From: Wilko Subject: Ten Little Indians ("Flood in Germany") Newsgroups: rec.boats.paddle Date: 1998/11/03 Anyone ever get to hear the children's story about the ten little indians? Every time there was one less untill, at the end, there was only one left... This is the paddling variant of that story about those ten little indians. Be warned, this is one of the longest reports I've written so far! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- A couple of weeks ago I had already tried to organise a couple of trips ahead (Knowing how many people would have already planned something else to do instead of paddling if I called them only a couple of days before the trip). This had resulted in our "Bloody carnage on the upper Rur"-trip last weekend, and I had also a trip planned for sunday the 1st of november. Despite having nine confirmations and one "maybe", two days before the trip, due to all kinds of excuses, only five people showed up on sunday morning. That was a bad score, only half of the paddlers I had expected. We had started with ten little indians, and now there were only five left :-( It had been raining a lot over the past three weeks, with some very violent weather the night before (I cycled home from a friend's place, only five minutes away, and the rain came through my thick winter coat and was pouring over my back and through my trousers before I got home :-( ). We met at our regular gathering point, the gas-station at the Flora-square in Eindhoven, NL. Michiel had brought along a paddler (Jan) from his neck of the woods, and Cornelis and Hans came along as well. Our trip to Monschau (Germany) was quite uneventful, (and is well-described in my previous reports). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Flood-level? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- When we arrived at the Washing-Board-rapid, we couldn't believe what we saw... There was a brown wave at the top, and there was a _lot_ of water coming down the Washing Board itself. I had never seen it this high, and I had witnessed it during the floods of 1995! The WWW-gauge under Monschau had given 98cm (3'3") on friday, which was a lot, but this looked like a lot more than 98 cm! It looked like about double the amount that I had paddled the week before, so more like 160 to 170cm (5'4"to 5'8"). On top of that, the Perlbach was a raging stream that flooded the small patches of forest on its banks. The green stream from the Perlbach delivered almost as much water into the town of Monschau as the upper part of the Rur. This promised some extreme levels in Monschau itself... Michiel and Jan both opted for a trip which ended above the Washing Board, because they were impressed by the sight of the Washing Board (and with good cause, I may add). We discussed the options, and we agreed on paddling the first stretch together, with Michiel and Jan getting out above the Washing board, after which they would drive their car to the take-out under Monschau, where they would pick up Cornelis, Hans and me. While we stood there discussing, I saw a lot of paddlers driving past us, with a couple of familiar faces and (waving hands) as well. Others stopped, got out, shook their heads and quickly thereafter went back in the direction they had come from. We drove to the bridge near Reichenstein, and we were surprised to see a lot of cars (most with boats still on top) come driving towards us. That wasn't a good sign! As we neared the bridge, we could see some trucks of the fire-department and a dozen or so firemen walking all around the bridge. I couldn't help thinking about fatalities. We drove into the parking lot, which was almost filled to capacity with paddler's cars, a couple of dozen of them, most with the boats still on top. We quickly got out and ran to the bridge, where a group of paddlers had gathered. We saw that the levels were so high that the gauge under the bridge had disappeared under water. A quick chat with a fireman explained a lot: it was strongly advised not to paddle, as there were some trees across the river. As we stood there, the police arrived, but luckily they didn't close the river. A couple of Dutch paddlers with whom I had paddled in my first year arrived, and we heard that Monschau had 1,80 metres (6 foot)of water. We were told that some bridges were so close to the water that we might have to brace to get under them. The firemen got back in their trucks, and as the last one climbed in, we quickly asked what their plans were. They would go and have a look at the trees and maybe cut them up if possible. We decided to wait for the firemen to return and tell us about the situation and whereabouts of the trees. Hans told us that he would have a quick look, and that he would be back soon. Jasper, a paddler whom I had paddled with in the Italian Alps told me that he would lead his small group on the upper Rur above Reichenstein, from the old train station at the town of Kalterherberg to the bridge of Reichenstein. He asked me what my plans were, and if I might want to wait for them to arrive here, so that he, and another paddler out of his group could join us on the run towards the Washing Board. As we waited, the rain started, and Cornelis and I went to the wooden shelter, where we were quickly followed by a group of about fifteen other Dutch paddlers. We had some discussions about difficulty, water levels and preferences. Most of them weren't comfortable with these levels, and they decided to try to do the lower Rur (a class I/II