Tuesday 27 December 2011

Desert and rivers



 

A year has passed since the small blocks were put in place. So long, in my mind. It is with great pride that I worked on the White Water course in Al Ain UAE. A liquid play park in the middle of the sand. The water, all of it is piped in from Abu Dhabi, its a major task for the team. The building blocks are moved by hand, no easy task. Man power at its best.




 
Pete Aldwinckle, Ian Ganderton, Ben White and myself, spent a tense few months playing with this big jigsaw.


The course is split in 3, with the rapids building from a lazy river style to that of slalom and freestyle standard. Its not often that you get the change to build a river, to play at your whim and dance on the waves you made.


This is just a snap shot of the building process, the course is yet to open to the public, I cannot wait for that.

 

Saturday 24 December 2011

Power of the breath

THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN



 

At the end of Jan 2011 Darren will be giving a Full Day workshop at the RIVER'S SOURCE, symposium. Number are limited, so please book sooner rather than later.

 


27th Jan

The power of the breath, a workshop on the ‘self’.  1hr taster workshop.

For each of us, we venture to the water for different reasons. For peers, for adrenaline, for what we call fear, what we want as fun and much more. The river doesn’t care about the kayak we ride in, it doesn’t even care about the experience we have, so we must care. We must understand our own experience and how we interact with the river that forms our experience.

This one hour workshop will feature meditation its use on the water, over view of Sunday and group discussion.

Simple meditation practice to focus and be still, in the here and now.

This one hour workshop is suited to those on the FULL DAY workshop and those with a holistic interest.

28th Jan

The power of the breath, a workshop on the ‘self’ - FULL Day

For each of us, we venture to the water for different reasons. For peers, for adrenaline, for what we call fear, what we want as fun and much more. The river doesn’t care about the kayak we ride in, it doesn’t even care about the experience we have, so we must care. We must understand our own experience and how we interact with the river that forms our experience.

To include

1.                  Meditation as a living active practice
2.                  Names and shame ‘Graveyard, Tombstones’
3.                  Language and words ‘That’s awesome!’
4.                  Feelings and power games, let the feeling past – hello and goodbye.
5.                  Relationships to the water, quiet, touch, feel.
6.                  Riding with the colour.
7.                  Discussion

The day will be based in a class room and on the river, at a suitable level for all members. The day will offer a holistic approach to the moment and a glance at the truth we can find in each stroke, each drop of water and each breath.


Thursday 8 December 2011

Falling

The modern world with all its traps is hard to escape, smartphone by my bed beeps and I am awake. It is far too early. An email has arrived. Long time white water pioneer Doug Ammons is talking of the Stikine again, of the bridge that roars and the feelings. He wants to know about my fall at Zed and more.

Its over a year now and I still think of the place, glad that the magnet pulled and so pleased to have fallen in with a crew, at the right time. Seems I appreciate them more now, how we all fell together, without words.

How do I talk about the fall, I cant- is it strange to have blocked the negative from my mind, perhaps the team can- I cannot. Although I will try, I will be succinct and do a small piece on it.

Parts of the trip, the negatives- wake me from sleep, missed moves and tiredness. Same with the two failed attempts, now they seem like the stories of a different man that I have woven into my own fabric.

Doug you asked me to think about my fall. Which I've not done before. And only an hour ago didn't think I could, but then the words just came. Its 6am UK time, in bed, wind blowing outside writing this on my phone.

Over a year now. Lots of things passed. The moments in the canyon don't fall easy in my memory, its not a linear story board, but just fragments. Mostly its first person views, but sometimes like watching a cheap vhs movie.

Previous choices to walk away, I know left a chip on my shoulder, one of my doubt- one forced by anothers hand. Perhaps that made me stronger? You be the judge as required.

Parts of the descent replay in my mind with ease, the paddle in the entry, feeling like a choir was singing all the way. Vee drive, from the scout to paddling the line, so vivid - I can even tell you the number of strokes I used, or so it seems.

