"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.