterans and verbally harassed for a while before my people noticed what was going on on the other side of the bar. The situation was ultimately defused, but it certainly shook me up. Like I said before, anything to scare us...
Well everyone, I miss you all very much and can't wait for the season to start so I can start seeing your smiling faces again :) Don't worry about me, I think I'll survive ;)
Lots of Love,
LB
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
"Living Intents"
Well hello everyone :)
I write you now from Oak Hill, WV where I have found a library with wireless service. I never thought that I'd find myself back in a library considering I just ran away from civilization, but here I am... So the last 13 days here have been pretty crazy to say the least. Before I got here I was told that we would be staying in heated cabins for a few weeks until it got a bit warmer. Well, that was sadly not the case. I pulled in and met a very rough mountain man named Bo, who explained to me that things had changed suddenly, and told me that people don't ask questions round here... He then rushed me around a huge camp site back in the woods on top of a hill to find me a spot, that was already littered with tents, campers, kayaks and other people. I luckily had enough time to set up my tent under a huge ripped tarp before the sun went down. Turns out the cabins got a bad case of bed bugs, and we were relocated to the veterans camp site. They're apparently going to be super pissed when they come back and find us there, but we now have a trainee in our group nicknamed Bear, who weighs 300lbs and carries around a club he carved out of a 4x4, so I think we'll be alright...
My first day of river training was the very next morning, Saturday the 21st. They showed us to the wetsuit room, and then threw us in the river. We did the Upper New on Saturday, and the Lower half on Sunday. By Sunday evening I had already guided through at least two class V rapids, and a handful of smaller ones as well. There's no better way to learn I guess, then from doin' it wrong. I had thought that I would be a super rookie out here, but more than half our group had never even been in a raft before. That gave me a small boost of confidence, which was then immediately ripped away when I had to guide us through giant waves of water I didn't know how to read... Reading the river is very challenging. There are pour overs, undercut rocks, underwater trees, holes, edys, wave trains, hydraulics, ferrying angles and much more that I haven't yet retained... It's very similar to an obstacle course, except that it can kill you if you do it wrong.
Monday I went hiking with a few of my new friends, and we found an overlook that took my breath away. The New River Gorge is absolutely beautiful, and I can't wait for the flowers and leaves to come back. It's still very much so winter time up here... Tuesday I got a job with a guy named Paul who looks like a young Tommy Chong, and acts very much like him too. We've been painting the zip line tower in the lake, and repairing rafts when it rains. Manual labor is quite a bitch, but I really like it. Wednesday I came down with the camp's sickness, and spent the rest of the week coughing my face off in a cold sweat in my tent. Because it rained all last week the water levels were way up, and by this past Saturday the Gauley had become runnable. I was still pretty sick, but I suited up anyway and got on the bus to the Lower Gauley. I attempted to explain to my guide that if I went for a swim in the 34F water, there was a good chance I was going to end up with pneumonia. She then proceeded to explain to us that if anyone was going to go for a swim that day, it was going to be us. We were the only ones with an NRS raft, and apparently they're finicky little boats that love to flip. Super, I thought, I'm gonna die. "You're gonna die" is a commonly used phrase usually added to the end of every sentence our guides use while explaining different features of the river to us. It's pretty calming. So anyway, were were about two hours into our trip, heading through a rapid called "Junk Yard", came up on the ass of a raft in front of us, hit the wave train at a wrong angle, slammed into the boat in front of us, and flipped right over. I jumped up to the highside of the raft in attempt to push it back down, but I really ended up just helping it right over. I was then under our raft for a few seconds before I lead myself out, and found everyone else splashing around in a bit of a panic. I was then dragged out of the water by another boat, and sat there super stoked about the sudden drop in body temperature. By the time I finally took off my wetsuit four hours later and stood under a hot shower, it was too late. I felt my fever spiking, and I headed to the hospital. It turns out I had the flu and a 101.6 degree temperature. They gave me a handful of Tylenol and an IV for a few hours, and then sent me on my way. Needless to say I sat out the Lower Gauley trip they did on Sunday.
The people here that I'm training with are all going through this too, so everyone's been really great at supporting each other. We all gather around the same fire every night, cook together, share flashlights and water... I even picked up some Benadryl for my friend Andrea today when I made a trip into town. It's becoming quite the little community. Someone came up with the catch phrase "Living Intents" because we all live in tents, and it's super intense. I think we're making shirts. But who knows, we're all poor river rats now, living in the trees... And I love it :)
Hope all is well in the outside world, thinkin of you all... One Love. LB.
