The South Fork Feather Part 1: Arival.

Fog poured from my mouth, it spun into the air, evaporating into the empty crisp night. In the distance a vague nickel colored streak shivered in the cool lake waters, showing the half crescent of the low hanging moon. The silence filled my ears, consuming every part of my being. My cold quaking hand shut the green Subaru door behind me, the clang of metal sending shockwaves of noise thundering into the still night. I glanced across the parking lot, shrouded in pines, smelling of pitch. A tent sat in front of a camper on the far side of the darkness, a light illuminating the thin nylon walls. Someone coughed in the distance, sickness threatening the pure air. I turned to see my best friend, Hunter, click on a headlamp. "I need a jacket!" he gasped as he hurriedly searched his bag for something to energized his slowing electrons. I too started to feel the grip of frost inside my bones. After finding more clothes, bundled tightly in hand me downs from my brother, we walked down a small path to a large oak picnic table. This would be our camp. A picnic table, a few yards from the scars of a dying reservoir, surrounded in the majesty of ponderosas. With a few minutes and multiple trips up and down the path, we had assembled two tents, a pop-up, and boxes of food, in a semi circle around the table.

I drifted into dreams. All was silent. The cold persisted.

The cold was cut by the sudden illumination of the earth. My eyes opened to Hunter heating tea on a small stove. I cast my gaze out to the reservoir. Fog ascended in Jesus like glory toward the ever intensifying ball of fire which so timely revealed itself. The rumbled of a generator cut the silence which I had begun to gulp into my soul. I stumbled from my tent, one hand rubbing my eye, the other pushing my bright blond hair from my face. Hunter finished heating the tea. "Tea?" he asked.
"Yeah" I replied.
"What kind?"
"Green"
"Green with apple?"
"Sure"
He poured the tea into two glass mason jars, and we sat back into our camp chairs. My fingers rejoiced from the steaming brew, as I became lost in the waterfront view before me. Within an hour the sun had begun to warm our camp, casting the early shadows of morning. Boredom soon set in. A wonderful feeling at that. Boredom. A feeling I had been longing for. A feeling of peace. Boredom is often confused with the lack of exertion, while in reality boredom itself is a labor in a peaceful state of mind. Hunter, restless as always, soon started to hint at a want of effort. We walked down to the lake, our vividly colored boats resting heavily on our shoulders.  We paddled out into the dark blue water, the only noise the regular slicing of fiberglass blades against shackled waters. We knifed toward the great monstrosity of earth and cement which drowned a valley, imprisoned the river. Just on the other side of the earthen dam lay the South Fork Feather Gorge. After the paddle, I found left over pizza. As the afternoon set in my eyes became heavy. I strolled to my tent, pulled a sleeping bag onto my head, and fell into a deep nap.

I sat up suddenly.

Daydreams always the strangest it seemed. The afternoon sun bringing my tent to an uncomfortable temperature. We left the camp for a few hours, to hike into the gorge and watch the water attempt to cover the boulders, as the release began. We headed back to camp. The sun fell. More pizza consumed for dinner. As the cold came upon us, we began a fire. Suddenly we were informed by a very grungy looking ex camp host that fires were illegal without a permit. As darkness overwhelmed the day
, shrouding the woods in an ominous light, we set up chairs in Hunter's oddly oversized tent. I cracked open a piece of my German heritage as we stayed awake talking. Tomorrow we would kayak. Tomorrow our week would really begin. Tomorrow our lives would change in a torrent of water and gradient.

The love of kayaking

Steam pours from my helmet like the whining whistle of a kettle. My hands move the helmet to rest awkwardly on my tightly stretched spray skirt. My curly hair hangs low from the weight of the overwhelming precipitation. The clouds seem to be venting their long dry frustrations in a downpour of heavy droplets, as I slide slowly through the murky saturated flood colored waters.

The first rain of fall.

I was alone. I paddled ahead while they played in the squirrely eddy lines upstream. The air was quite. The clouds soaking in the distant sounds, the highway cars, the suburban white noise. The silence was welcome. I could see it across the placid waters. I rolled toward the thunder of familiar rapids. I languidly floated toward the places I had been practicing for the last few months, I saw every move, eddyline, boil, hole, rogue wave, I saw it with a fresh mind. A mind washed clean by the rain. A mind tired of people. A mind struggling in a purgatory between optimism and total despair. Still the rain fell, unconcerned with my thoughts.

How the worries of the future had kept me awake. How the memories of the past kept me from dream free sleep. Dreams keeping my brain in a state of distress. Forcing ludicrous hypotheticals into seeming reality. Waking to the sun. Waking to the noise of the my friend banging around and opening drawers for no reason. Waking to reality. Reality being almost as confusing as the dreams, save for the escape upon the water.
 The escape into a world of froth, focus, ecstasy.
 Kayaking fuels my will to live, it is the muse for my prose. It is life. My heart swells, pangs, shudders in a way never felt before. In a love so deep, so violent, so consuming, it overwhelms the senses. To think about snaking through boulder gardens, flying over cascading drops, or to moments quiet moments like this one, bring a happiness to my heart unknown. It is love. It is love, pure.

I glance back, the forms of two kayaks coming toward me, breaking the silence. The slight patter of paddle blades gaining resistance echo in the damp air. I smile. The next few months would be filled with kayaking.

Filled with Happiness.

To escape the city, to flee to the rivers, to love nature, to love the water, to love life, this is why I live. This is why I kayak.