Last weekend was the release weekend of the Tohickon Creek for which I had been waiting the whole season. There are only two scheduled releases: one is in late March and the other early November. If you want to paddle the Tohickon other than these two weekends, you need to ask for rain. Months ago when I heard about this creek, I knew immediately that I wanted to do it. It’s a step up from my river friend, the Lehigh, because it requires more solid river techniques. Paddling the Tohickon would be a good milestone and a perfect end of this river season, I believed.

It had been cold last week and my down jacket was already out of the closet. Last Friday night, I watched the weather forecast with my fingers crossed. The weather lady reported, “Today is the coldest night since…and tomorrow it’ll be even colder.” The numbers were showing 30 degrees for Philadelphia, 26 degrees for Allentown, and nothing above the freezing point for any place on Saturday morning. I started to debate. I don’t have a dry suit and my last river trip was weeks ago.

Of course, I did paddle; otherwise what’s the point of this blog entry? Under my dry top, I had 4 layers – fleece jacket, fleece vest, Polartec base layer, and another Polartec Power Stretch base layer. Three layers to cover my legs. Aqua socks inside my water shoes, two layers of gloves and a helmet liner. I had to loosen the straps on my PFD and squeezed myself in my little boat, and hoped that my armor would not restrict my movements.

Herman and Allen were with me. Herman, my river guide of the weekend, has over 15 years of paddling experience and he knows the Tohickon by heart. Allen is my paddling buddy and has rescued me numerous times. However, the fact that I was paddling with two reliable boaters didn’t eliminate my irrational fear towards the first voyage, a bit. Exploring a virgin territory, in addition to overcoming the real obstacles along the way, our minds have to constantly wrestle with the fear generated by our own imagination. Most of the time, we are not beaten by the true unknown but by ourselves, but if we make our way through, the taste of discovering our unlimited potential is absolute sweetness.

To pass the first rapid, Fish or Swim, take the river left. There are some surfing waves here, and Herman told me that they were quite sticky. I soon remembered that one time I side surfed in the Lehigh: After a minute of being so proud of my stability in a tilted boat, I thought “All right, it’s time to get out of here.” Well, the next minute I was still there and I yelled out, “What should I do to get out?” There are two options to get out when side surfing in a sticky wave: first is to lean more towards downstream, and the current will eventually wash the boat out; and second is to maintain the lean and paddle forward or paddle backward to catch the current at either end of the wave and the current will take the boat downstream. I wanted to try the second option, but my mind couldn’t concentrate on both things, so I lost my lean and capsized. Well, after my boat tipped over, I was washed out, so maybe we can call this maneuver the third option.

On Saturday when I was at Fish or Swim, I tried to front surf at the leftmost wave just right next to the eddy, and was forced to do a spin and after that spin I was still in the same spot so that I was forced to front surf. It was that sticky. I got out of the wave and sat in the eddy and waited, I didn’t want to swim; it was cold.

On Sunday a rolling canoe extinguished my desire to surf. The canoeist was side surfing and the next moment, he capsized, and he rolled up, still at the same spot side surfing, and capsized and rolled up again and again… Allen and some other kayakers approached him and tried to push his canoe to one end of the wave; during the process, he went down and up for a few more times, and one time when he was up he asked Allen, “Am I still in the hole?” He eventually got out of the hole and he never exited his boat. If I were him I would have chosen to swim after a couple of rolls or even before I attempted a roll. I really admire his calmness because staying cool when capsized is still an ongoing project for me.

Everything started to happen so fast after Fish or Swim. Very different from the Lehigh where a rapid is always followed by a section of flat water, here in Tohickon, rapids line up to strike you and you have to steal breath between packed intervals. Herman always prepared me before entering every rapid, and a lot of time I was so busy following his line and just couldn’t recall whether it was river left or river right he asked me to follow.

We arrived at an eddy before Second Ledge and Herman told me that there were two ways to do it. Take river left, we drop in a pool and from there we have to work our way to the river right. Take river right, we have to maneuver our boats through a curvy and narrow passage constructed by rocks and follow the tongue of the river towards downstream. “Take your pick, and we will do it. Or, do you want to get out of the boat and scout?” Herman said. I didn’t get out of the boat to scout because sometimes scouting raises unnecessary terror and I picked the more technical river right approach.