stretch at normal levels). The rain stopped, and even more paddlers arrived. I had a quick chat with our instructor, Maarten, who showed me his new boat, a black Prijon Alien. He had bought it from a German buddy of his, but he had thought he had bought a slalom boat, only to find that he had bought a brand new plastic playboat :-D His group weren't into this kind of WW, so they teamed up with the other Dutch group, and they went to do the lower Rur as well. We saw many Germans in Topolinos and Diablos get in and paddle away. Cornelis and Michile told us that they would go and get Hans, who had been away for over an hour now. I remained behind with Jan, and we had some discussions about the difficulty of some of the rivers the both of us had paddled. He seemed to have a different view than I on the upper levels of what was being paddled now and what was paddled twenty-five years ago in glass boats. He also told me about all the wonderful and very difficult rivers he had done all over the world. I wasn't impressed, because I wanted to see what those stories translated into when he was paddling on the swollen waters of the upper Rur first. I've seen big stories translate into bad carnage on simple WW before. Michiel and Cornelis returned: they had seen a strainer, but no Hans. I got irritated by Hans his umptieth display of single-mindedness (he had done that a lot in Austria...), and decided to start to change anyway. We would not wait for two hours just because he did something else than he had said again. As we were almost ready, Hans showed up. he had walked to the Washing Board and back, but somehow he hadn't seen the first strainer. I told him what I thought of this action, and I hurried him into changing quickly. It started to rain again. Cornelis and Michiel ran the shuttle. After they had returned, Jasper showed up. Jasper's group had had a swimmer. They got in some trouble because the river flowed very fast through some woods, which made it very difficult to get the boat to shore. The swimmer managed to get out as well, but they were quite shaken by the event. Only Jasper and his buddy, Maurice(?) wanted to continue. I invited them to join us, that would make it seven little indians again. On the water, finally! (with seven little indians) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- We got over the paddle-order, the signals and what to do in an emergency. Everybody agreed, and we got in. I did a Himalaya-start, and Cornelis and Hans followed me there. The rest walked over the bridge and they put in downstream of the bridge, in a small eddy. I lead the group, with Jasper and Maurice following me, then Hans, Jan and Michiel came, with Cornelis at the end of the line. The current was extremely fast, which was a bit of a surprise for each of us, even the two who had done the stretch upstream of Reichenstein. Jan, Michiel and Hans clearly had some difficulty with catching eddies. I wanted them to catch as many as possible, as this was important later on, when things really got difficult. After stopping in an eddy, Maurice gave up. He wasn't feeling comfortable in this relatively large group. He dumped his boat and ran along with us, so that he could help us when possible, and reach his buddies who were waiting downstream on the parking lot near the Washing Board for Jasper and him. We held a meeting in a large eddy about what to do. Michiel followed Maurice's example. He wasn't used to his Whiplash, this WW was going a bit faster than he liked, and the trees and tree-branches made getting eddies tricky, so he quit as well. That left the five of us. Maurice dubbed whether he would re-join us, but in the end, he decided not to. We were only one or two eddies below the one in which we had been talking when I saw the foot-bridge over the horse-shoe shaped rapid. As there were enough eddies, I signalled "stop". Jan wasn't able to catch any eddy and he went past me. I yelled "eddy", but Jan made a waving gesture, and he gave me a look as if I shouldn't interfere, as if he was in control. I told Cornelis to get out of my way and went out of the eddy. Unfortunately Cornelis went out of the back of the eddy and he flipped. I didn't want to paddle over him to get to Jan, so I had to wait to let him get to roll up before going after Jan. The normal small drop with the U-shaped hole was completely washed out, producing a huge wave, that made me think that I would hit my head on the underside of the bridge. Because of the drop after the wave, you didn't even get near hitting the bridge. There were a couple of large eddies downstream of the bridge. Jan got in the right one. Cornelis got into an eddy below Jan, and I stopped near Jan. before starting this trip, we made the agreement not to overtake, so I pointed him at that again, but he just shrugged. I pressed my point again, and then he agreed that "maybe he shouldn't have done that". I wasn't sure if he had missed the eddies because he just couldn't catch them skill-wise or because he thought that I shouldn't catch so many, and I was worried about him getting in trouble alone. Anyway, he shouldn't agree to something that he didn't want to do in the first place. After all, I had only stopped at points where I saw several eddies upstream from me. We came onto a part where there were several waves, holes and it was getting hard to scout ahead far enough without stopping. The waves were getting bigger, and since the river was zig-zagging through the forest, it was a matter of staying