I write you now from Oak Hill, WV where I have found a library with wireless service. I never thought that I'd find myself back in a library considering I just ran away from civilization, but here I am... So the last 13 days here have been pretty crazy to say the least. Before I got here I was told that we would be staying in heated cabins for a few weeks until it got a bit warmer. Well, that was sadly not the case. I pulled in and met a very rough mountain man named Bo, who explained to me that things had changed suddenly, and told me that people don't ask questions round here... He then rushed me around a huge camp site back in the woods on top of a hill to find me a spot, that was already littered with tents, campers, kayaks and other people. I luckily had enough time to set up my tent under a huge ripped tarp before the sun went down. Turns out the cabins got a bad case of bed bugs, and we were relocated to the veterans camp site. They're apparently going to be super pissed when they come back and find us there, but we now have a trainee in our group nicknamed Bear, who weighs 300lbs and carries around a club he carved out of a 4x4, so I think we'll be alright...
My first day of river training was the very next morning, Saturday the 21st. They showed us to the wetsuit room, and then threw us in the river. We did the Upper New on Saturday, and the Lower half on Sunday. By Sunday evening I had already guided through at least two class V rapids, and a handful of smaller ones as well. There's no better way to learn I guess, then from doin' it wrong. I had thought that I would be a super rookie out here, but more than half our group had never even been in a raft before. That gave me a small boost of confidence, which was then immediately ripped away when I had to guide us through giant waves of water I didn't know how to read... Reading the river is very challenging. There are pour overs, undercut rocks, underwater trees, holes, edys, wave trains, hydraulics, ferrying angles and much more that I haven't yet retained... It's very similar to an obstacle course, except that it can kill you if you do it wrong.
Monday I went hiking with a few of my new friends, and we found an overlook that took my breath away. The New River Gorge is absolutely beautiful, and I can't wait for the flowers and leaves to come back. It's still very much so winter time up here... Tuesday I got a job with a guy named Paul who looks like a young Tommy Chong, and acts very much like him too. We've been painting the zip line tower in the lake, and repairing rafts when it rains. Manual labor is quite a bitch, but I really like it. Wednesday I came down with the camp's sickness, and spent the rest of the week coughing my face off in a cold sweat in my tent. Because it rained all last week the water levels were way up, and by this past Saturday the Gauley had become runnable. I was still pretty sick, but I suited up anyway and got on the bus to the Lower Gauley. I attempted to explain to my guide that if I went for a swim in the 34F water, there was a good chance I was going to end up with pneumonia. She then proceeded to explain to us that if anyone was going to go for a swim that day, it was going to be us. We were the only ones with an NRS raft, and apparently they're finicky little boats that love to flip. Super, I thought, I'm gonna die. "You're gonna die" is a commonly used phrase usually added to the end of every sentence our guides use while explaining different features of the river to us. It's pretty calming. So anyway, were were about two hours into our trip, heading through a rapid called "Junk Yard", came up on the ass of a raft in front of us, hit the wave train at a wrong angle, slammed into the boat in front of us, and flipped right over. I jumped up to the highside of the raft in attempt to push it back down, but I really ended up just helping it right over. I was then under our raft for a few seconds before I lead myself out, and found everyone else splashing around in a bit of a panic. I was then dragged out of the water by another boat, and sat there super stoked about the sudden drop in body temperature. By the time I finally took off my wetsuit four hours later and stood under a hot shower, it was too late. I felt my fever spiking, and I headed to the hospital. It turns out I had the flu and a 101.6 degree temperature. They gave me a handful of Tylenol and an IV for a few hours, and then sent me on my way. Needless to say I sat out the Lower Gauley trip they did on Sunday.
The people here that I'm training with are all going through this too, so everyone's been really great at supporting each other. We all gather around the same fire every night, cook together, share flashlights and water... I even picked up some Benadryl for my friend Andrea today when I made a trip into town. It's becoming quite the little community. Someone came up with the catch phrase "Living Intents" because we all live in tents, and it's super intense. I think we're making shirts. But who knows, we're all poor river rats now, living in the trees... And I love it :)
Hope all is well in the outside world, thinkin of you all... One Love. LB.
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