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September, 2007
Guidelines: The Dark Room
By Scott Phair
Everyone who spends time running rivers also spends some time underwater. Clearly, you'd like to minimize the non-breathing portion of this aspect of the sport. I have often wondered why an out-of-boat-experience is called swimming since I have rarely observed anything even remotely resembling swimming by people being tossed about in a raging river. I think begging would be a more accurate term for this event because if any words are possible for the victim, you usually hear "HELP!! PLEASE!! COME GET ME!!! PLEASE!!"
Several years ago, the Penobscot River ran consistently over 3,400 CFS (Cubic Feet per Second) for a period of about a month. The story you're about to hear took place in August and was part of a commercial raft trip through the Ripogenus Gorge at a rapid named Exterminator.
Here's how I remember it:
My crew was all part of one party, six young women and two very large young men. Nice folks from Massachusetts. We did the usual safety speech, emphasizing that the Penobscot was running big that day so they should "stay in the boat". At this period of time we always started our trip at Pray's Big Eddy Campground and did the lower part of the river first. We'd have lunch at the Cribworks, then head up to McKay Station to raft through the Ripogenus Gorge, back to the Big Eddy, to end the day. The lower half run was big fun with great hits in Nesowadnehunk Falls and at Big Pockwockamus Falls, as well. It was a warm day and the crew was confident after the successful navigation of the river and well fortified with a great lunch. In hindsight, I'm convinced it was the extra steaks each of the guys ate that led to the events I'm about to relate. Like bears, I think the extra food made the guys think it was time to hibernate.
So, at McKay Station, I'm telling the crew how we're going to run Exterminator. I put the two big (I'm talking 275-300 lbs) guys in front, and the women behind them. "Guys, when we go over that huge, crashing piece of whitewater, be sure to grab that water on the other side with your paddle to pull us up and over and out of trouble. Got it?" They responded with several bear-like nods. As we carried the boat behind the Dam I glanced up at the digital gauge. It read 3,405. We put the raft in the water and paddled around, waiting to head on down and meet Exterminator, up close and personal. With the command, "Both sides ahead!" we aimed at the white discharge coming out of the turbines at the station.
For anyone reading this that hasn't had the great pleasure of ramming into Exterminator Rapid, it is, at 3,400 CFS, a river-wide boat eating hole that has no skirt, or easy route, to get through. The Ripogenus Gorge is about 100 ft wide at this point with several more obstacles to overcome after you get past Exterminator, most notably the Fist and the Staircase center-left in the river. My preferred method in this rapid is to get as close to the right hand side as I can and let the river turn the front of my boat at the last moment, presenting a squared up bow to the slightly angled line of whitewater. That was the plan.
What happened was this; as we descended into the hole, we hit it pretty well (squared up) but as we went up the wall of water, my bear-boys both stopped paddling and looked back at me as if to say, "Is this the place we're supposed to paddle hard?" That proved to be our undoing. Exterminator pulled us back down into its jaws, and, in classic dump-truck fashion, the boat up-ended and we all were unloaded into the soup. It is at this point that my personal story actually begins and I have no first-hand knowledge of what happened to the rest of the crew.
My first sensations were of darkness and silence. The Dark Room. In an oddly disinterested way, I was surprised I couldn't see any light. Light and air have a way of co-locating and it always seems like a good idea to head in the direction of the light when you are underwater and have no clue as to where you are. Suddenly, a giant hand grabbed my six foot Iliad paddle and ripped it out of my grasp. I had had that paddle for ten years, and remember thinking, I hope it comes back to me (it didn't). Then, as I'm spinning around in the black void, my bomb-proof Velcroed sandal on my right foot was stripped away and gone. Just to give you a bit of perspective, it is my estimate that a total of 5-8 seconds transpired when all I've described to you took place. Maybe not even that long. Time distorts in some amazing ways in situations like this. The final indignity was the river pulling down my shorts. Indeed, I had to spread my legs so that my shorts didn't completely leave my body. At that point I became determined not to exit the river naked, with one sandal and no paddle. I reached down and grabbed my shorts, and saw a spot of light in the water. I headed up and broke the surface, taking a huge gulp of air as I looked around to get my bearings. At the end of the breath, a wall of water hit me and drove me back down to the Dark Room. But I knew now that I was on river right and fought to regain the surface. As I came up a second time, I saw to my amazement that a rope, used by video-boaters hung inches from my hand. I gripped that rope in my right hand, (my left hand was occupied with holding onto my shorts) and hauled myself out of the current.
The scene downstream was ugly. Later I found out both bear-boys swam on the right side of the river and got really beat-up. Like hospital beat up. One was puking up big chunks and the other had a knee the size of a softball. The six girls had paired up, two each and were hugging and crying together, convinced that they had narrowly escaped death. They all decided their whitewater trip was officially over. In my 24 years of guiding rafts, this was the only trip (so far) that I haven't completed.
The next week-end I found myself above Exterminator again, with a different crew and a slightly reduced water level. We had a great hit in the rapid, but as we headed on, I knew the Dark Room waited below me... for the next time.
Scott Phair is an educational administrator and has been a professional white water raft guide for the last 24 years. He can be reached at scottphair@adelphia.net
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