away from the trees and branches over the water as well. The first swimmer -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Suddenly I saw Jasper signal "stop", and I looked upstream. I could see Jasper scramble out of his boat , grabbing his throw-line, then I saw Jan come down after a red Invader (Hans' boat) and shortly thereafter I saw Cornelis with Hans in tow. I quickly got in an eddy. I waited to see if Cornelis needed a hand, but as he neared the eddy that I was in, I could see that he would be able to catch the next one. Jasper threw his line, but although it reached Hans, he didn't need it. I, on the other hand, almost got entangled in it when I turned out of the eddy. Jan flushed past us, not only all alone, but now very close to a swamped (280 kg/ 600 lbs) Invader as well. A quick sprint and I overtook Jan and the Invader. I told him to get in an eddy, but he shook his head. I told him again, being afraid that he would get in the way of my rescue-efforts, as he had done nothing to get the boat to shore so far. He grabbed the floating paddle and threw it away... into the current, but now out of his reach. I couldn't reach it without messing up another attempt to beach the swamped boat, so I let it go as well. I saw that Hans' boat had no flotation whatsoever, and at one point it disappeared under the surface for a while before resurfacing about twenty metres downstream. I wasn't going to hook my cow-tail on that thing in these situations, no way! I tried to get it in between some trees several times, but each time it slowly turned and flushed out of the eddy again. Finally I reached a fork, where I quickly shoved the boat in between some trees. This time it got stuck, with the cockpit facing upstream. Almost the entire boat was under water. I got out, grabbed my throwbag and walked upstream. Jan had gotten in a big eddy upstream of the boat, and he was talking about what to do. he started saying something about having had this kind of situation before in Turkey or whatever... I told him that I would try to get it out by myself, as I didn't want to have to rely on him. So I left him standing on the shore. I waded in, and slowly worked my way towards the boat, in about sixty centimetres (two foot) of fast moving water. As I lifted one foot up to position it a little further, it was pushed towards the surface by the force of the current. I finally reached the boat, after what seemed like a very long time. I tried rolling the boat, hoping to get some of the pressure off. It worked, and I slowly let the current lift the boat a little. Then I started traversing through the current into the eddy. I put it on its side and let most of the water out. Jan then walked towards me and lifted the other end. I told him to turn it upside-down, but I had to tell him thrice before he finally did so. Maurice appeared on the opposite shore, and I signalled that we had lost the paddle. He signalled that he would go and see if he could find it somewhere downstream. Jasper came down the river, and he got in the eddy we were standing beside. Now Michiel and Hans showed up as well, but they were on the opposite shore. Hans had a big cut on his eyebrow, but he gave me the "thumbs up" nonetheless. I was glad he was okay. I asked Jasper if he thought that he could surf a boat on a cow-tail behind him to the opposite shore. He wasn't sure... So we tried a different method. We gave him one end of my throwbag, which he attached to the biner of his cowtail and he tried to surf to the other shore. When he was about two-thirds across, the line started to get caught in the current, and he quickly flushed down. When I saw that he wasn't going to make it to another eddy, I had to let go. Jan yelled: let the line go! I told him to shut up. Jasper wasn't in any kind of trouble, there weren't risks of the line getting caught on a branch, and even if that was happening, he had a quick-release harness. Besides, we might need the line later. Jan said something about the quick-release not opening, but by this time I had had it with him and his remarks so I ignored him. I went to help Jasper with getting the line back in the bag. Jasper suddenly pointed at my hand: "you've sprung a leak" he joked... I had cut my fingers which I hadn't felt through the cold. Only a couple of minor cuts, but it resulted in a lot of the red stuff being mixed with the water on my hands and looking like my hand might fall off. I quickly washed it off. Cornelis showed up, and he landed in the eddy near the beached Invader as well. What happened next was looking more like an episode of the Three Stooges than three paddlers trying to get something useful done. We even had some interested German hikers as an audience now. So maybe it was just cold feet about having to perform in front of an audiance. Jan tried to throw the line to the other shore, the line went up, and came down again, falling in the water about four or five metres from our shore (it was probably 12 to 13 metres (40 feet) to the other shore). Cornelis, who can normally throw very far, gave it a try... it hit a tree-branch two metres over Cornelis and it fell in the water, not even halfway across. His second try got about three metres before it fell in the water again. He had held onto the rope with his other hand, not leaving enough rope to be thrown. Jasper was next: He gave the throwbag such a violent sweep that I though that it would end in the top of the tree... and he slipped and fell in the eddy (I should have a picture