The upper gorge of the Lehigh River used to be a legend to me. Two years ago, after I entered the kayaking world, I kept hearing “I want to prepare you for the upper gorge” from Nick, my good friend and also my kayaking mentor. Before I set my boat on that section, I pictured it as an exciting but dangerous waterway, which had many wavy and dangerous spots and would sneakily tip my boat over.

So far, I’ve kayaked on the upper gorge five times. It is no longer a far beyond reach legend of adventure. However, I will still sincerely call it legendary, because I am fascinated by its ability to pass on something new to me every time I paddled – the upper gorge is like a patient and methodical school teacher who has enticed me to enjoy growing my strength and boating maneuvers with inspiring new elements which were always accompanied with excitement and challenges.

Part I: the Z rapid

Last summer, my first time on the upper gorge, no swim. I drifted down to where the water took me and fought with the flow to maintain my balance. The still fresh memory was the rapid called “Z.” At “Z,” the river bends like a z. If you do nothing, the current will pull you to the far left and let you bump into a huge rock. The common approach is to eddy out to the river left at the first half of the rapid, then ferry across close to the river right and turn around and keep paddling downstream.

The eddy line was extremely dynamic, and the water ran so fast that I couldn’t manage to cut in as high as I wanted to. When my boat was crossing the eddy line, I felt that my repository of balance was draining and the sense of fear was taking control. Cheerleaders were yelling, “Paddle, paddle!” I finally resumed normal breathing rhythm in the quiet eddy after I pushed with several hard forward strokes and leveled my boat out with hip shakings. It was not yet over. I was weak on fighting against the current to maintain my ferry, and was forced to perform an immature peel out. The end result? I realized that the huge rock was in fact very huge. I got so near it in such a short amount of time which was not enough for me to scream.

Eddy turn, peel out and ferry are the most basic and important river skills a boater needs to equip oneself with. When this river season started, I noticed that my eddy turns and peel outs were shaky and I wasn’t quite sure why. There are three elements we boaters need to implement to guarantee a safe pass through an eddy line: speed, angle and lean. Ideally you cut an eddy line with a 45-degree angle with enough speed while you lean your boat in a way that the current always hits the bottom of the boat. Once the current catches your boat, the river will do the rest of the work for you. It has been a common line on my river day since I started to kayak: “Ting Ting, let the river do the work.”

I used to have a hard time distinguishing the moment when the current engaged with my boat. How could other people look like naturals and why did their boats cross the line so smoothly? With many trials and errors, and with diagnoses from other experienced boaters, I concluded my two fatal mistakes: 1. I should have looked ahead to where I was heading to instead of narrowing my view just to the front of my boat. 2. My boat is a short boat, good for turning and bad for speed. I used to stop paddling and get ready to brace when I thought “now it’s time for the river to do the job.” It was usually too early to stop my actions. My boat is short so once I stopped paddling my boat soon got no speed. Therefore there was no momentum to carry enough portion of my boat over the eddy line to engage with the current. And an eddy line is so turbulent that one should never risk parking his boat on top of it.

The first mistake made it impossible for me to perform a lean, because my upper body couldn’t stay upright when I could only see the front end of my boat. And how could I ask my forward curling spine to bend sideways? Out of the three required elements, I lost two, so of course I couldn’t perform the moves.

Looking only at the front end of the boat sounds like a silly mistake, but just like other bad habits, it was hard to break. It is like the first time you put on a pair of skis, you can’t help but keep looking at the tips. You want to make sure the skis go to where you want them to be; however, the more attention you give them, the more uncooperative they become. But you have to look ahead, so that you can observe farther and wider, plan faster and react spontaneously. Stop being so dominative to your lower body, it will do its job if you let go.

As for correcting the second mistake, I maintained my speed by throwing in several additional forward strokes, and I therefore merrily degusted the taste of current’s turning force. I also stopped my preparation for a brace because it should be a reflex, a second nature. A brace happens naturally when it is time for its existence.

The last time I did the Z; it was zestful. I crossed the eddy line with ease, and Nick referred to it as “a powerful eddy turn.” I was proud. Kayaking, it is so much fun.

To be continued…