Chama Rama, Part II

It was a warm afternoon when we finally boarded our raft and kayaks that day. Temperatures climbed quickly in the high mountain sun. Although the water was cold, we were warm in our wetsuits and life vests.

On the raft that day were myself and four others. Scott was the oarsman and captain. He was in charge. Allison sat beside me near the front of the raft. Behind us were Jenny and Susan.

Also on the raft that day were several hundred pounds of gear, including several large containers of fresh water. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink, as they say. Looking back, I believe that the boat was too heavy to easily maneuver in the fast current. The fresh water alone probably weighed as much as another person.

Those on the inflatable kayaks were having a great time. Relatively lightweight and compact, they are quick and easy to maneuver. On the kayaks were Tracy, Kip, Ian, David, and a couple of experienced boaters who attended law school with Scott. The kayakers were having so much fun, some of them had gone ahead on the river while others laid back behind us relaxing. They were also behind us in case something happened -- a standard safety precaution in case someone or something falls out of the raft.

Scott knew something was wrong with the raft almost immediately after we got on the river. He began giving orders for Allison and I to use our paddles to help him maneuver the overloaded raft. We gained speed quickly and shot down river. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was concerned. He's smart and experienced and I would have been a fool to do anything but let him lead.

To this day I know Scott feels bad for what happened next, but I have to tell you -- everything in life contains an element of risk. We all hopped on that river knowing that our "risk factors" were jumping exponentially. Nothing that happened is anyone's "fault" but our own. We assumed the risk, as they say.

A few miles downstream the river took a hard left turn at a high rock wall. Scott started barking orders for us to paddle while he attempted to steer us clear of the obstacle. I didn't really look up or see the wall until we were on it. The speed of the current and the weight of the boat -- inertia -- propelled us sideways right up to that wall.

I can't describe the physics of the water against the wall or the physics of the water, the wall and boat for that matter. But suffice it to say that when we hit that wall, the boat stopped suddenly and didn't move. We had hit it side-on with the full length of the boat. The current pinned us there instantly.

Water rushing downstream piles up against any obstacle before it finds its way around. In the case of this wall, water hit it, bounced off and ran left. In the case of the raft against the wall, water began hitting the raft, piling up and rushing over the side and into the boat. The 40-something degree water started swamping us almost immediately. The raft began leaning into the water on the upstream side.

Scott issued orders for us to get toward the wall -- the downstream side of the boat. We had to dislodge ourselves somehow, so he told us to begin pushing. He even coordinated the pushing with 1-2-3 counts.

In the meantime, upstream on her kayak was Tracy, another former law school friend of Scott's. She's very athletic and has been on this river before. She's also smart, very smart, thankfully. Because on this day, when our luck had turned very bad, hers got even worse and her brains saved her.

Tracy quickly paddled toward us asking for one of us to throw our raft's rope to her. She intended to help pull us off the wall. I can see it all in super slow motion to this day. As she approached us, the current caught her kayak and it accelerated quickly toward us. Water splashed up into the raft as it began to "climb" up the wall. We were about to capsize if we didn't get off this wall immediately.

As the wave crashed up and into the boat, Tracy's kayak was pushed sideways and her boat slammed against the raft. The impact threw Tracy out of her kayak and into the water where she was immediately pushed and sucked under the raft.

In every boat, including kayaks, safety ropes are tied so that you can throw it to someone or so that you can hold onto it if you fall out. Tracy grabbed her rope as she went under the raft.

The raft is 16 feet long. It is pinned completely against a large rock wall. There is no air underneath it, just very cold rushing water pushing and holding the raft, and now Tracy, agains the wall. I feel Tracy's fists beating against the bottom of the raft. Everyone is screaming, the raft is just about to capsize, and for the first time in my life I felt raw panic. The first thoughts in my panic-stricken mind were "Tracy is pinned under the raft, drowning, and we're all about to be down there with her."