Then I have memories that are harder to remember. The missed eddy at Wassons and running blind, this always melts into the portage at Zed. Where I was tired, beaten and at the back of the pack. What happened on the portage, a tale so close to the terror of a boys own adventure novel, of my slide and fall. That's blocked. Although pieces of the jigsaw appear now and then.

It felt late in the day, beaten. I have no words for how tired I was. We shouldered our boats that night, leaving our supplies at camp. My ankles are badly damaged from previous kayaking incidents and the uneven rocks do me no favours. I am struggling behind the group. Slowly I watch the placement of each foot. First left, then right with all the weight of my shouldered boat. It seems long and painful. The group are not in my vision, when I lift my eyes to find a route. The splintered maze of rocks- I go right, the high road.

Easy at first, then not so much. My foot slides, I forget which one, like it matters anyway. And I am falling. A few feet I could cope with, but this, this is more. I've kayaked smaller waterfalls. I force my kayak in front and wait for it to jam. I can then use the cockpit as a ladder.

Too late, steady at first, trickles of dust and gravel run down to my back. I'm falling faster now, but as always in these times, its replayed in cinematic slow motion. I crumble on to my feet, and stop, still. Then it happens the trickle of rocks become a stream, the stream a river a growing rock infested river - alive.

I hunker down close to my boat, not looking up. I can hear them rolling. Twack, thud, twack, thud. Time and again rocks bounce off my boat, the odd one deflects from my shoulder and helmet. My arms cover my face and they too take a beating. Perhaps this was why I had put my elbow pads on when we left the bridge and yellow sign - I was the only one to do so.

The dust takes some time to settle, as I lay on the cold boulders, a beaten heap. I try to stand, to walk. Even with all he adrenaline my ankles cry with pain. They are not broke, just twisted bad. I sit and reflect. 10ft to my left the giant roars, Zed all hungry.

The dust has settled by the time Max is retracting his steps. I know he thinks I'm just resting. I try to explain, but Zed has turned me into a child again. I fumbled for words, stutter, stammer. Like I did at school. It takes some minutes for all the team to congregate. Then the truth appears. As falls go, it was big. As consequences go, it was big. A broken leg or worse and things would have got interesting.

Max looks at me, I remember now that I couldn't hold his gaze. Without a word he shoulders my boat and carries it along to join his. Its a hard walk back to camp, harder still in the morning. Scouts and portages for the next two days hurt. Ankles still click.

That's about all I can remember. The rest is blocked. It hasn't stopped me thinking if I want to go again.

Monday 5 December 2011

It is not about the grade.

Over the last few weeks I have been asked again about the white water grading system. I think this is in part to the fact the White Water Nepal has just been released but also I think that its down to the frequency that I paddle. Perhaps where experience is the key component. I have touched on this before, here.

On one of my local runs I met a group of kayakers who were having difficulty, in hindsight the river was at the upper limit of the groups ability although they insisted that they were able to paddle at the grade of the river, although they thought the river displayed characters of a harder grade river once they got on.

The question I think that we, as a unit, need to ask is how do we grade the class of a river. I think we agree the following:


1. Within this class we see still water, no hazards .

2. Little ripples of water, small jets.

3 Navigation skills required to move around the river but lines are obvious from water level.

4 Navigation skills to be used to a great extent to avoid problems on the river

5 Extreme end of the classification system, limit of navigation.

6/Portage. Unrunnable rapid, often rapids graded as a 6 are paddled and thus must by definiton become a class 5+.


The rivers grade or class doesn't change with its volume (for the most part) a class 3 can be both large or small, Sun Kosi Nepal and River Dee Wales are the same grade on paper, but have a wide hydrolic difference, for example.


Exceptions are that a flood stage river that flows at class 4 in normal flows can be a class 5. A large volume grade 3 river in drought can be a class 1 or so. It is only subjective in as much as the river is fluid, not so that the grading system changes on either a creek or volume river. Turnback on the Alsek will always be a class 5 as will Cauldron Stout.


Within each we allow for a + and -. So we get rapids that are 5+ or 4- for example.