I followed Herman, drove my boat to the right and then turned my bow to the left. I saw that Herman’s boat was perfect inline with the current, and I wanted to adjust my boat to follow his line but my boat was desperately dropping in a big hole deviated from the course. I was terrified and my paddle was frozen in the air. I tipped over and I didn’t even know how; it all happened so fast. I rushed to set up my roll and couldn’t do it right. The first time I tried to roll my paddle hit some rock surface, and I thought I was okay and lifted my head and got thrown back. The second time I tried to roll, my paddle got stuck in some cracks between rocks and I lost my paddle therefore I got out of my boat.

I had my first swim in Tohickon when the air temperature and water temperature were both at low 40 degrees. Thanked to my layering system, I didn’t feel cold at all, and I even felt cool as if I were swimming laps in a swimming pool. Well, the sensation was more like swimming in a whirl pool since my back was constantly massaged by rocks. I was disappointed that I didn’t roll up, but what was more embarrassing was that I didn’t do anything even though I knew that I was dropping in a big hole.

This is not my first dealing with holes. I knew that if I don’t have momentum, then my boat will get stuck in a hole where water circulates. It will be nice if I read river so well and I control my boat so perfectly that I foresee the hole and get around it. However, if I have to confront the hole, I need to paddle like crazy to punch through it. Herman said, “If you have to deal with it, paddle like crazy, speed will help you get away from tough places.”

I got up to the shore, dumped the water out and returned back to my boat. Herman said something to me about the coming up rapid but I was so eager to describe how I felt about what just happened with Allen and when I realized that I passed Herman I was already at the start point of the next rapid. I had nobody’s line to follow; I was on my own.

The water was running fast, so was my boat. Waves kept coming at me, splashed refreshing water on my face. Sometimes a wave embraced me and my boat so passionately like a jealous lover eager to ravage me, or as a hungry lion ready to devour me. I was so frightened by their over-expressed emotions. I kept my eyes wide-opened trying to concentrate; a couple times I looked farther but disappointedly didn’t see the end of the rapid. “When is it gonna be over?” I asked myself, getting exhausted. It seemed that I was paddling with my instinct to survive, and I thought I would tip over somewhere although it would not be fun to roll, never mind swim.

If you sustain long enough, even the endless night is followed by dawn. I drove into the long-expected eddy without hesitation, panting. I looked back at those mountainous waves, glory started to grow in abundance from the bottom of my heart. Isn’t this what motivates me to keep coming back to the river?

On Sunday, at Second Ledge, Herman said, “This time, we’re going river left.” Part of me wanted to challenge the hole which got me yesterday, and part of me wanted to check out how it was like to drop in a big pool. Looking at the river left I couldn’t determine how deep the drop would be. Herman and Allen both gave me some tips about when to lean backward and when to switch to lean forward, but the concept was abstract until it was put into an application.

As usual, I followed Herman, and oops he suddenly disappeared in front of me like magic. Soon enough, my boat was pulled down by the gravity; I couldn’t help but produce a high-pitch scream, and before the vibrations of sound were dissolved in the air, my boat landed placidly in the pool. “Oh, that was fun.” I thought, “Who will enjoy Disney World’s Splash Mountain after he experiences this?”

Next, Race Course, this time I grasped what Herman had to say about this rapid, “Keep at the river left and punch through everything; nothing will really keep you there.” Allen launched before me, and I paddled with concentration mumbling “punch through everything; punch through everything.” I was not sure whether it was because it was my second time on Tohickon, or because I was aware that Allen was always near by, this time, at Race Course, Tohickon became more friendly and I even noticed a bunch of eddies along the way which I didn’t spot on Saturday. The rapid was still long, but I was not as eager to get to the end.

“It is a fun little creek” is how many boaters would describe this 3.8-mile long whitewater section, the lower Tohickon. It’s too bad that there are only two release weekends each year. I guess that’s why many boaters do two runs a day. I didn’t take advantage of this release weekend to its maximum capacity. Maybe next time, in March, when the next river season starts.

Some Links about Tohickon:

http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/detail/id/1672/
http://home.ptd.net/~ab257/tohickon.html