Her fists beat again against the bottom of the raft. In that instant the panic vanished. It was time for action. I remember the thoughts going through my head at that moment. They were something like, "NO! This is not the way this trip is going to end. This is not going to happen. We are not going to lose this fight! We have to get off this rock so Tracy can come up."

Still screaming, we all climbed quickly up against the wall and began pushing off, pushing off, pushing off. The boat had started to creep up the wall as it prepared to capsize, but our weight brought it down and it began to settle as the water we had taken on redistributed itself.

To my left, I saw Tracy's head bob up out of the water. She had the kayak's safety rope in her hand. Then she quickly disappeared around the corner of the wall and was gone.

"We can do this," I screamed inside my head. The rocking of the boat had begun to work, we were inching slowly to the left and were about to round the corner. Another wave rushed over the side of the boat and it actually help propel us off the wall. We were clear.

Now, with an overloaded boat of exhausted rafters, we had to get to the side of the river. There was at least 8 inches of water in the bottom of the raft so we started bailing. Scott started looking for a place to take the boat out. He was working furiously to control the boat at this point. Panic had quickly changed to exhaustion and we needed to get out of this current.

We looked for Tracy and there she was on the side of the river, shivering, wet and scared. Someone on a kayak was rushing to her aid. We knew she was OK, so we got back to the task at hand -- bailing huge amounts of water out of the raft and following Scott's orders to turn the boat. What we didn't learn until later was that Tracy had broken a finger and injured her collar bone. She never once complained that I recall.

Scott found a place for us to take out. This procedure, known as "eddying out," involves turning the front of the boat upstream and moving cross-currents to come alongside the bank of the river. But we had fast water and high water. We overshot the place Scott had identified and before we knew it, we were crashing into tree limbs and branches along the flooded bank.

Allison and I were in the front of the boat again. She was looking right as the trees approached from the left. "Lookout!" I screamed and jumped over her to grab a limb headed straight for her head. I pushed the limb down and away from her. I felt it scrape my knee, but didn't feel anything more. We didn't stay in this spot for long, however. We couldn't hold the boat against the trees in the current.

Back into the current we went and then downstream we found a better take out and pulled in there to rest and bail the remainder of the water out of the boat. Scott went to check on Tracy. We bailed water. While I was doing this, calming down a bit, I began to feel some pain in my knee. I looked down a couple of times and saw that it was bleeding a little from what looked like a scrape. "Damn!" I thought. I better get that thing covered up before it gets dirty and infected.

I asked Jenny if she had a first aid kit on the boat and she started looking for it immediately. Allison, in the meantime, looked at my knee and saw something I didn't. She told me to sit down and began inspecting the "scrape."

"What's this?" she said.

"What's what?" I replied.

"Looks like you've got something in there."

"What?" I said as I reached down to feel it. "Oh, damn! There's something in there!" I'll skip the expletives, but suffice it to say that I was pissed at this point.

Adrenaline and cold water mix well, as it turns out, to deaden pain. I still didn't feel a thing in my knee, although I felt pain at the point of the "scrape" where it had entered. But my fingers could feel what had to be a part of a tree broken off under the skin on the left side of my kneecap.

"Let's get it out of there. Got any tweezers in that First Aid Kit, Jenny?"

"I think so, just a minute. Here!" She handed the tweezers to Allison.

Allison bravely started to try to help. She poked and prodded around trying to grab onto whatever it was. Just as she started, however, a cold wind started howling down the canyon. Suddenly a thunderstorm rose up over the canyon walls. Thunder, lightning, gale force winds and heavy rain came quickly over the canyon and upon us. We huddled and slowly started getting colder and colder as the storm passed. We were all shaking from the cold.

Trying to get that thing out of my knee was useless at this point.

We waited the storm out. Within 45 minutes it was gone.

Scott returned and a decision was made that we needed to get off the river to assess the damage to the boat and to our ourselves. It was late in the afternoon by this time and we were miles downstream in a wilderness. The nearest road was an unknown distance away. Darkness had begun to fall.

It was soul-searching time. The question was presented: Do we stay on the river or do we try to get out of this canyon?

Next: Is there a doctor in the house?