with him falling in the eddy and the rope only a short distance away in the same eddy). His reaction on seeing me standing behind him with a camera was at least as comical as his splash: "Now there goes my carefully maintained image down the drain!" he said laughing. His second try reached the eddy on the opposite shore, but strangely neither Michiel nor Hans made any attempt to grab the bag before the line was caught by the current and the bag flushed downstream again. The next attempt was successful. Instead of relying on Michiel or Hans, (who were breaking off branches with which to try and get a hold of the bag if it might again land near them this time???) he threw it in between a couple of trees where it got stuck. Michiel then tried to tie it to a tree on the edge of the eddy. Some signal-language on my part made them untie the rope and get upstream instead. Unfortunately he didn't understand that by having the rope on the shore-side of the tree, it didn't matter if he would walk upstream from there. The line was perpendicular to the river, so the boat would still be swept downstream now. As they walked away, they didn't look back, and they pulled the boat out of the eddy. We started yelling "RUN!!!", which they didn't hear, but by quickly hauling in the line, they got the boat to their shore nonetheless. I got in my boat and surfed to the other shore, where I got the throw-bag, as well as a message from Hans: he had had it, and he would prefer to walk the rest. A wise move, considering that we hadn't reached the most difficult part yet. We were overtaken by three paddlers with small boats, one Topo, one Pyranha 240 and a small playboat I didn't get to see clearly enough to recognise. I said "good day" in German, and I got a muttered reply in heavily accented German. After they paddled away I saw why: one of them had a sticker with a Belgian flag on it on his boat. :-) That's what you get when you put two Dutch speaking foreigners on a German river... Four little indians left... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Now there were the four of us (ever heard the children's song about the ten little indians?)... and the river of course! We went down again, and quickly the river started to get more interesting. There were several big holes that I zig-zagged in between, and the waves were getting irregular now as well. We had to dodge more tree barches as the flow became tighter than before. Some tree-branches touched the branches of the trees on the opposite shore. We caught some eddies, but I noticed that Jan overtook Jasper several times. All of a sudden I saw a strange river-wide hole. It was very regular, and I think there was a tree-trunk in the water. I got through okay, and I looked back upstream just in time to see Jasper's eyes go wide open as he dove into the hole. He came through all right. As I looked downstream to see what lay ahead, I noticed another tree, this time about half of the trunk was under water, with the center part being out of the water about 40 centimetres (1,3 foot) and the left part on a big flat rock. Remembering cornelis'advice about this particular strainer, I immediatly steered to the right, going over the tree about a metre to the right of where the tree started to disapear under water. Jasper had a similar line. Jan, on the other hand came awfully close to the part where the tree stuck out of the water, and I could see his boat bounce up as it hit the tree. He was getting way too close for comfort. Luckely it went okay, Cornelis had a good line. Maurice came walking back up, so we stopped again. Maurice decribed the situation near the next strainer. He mentioned a bridge a couple of hundred metres upstream from the strainer, and all the eddies to the river right under that bridge. The part upstream of the bridge was the most violent part, with some sharp turns, many big holes and being pretty steep as well. I recognised the steep part, but I still had no idea of the availability of eddies in this amount of water. This tree was across the entire river, and Maurice described the branches as thick as a fore-arm that were sticking out of it into the river. This was a definate "no-no"! We talked about it, and we decided upon getting out near the bridge, as Maurice warned us about the complete lack of eddies fifty metres or so upstream of the strainer, and we might not see it in time. We went downstream, even more cautious than before. To my surprise I saw Jan overtake Jasper again, and only because I got out very quickly before he reached me, I managed to get parallel with him. "In an eddy!", I yelled. This was getting dangerous, especially with the strainer coming up. I got in an eddy, and signalled to Jasper to come to my eddy as well. I asked him what he thought of Jan's paddling technique so far. As I had expected, he confirmed that Jan had overtaken him several times, as well as miss several eddies and riding way too close to Jasper for jasper's comfort. He also said that he would have taken Jan off the water if he had been the trip-leader. I didn't want to be so harsh, so when I saw a couple of eddies, I signalled everyone to stop. We got out, and after we got together, I told Jan what we had noticed so far, and what I thought of that. He was not agreeing, but I didn't mind. I gave him one more chance to prove that he could padle in a disciplined way, otherwise we would stop a couple of hundred metres below and he would have to stop. As it turned out, Jan mistook something for an eddy that was actually a rock, which made him bounce back into the current, right under Cornelis' nose. As he almost missed the next eddy, Cornelis made a joke about him bouncing over that rock. As we stopped a couple of eddies below to evaluate his paddling so far, he kept the honour to himself, and he quit before we had any chance to say something to him. Only three little indians... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Things weren't the way we had planned it. Fortunately the three of us were experienced enough to do this stretch safely, so I put some speed into the trip, only taking eddies every once in a while, to give the others some time to catch their breath. The river gained in gradient, and it started to include some sharp turns while speeding up. I tried to evade as many holes as I could, as I didn't want to get stuck here. This was not a smart place to play. I turned into an eddy after a particularly violent rapid when I hit a rock. I looked around, and I suddenly recognised the "eddy": I had gotten into it last week, but the rock I hit had been a rock behind which I could easily hide myself the week before... Cornelis and Jasper did okay, and we arrived at the footbridge. Jasper got into a very large eddy on the river left, while I tried to get into the smaller right hand side eddy under the bridge. Cornelis managed to sqeeze in as well, as he excitedly told me that he had seen Hans' paddle! As I held onto his boat and a couple of roots, he grabbed the (rotten) tree and almost fell backwards as it came apart in his hand. :-) He quickly recovered his balance and clambered up the slope. He helped me get my boat up as well, and Jasper and I waited as Cornelis ran upstream to get the paddle. As it turned out, someone had gotten it out, and set it up against a tree. Luckily Cornelis had seen it. Jasper and I looked at the river, and to our surprise there were lots of eddies on the left side (looking downstream), but hardly any on the right side. Maurice had been walking upstream, and he had mixed up his and our right and left... Jan showed up, walking with his boat. We walked along with Jan 'till we reached the strainer. Then we gave Hans' paddle to Jan and we used a throwline to get our boats down the high and steep slope (about thirty metres (100 feet) above the water). The strainer was looking bad, but I wouldn't have used the description Maurice had used. The tree had fallen on the opposite shore, leaving a gap of a little over a metre (4 feet) between the water and the trunk. Every fifty centimetres or so, a big branch went down into the water. As some Germans demonstrated, the thinnest branches on the right side of the river still had some elasticityleft in them. You could aim in between two branches and slip through as they bent slightly apart. It could be tricky if you had to swim through it, especially in the left part of the river. We got back on the water, and paddled down. After a short but interesting rapid, we arrived at the weir just upstream from the Washing Board. I intended on having a quick peek, but there was such a strong current that I quickly had to decide on which side of the centre pillar I was going to go. The left is a vertical drop, made of a couple of tree-trunks lashed together on top of a concrete weir, the right is a diagonal slide which had a wider keeper hole at the bottom. I opted for the left, and after a short sprint, I landed in the eddy under the weir. Jasper quickly followed, and Cornelis came down as the last. This looked a lot different than the last time I was here. It actually was a nasty hole, and I wasn't certain about how strong it would be in this high water. We eddied out near the parking lot, and we put the boats on shore. Jasper his buddies were here as well as Michiel, Hans and Jan. I was anxious to do the part through Monschau, but Cornelis wasn't so sure. He was a little tired, and I didn't want to push him. So I told him that I would love to do it, but that he shouldn't go along just to please me. After thinking about it for a while, he agreed to come along, after he had some sandwiches. I ate some candy, just to get some sugar, and I went to talk to Jasper and his buddies. After the lady of the group asked me who I was (I had talked to her during our Genneper Mill Slalom Race, and although I recognised her, she didn't, as I wore my helmet with chin- and face-guard) we had some talk about the what Monschau would look like at these levels (we were still thinking it was 1,80cm (6 ft.)). Two little indians... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- We got in, while most of the paddlers on the parking lot came to look at us going down the 8 metre (25 ft) high weir called the Washing Board. Hans setup a camera on the bridge overlooking the Washing Board, and after a short talk with Cornelis I went down. I waved at the people on the bridge as I slid down the steep slope. I was just thinking how good it felt not to bounce around on all the rocks on the board when I reached the bottom and felt this massive blow from below... I had hit a very big boulder in the middle of the current, the one that is normally clearly visible from above. I got in an eddy under the bridge, and waited for Cornelis. He had a good line as well, and he hit the same boulder :-) We waved at the people on the bridge for the last time, and quickly went downstream towards Monschau. There were big waves that were spo high that I couldn't see Cornelis when I looked back. I quickly