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On an overcast day back in mid-May, 1996, I pulled into the parking lot of the Big Moose Inn on Millinocket Lake. It was the evening before the first day of guide training for Unicorn Expeditions, and trainees were supposed to show up sometime before dark. I remember meeting a few of the veteran guides, and then finding a seat on one of the old couches in the guide loft. Over the next few hours I watched as more new trainees arrived to stake their claim to the diminishing sleeping space. Later that night I crawled into my sleeping bag, not quite sure about the adventure on which I was about to embark.
The first couple of days of training were cold and then the black flies and mosquitoes arrived; that’s when I remember the misery starting. It rained for most of training and at night the temperature dropped enough to freeze our wetsuits in the positions in which they’d been laid out to dry. There’s nothing like waking up at 6:30 on a bitter morning only to have to tug a half frozen wetsuit on while sitting in a cramped bus seat filled with the crumbs of the PB&J from the previous day.
I’m sure some are thinking that this is one of those old “Why, In My Day” stories, but it’s not. ‘96 was a rough summer, and a rough training season. I’ve been training new guides for the last six years, and I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a worse season. This year’s trainees enjoyed relatively spectacular weather. I overheard one of the trainees commenting that training this year was almost like a vacation; I don’t think I’d go that far, but weather wise it wasn’t very adverse. I seriously considered placing them all in the walk in freezer, only to open the door once every 30 seconds to douse them with buckets of freezing water. It never happened, which probably has something to do with me not being an unusually cruel person; despite what several of them might argue.
There was a trainee in that 96’ class, that will remain nameless, but let’s just call him “John” for the sake of the story. The water on the Kennebec had been running at 8,000+ cfs most of the week, and we’d had more than our share of carnage. It was a busy week of training, and Wilderness, New England, and Northern also had boats on the water. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that there were several flips a day between all the training groups.
We were coming toward the end of training, and most of us trainees were starting to feel a little like we were getting it – it’s amazing how swimming from Big Mamma has the ability to ingrain the finer techniques of keeping a boat right-side up into one’s brain.
Earlier in the day we’d dropped off Glenn, one of the veteran Unicorn guides, at Chase Stream. His plan was to do a little prospecting up the stream and then meet back up with the trainees on our last run of the day for a ride out. Glenn was there on our last run, and we pulled over to pick him up. He had found a 45-55 lb. rock on the stream that he wanted to take home to examine.
After stepping into the boat, Glenn suggested to Sully, our training guide for this run, that considering the presence of this really cool boulder, this run would probably be a great opportunity to practice a highway run. Sully agreed, and we were all a little relieved to hear we wouldn’t have the opportunity to swim Magic again on the last run of the day.
As luck would have it, John happened to be guiding this run. Now, it had been a long training, and we were all pretty comfortable with the lines on the Kennebec. We were all a little nervous with John, but we figured we’d be okay running the highway. The day was almost over, as was training, and there was a light mood as we floated down toward Magic and a highway run.
I wasn’t really focusing on much as we came up on Magic. If I remember correctly, we were all listening to Glenn discuss his adventures on Chase Stream as John let us float toward the highway run.
The noise of the rapid was starting to grow as Glenn was finishing up his story. The raft was full of trainees, so Glenn was sitting in the back compartment next to Sully.
As Glenn finished up his story, he casually segued into a question for John. It went something like this, “John, are we planning on running highway?”
John replied with a confused look, “Yes, why?”
Glenn had been speaking so casually, that it was a somewhat disconcerting to hear his voice climb to a yell as he spoke the following, “Because we’re lined up for Maytag!”
Glenn finished the word Maytag in a yell and casually shuffled the large rock from his lap over to Sully’s. I remember looking forward and realizing that we were on the Maytag line and there was little to be done at this point.
Sully had realized he was now holding the rock and had quickly shuffled it back to Glenn. I think the rock went back and forth several times before Glenn begrudgingly tossed it over the side. Just as he did this we came up on the crest of Maytag. We were expecting some type of motivation, for John to yell, “paddle hard,” or “hold on,” instead, he yelled, “STOP.”
Now, there wasn’t one person in that boat, besides John, who thought that “stop” was the appropriate command given the immediate circumstances. Nevertheless, we’d learned by now that we were supposed to do what the guide commanded, right or wrong. Some lessons you have to learn the hard way, besides, no one wanted to do anything contrary and risk the wrath of trainer Sully.
So, we stopped. A moment later the world came crashing down as we dropped into Maytag and the raft was tossed from beneath us. We swam that last run, and no one was worse for the wear. After we regrouped, I remember Sully asking John that one question we all wanted to ask, “John, what were you thinking calling a “stop” right before we dropped into Maytag?”
John answered, “Dude, I didn’t mean for everyone to stop paddling…..I just wanted the world to stop.”
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