Around camp fires, forums and bar rooms all across the globe paddlers will have conversations, never quite understanding that this system is not a closed system – like water it is fluid.


One eddy line, to the left – another wave to the right; enough. A thousand paddle strokes is never enough, we can only answer the truth of it from our experience. Some choose to chase the grades, upping the game at each river. Some plateau due to personal reasons, from commitments to pressue of the self and more.


Is it that important to our enjoyment that we class a river by the grade. Is it so much to ask that the river itself is enough. The small drip of water from the tip of the paddle. The cutting of the water as the hull glides from left to right. Glassy waves and thumping hydrolics, rocks littered by gods own hand in the gorge below. White sand beaches still, but alive sand- watching the sun dance in the sky. Deep grey clouds empty the buckets of water in haste and in abundance. Surely this is what matters.


This is what we really crave, this is the point of it all. We need not dance around the linguistics, we need never concern ourselves with the 6 point classification system. All that matters is the moment, the time we are seated in the flow, the time we pull our paddle and dance with the flow. On a personal level how much does it matter that the river is class 1 or class 5. On a personal level it is a simple 'yes' or 'no'. Do I want to dance with the river today, will it matter if I dont? For each yes we reach a pot of gold. It is for us alone. A place of magic, for our our eyes only. It matters not what our friends say, it matters not in the slightest for our own place of fun.

All that matters is our pot of gold, our journey at the rainbows edge


For a day of rainbows.'I believe that if you could stand before God and ask Him for a key to unlock the Truth, a key that would allow you to go where Truth was laid out before you, then I am sure that one of the many paths he might send you on would be a huge river that ran through the wild of the north country [...]. He would put you there alone on the Alsek River at sunset [...]. He would put you on the scoured black walls of the Stikine [...]. He would put you at the brink of a waterfall and not allow you to see the bottom [...]. He would just lay Truth infront of you to deal with as best you could. And your job, given that key, would be to find the Truth and make it a part of you.' D. Ammons - Whitewater Philosophy.


I cannot write as clear as Doug Ammons, above. I doubt that matters, the Truth is all that matters. And the volley of ideas and analysis of the grading system will not change our quest for the Truth. Our need to have a grading system only masks the Truth we crave, positioning it in the reflection of a filthy mirror. We will never get the Truth if all we are concerned with is the grade of the river we paddle. A river is a living thing, its whispers are subtle but solid. The river is selfish not converned by our methods and madness. We must care. It matters that we dance with the river, to hold on to its hand as we twist and waltz. The sparkle of the water reflecting the pleasure in our eyes. The train speed heart beat, echoes the cascade. We are a partnership – a courting pair.

Monday 28 November 2011

Stikine thoughts again.

I posted before about this river, here but the mind still races to the grey walls.

It is here, I can feel the pull again and again. The nervous twitching in my heart, the monkey on my back, the chip on my shoulder. VHS machine memory of the gorge still wakes me from the dreams of yesterday. A cold breeze of emotions rattles the attic window. A rocking chair grandparent, all pipe smoke, ghosts and mirage.

It is here again, the call for the bridge – the way trucks make it raw. The yellow sign stained too many times with finger prints and hope. One rapid crashes to the next, large waves, larger than my brain wants to understand. Then hydraulic jumps, formations that dance. Before we were legion, the dreams of the pack united, with thanks, we supported each brother stronger with each stroke.

I ache to go again, to the belly of the earth. To play the harp that has us dancing, to sing in the womb of it all. The slither of water a crack in the earth, more than we wanted and all that we hoped for.


It is a chance to see our own beauty in the places we do not dwell. A place we no longer understand, the place we never look at. What this river gives, what it allows is a full stare at the creature lurking in our minds eye. We all know the creature, the one of our soul. It sits in cracked windows, all shadow and cold. It dances for no one. Its pleasure is fraught. With dangers and annoyance finding the secret it entombs. Our life keeps on living, as if we didn't know, the place we call our soul and the access we fight for.

This is the reason and the process alone. This place called the Stikine a place to take us home.