took some pictures, but as the camera flashed, I'm afraid that they will be too dark. We had almost reached the Brewery-weir, and we quickly got into a micro eddy to scout. This weir is dangerously sticky at half the level we had today, so we had to scout. It was hard to get off the river though. The bank is a vertical wall of loose rocks that fall apart when you try to grab them. A concrete railroad sleeper made for a good stairs though. We ran towards the weir in the pouring rain, some of the German pedestrians looked at us as if we had just beamed down from our space-ship. The weir was indeed looking very sticky, but we would have a chance if we came down the extreme right. Only one problem... there was this little copse of trees just upstream of the weir, and it would be almost impossible to paddle in between the trees and tree branches that were hanging over the water. We ran back, and the rain slowed down to a trickle. We slid down the embankment and reached our boats, that we had stacked in a tree for safekeeping. As this eddy was tiny, and the result of a swim fatal, Cornelis grabbed my boat, (almost nutered me with it) and stabilised it, standing in the cold water when I got in. He joked "so this is what they mean with male bonding". I grabbed the tree and his boat so that he could get in as well, and off we went. We had no alternative, so in the best limbo fashion I tried to zig-zag in between the trees and branches. That left me with only a short space in which to accelerate before going over the weir. I paddled as fast as I could, even when I went down the slope. I felt the suction of the hole grab my boat, slow me down untill I thought that it would stop me, but by paddling even faster and more furiously, I broke through the hole. This had looked like minutes, but it couldn't have been more than a second or two. Cornelis went down only slightly more to the left than I had done. He experienced the same suction as he grinded to a halt, but he come through as well. I eddied out but he didn't make that eddy so I had to paddle quickly to stay ahead of him. This was exciting! The next part was the high wall stretch where Rolf had flipped and banged his head only a week before. It was a fast wavetrain, with many holes in between that banged into the high left wall while the river was bending to the right. I stayed to the right of the waves, not wanting to be banged into the wall. Next was the bridge with the play hole. This was not a good place to play now. I skirted the hole, having a clean line. I was wondering how I would get out of the hole if I had become stuck in it. "With a truckload of luck" would probably be the right answer. Next was a wave train with some exceptionally large waves. I suddenly realised that they were exactly in the spots where the concrete islands had been built in the riverbed (read "Bloody Carnage on the Upper Rur, Germany for the details). These waves were so big that I actually felt my boat come clear of the water once. This was fun, and I could see Cornelis' smile. This reminded me of our trip down the Landeck Gorge in Austria this summer. As we floated past the houses in Monschau, I motioned Cornelis to come closer. We exchanged only a couple of words, but we shared a mutual feeling of extasy there. This is what WW paddling is all about: being on the water with your friends and having fun! We reached the weir in the centre of the town, I went down to the right, trying to hit the hole at the bottom of it almost at a ninety degrees angle. I succeeded, getting stopped dead in my tracks by the hole but getting through it nonetheless. Cornelis had a better line, a little further to the right, he slid through the hole almost effortlessly. Two sharp turns and we were near the Hotel Zum Stern gauge. It read a little over 160cm. The highest I had done it before had been about 110. Everything looked a lot more dangerous now! We didn't have to duck under the bridges now, but the big drop called the "Favoriten-killer" loomed up in the distance. This was going to be the biggest challenge. We got in an eddy on the right and got out to scout. We saw some people on the bridge who were obviously interested in looking at our endeavor. The rapid under the bridge is a 5 metre (15ft) high double slide with a hole at the bottom of each slide. At normal levels (half or less the level we had today) the holes aren't worth mentioning. The left slide had such a monstrous hole at the bottom that I didn't consider it an alternative. The hole itself was a violently trashing foamy mass with jets of water being kicked up several metres high and I could see a massive amount of water downstream of it (that illegally posed as an eddy) that was sucked back into the hole. The right slide, which is usually dry, looked nasty as well, but we could see a line, albeit a tight one. There was a hole under it as well, and something that looked like a pulsating eddy, at least ten metres long, but with waves in it and a pretty strong current in the eddy, leading directly into the hole... One little indian... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- After a quick discussion, we opted for the right-side slide. Cornelis made a V-sign, meaning to say "two minutes", but actually a symbol to taunt the river gods... Ooops! We got back in, I gave Cornelis the thumbs up, and we went down, Cornelis about 40 metres behind me. I noticed some branches sticking out of the embankment only a dozen metres or so in front of the horizon line which I had to avoid... oh-oh!! I missed the branches... and my line. I went down at least a metre to the right of my intended line. As I went down I saw that hole looking back at me, and I could almost see it licking its lips... FLIP! I was upside-down. I rolled up so quickly that I don't remember which side I used. Now I looked around and I noticed that I was in the eddy. I looked upstream and quickly tried to punch trough the eddy-line... no way Jose! I bounced back and now I was in the eddy with my bow pointing downstream. The waves in the eddy banged me into the wall while the current was sucking me back down into the hole. I suddenly saw Cornelis appear at the top of the slide. He was about as far off the line as I had been. He came down with a lot of speed... and flipped as well. He rolled up, in the eddy... was banged against the wall by the waves in the eddy and flipped again. Now things were getting tricky: he rolled up, banged into the wall and flipped again. I counted five tries before he was banged into the wall on his side, with no way of him rolling up on that side again, as the wall now pushed against the bottom of his boat, effectively preventing his right-side roll. He bailed out... and I still couldn't get out of the eddy!!! I was getting a bit mad a myself now. I tried harder, and ended up in the boiling eddy again. Now I changed strategy, pushing my paddle against the wall, turning my boat and then paddling at a right angle into the current... I almost flipped and my brace helped my back into the eddy, almost into the hole. I paddled as hard as I could and suddenly I was through the eddy-line, the nose of my boat high out of the water and I felt as if I was being shot out of a catapult shooting though the water while my boat remained standing on the rear end for a dozen metres or so. I paddled as hard as I could, but the fight near the hole had tired me. I saw Cornelis at least two hundred metres downstream of me, swimming with his boat in one hand and the paddle in the other. We both knew that the Bear's Pit was waiting for him, only a hundred metres or less downstream of him. He let go of his boat and swam for his life. I was so tired that I put the nose of my boat in an eddy and I eddied out by accident. This made me so mad at myself that it gave me the strength to renew my effort and race down again. Cornelis gave me the "thumbs up" so I went after his boat. By the time I reached it, it was almost going over the edge of the Bear's Pit. This vertical weir is made of big steel H-profiles that are anchored in the riverbed. A concrete wall is erected between the profiles and a lot of boulders are piled up against that wall. There is one slide, and the rest of the openings in between the steel pillars are vertical. At these levels there is a very strong backwash at the bottom of the drop. I had no idea which the right opeping between pillars was, as not all the pillars were clearly visible so I just aimed for the left and hoped for the best. I missed the slide by one pillar... :-( As I went down I saw the huge hole at the bottom, whoooops! My boat came up way too quickly and I backendered out of the hole bracing frantically. I got close to Cornelis' boat, only having to let it get out of my sight as the next hole loomed up. I suddenly saw an orange throwbag float by, which I recognised as Cornelis' throwbag... Bummer! Next came the biggest horror: A big strainer had fallen in the river only two weeks ago. Now, with all this water, it created a very big straight hole. I paddled like mad, hoping to punch through it. I made it. Next came a hole that is diagonally across the river. I tried to get as much distance between me and the swamped boat as possible, as I knew that this hole surfs you from right to left. I wasn't going to be hit by a swamped boat if I could prevent it. Next came some waves and minor holes, and I could get closer. The Diablo had flipped, and I had quite a difficult run, trying to push it to shore. The cockpit acted like a brake, and the mass of the water in the boat meant that it would go on moving in a straight line when I wanted it to slow down. I didn't dare to clip it on my cowtail, because the water was way too violent, besides, I didn't get a chance to clip it on. Finally I managed to get my biner clipped on the upturned boat, but by now I was at least seven or eight hundred metres downstream of our take out. I tried to paddle to shore, but this was a concrete wall, and I didn't have any eddies, let alone a place to get both boats in safely. Finally I noticed a grass lawn at the end of the wall, it was flooded, so I paddled as hard as I could to get everything to shore. To my surprise, I could still see the throwbag floating a couple of metres away, merrily following its former container. I beached the boat, but it was hard to get the biner off the grabloop with a fully loaded boat lying on top of it in a flooded lawn. By the time I got it off, Cornelis arrived, out of breath. One stupid little indian... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I felt awfully guilty for not being there when he needed me, so I said: "Do you want your throwbag back?". After some hesitation he said something along the lines of: "don't know, well, okay...", so I replied: "Pick me up at the low bridge where we normally take out when we do the lower Rur", and I got back in. I called myself stupid before I was only a hundred metres away. I had just violated my own rule about not paddling alone. I also violated my rule about not taking unnecessary risks for equipment. What was I thinking? (actually, was I thinking at all?) The river is normally a class I/II from here, but it is a long stretch (4,3 kilometres/ 2,5 miles) with no roads and only a bridge at the end. At these levels it is a II with long stretches of III. Also, it was getting late, with maybe an hour before darkness. I paddled as fast as I could, I even saw some orange pieces of pipe in between some trees and on some heaps of flotsam. I got through some bends in the river and I found some wavetrains and holes I had never seen before. After about a kilometre I realised that I was never going to find the bag, but there was no way back now. I had to get to the bridge a.s.a.p., as I didn't want to be on the swollen river in the dark. I had to duck to avoid a steel cable that was hanging over the river, I could just see the seat under handlebars (of the pulley, T-grip and seat arrangement that was used for moving over the cable to cross the river at lower levels) dangle in the current. That was close. I was starting to get mad at myself for pulling off such a stupid stunt only to retrieve a piece of equipment. I reached the footbridge when I saw something orange bobbing on the surface. I couldn't believe my luck!!! I grabbed the bag, and after going through another wavetrain, I quickly opened my deck to slip the bag under it and then closed it before hitting the next waves. Now I took a really deep breath, started to clear my mind of all the rubbish that prevented me from thinking straight and I started to concentrate upon achieving the highest speed with the lowest risk. I quickly got back into my paddling rhythm again, and the last two kilometres were done before I knew it. It went darker and darker, and it started to rain again. I had done eleven kilometres (7 miles) of class II/III and IV stuff, and I was tired. I eddied out, and tried to get out of my boat at the bottom of the bridge. To my surprise a car stopped, and someone stepped out. I lifted my boat off the river, and someone came walking towards me. He started to ask in heavily accented German if I had seen any other paddlers. I asked in German if he spoke Dutch. Indeed, he was a Belgian paddler, and his buds went down the river after a boat had been lost at the same spot where Cornelis and I had flipped. they went after it after rescueing their buddy, but the people in the vehicles had lost track of where they were on the river now. I asked him for a description of their boats and helmets. From his description I recognised the three Belgian paddlers I had seen on the river above Monschau. I described the next bridge downstream to him, and he thanked me and left immediately thereafter. I positioned my boat on the middle of the bridge, so that I could see the three roads that came down the hills towards the bridge, and I wanted to be sure that every car that came towards the bridge would see me sitting there. After grabbing some candy-bars out of my drybag, I quickly got back in my boat. I put my hands under my PFD, my elbows to my side and I made my outside body surface as small as possible to reduce the loss of heat. This would probably be a very long wait, as Cornelis would have to walk a couple of kilometres with a boat on his shoulder (he was smarter than me, and left the boat behind, only to pick it up with the car later on), then change and finally drive about ten to fifteen kimotres through the surrounding hills to reach me. As it turned out, I was whistleing "Always look on the bright side of life" for the next hour and a half before my buddies arrived in the dark. I had many people stop and ask me if I was okay, including a couple of non-paddlers. Some even offered to give me a lift or to go and find my buddies. I gratefully declined, knowing that Cornelis would eventfully show up, and I didn't want to cause any inconveniance for what I thought was my own dumb fault. I was relieved to hear Cornelis say that he was still in a good mood, so we joked around a bit while I changed and they tied up my boat in the rain. I reminded Cornelis of our bet (if you swim you buy everyone a drink), and we both realised that he had been swimless for more than one and a half years. I was wondering when it would be my turn to swim... Although not having paddled as much as the two of us, Michiel said he had enjoyed the day nonetheless. Hans his bloody eyebrow had already closed. It was time for a meal at our restaurant with the toucan. We discussed the river, the events and talked about our plans for the next year. Then we said goodbye to Michiel and Jan (who gave me a curious message:"think about your motivations") and drove back to Eindhoven. (where we helped change a tire on Hans' car without having the tools the we needed, so that we arrived at my place at ten o ' clock _and_ about half past eleven, first to get some tools and then to drop me off) This had been a day I will not forget in a very long time... For the curious Ratts among you who want to know what difficulties, cumecs, cfs, gradient etc. I encountered, I advise you to look up my reply to Rattso in the "Re: Bloody Carnage on the Upper Rur, Germany" -thread of friday the 30th of october. -- Wilko van den Bergh Tilburg University, The Netherlands,Europe ---------------------------------------------------------------------- No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. Charles Colton ----------------------------------------------------------------------