Early Season Paddling
Niki Choo -
The snow is melting in Tahoe and the rivers are rising. We have a small window where some of the rivers around here are viable for travel. My partner, Jared, and I are avid anglers who love fly fishing, but it’s our first year really exploring the area for rivers meant for kayak and canoe travel. I grew up paddling and it’s been nice to explore our surroundings in this way. Last year we paddled the Truckee River, and while I was recovering from knee surgery, it was one of the only activities we could do together. We took an epic road trip from San Francisco to Monterey to pick up a canoe so we could also paddle the waters around our house: the bay around Tam Junction, Marin county. This year we outfitted the boat with airbags and got our helmets and lifejackets out to tackle some of the local whitewater.
The season here is so short that not a lot of people paddle, so when we stopped into the local paddling shop near the American River, they were shocked we were taking a canoe down the C to G section. That part of the river is class II, with one surfing wave that might be class III whitewater. Jared and I had paddled this section last year in our kayaks and we’d forgotten the lines but wanted to run the same section in the canoe to test our skills. I was nervous, didn’t know if we had the skill to navigate some of the more technical aspects, and mostly I felt responsible for Jared and his experience. He’s a relatively new paddler and has jumped in with both feet, ready to take on the challenge of whitewater in preparation for my WeGotNext Ambassadorship expedition. I admire him for this and wanted this first experience in the boat to be positive. I tried to frame things in advance, with the “if we bail, no biggie, we’ll just do this and that..”. I’m not sure I instilled much confidence, but I wanted him to know that whatever happened, we’d figure it out, not to worry and it would be good skill-building whatever happened.
The first rapid, our paddles dipped and splashed, we spun the bow and the stern, missed the rocks, and safely maneuvered our 16-foot boat through the whitewater. After that first rapid (I knew the rest of the river), if we were on top of our game, it wouldn’t be a problem, but if we got complacent or weren’t paying attention, I knew things could turn quickly. All in all, we had clean lines all day and felt pretty proud of us for navigating that section without any significant hurdles.
After that trip we started planning a trip down the East Carson River, a 20-mile stretch we’d do as an overnight. We brought Benson, our 8-month-old German Shorthaired Pointer with us, to get him used to the boat and how it handled. The East Carson was a lot more boney and we hit rocks underwater that were hard to see because of the silt. Benson did great and by the second day he had mastered standing and sitting in the boat. The East Carson was probably more technical than the American, and while we thought we were in for a more relaxing paddle, both of us were visibly more stressed when we realized there weren’t many sections where we could just chill. It was consistent class II whitewater for 10 miles.
Benson fell out a few times, but we were able to grab him pretty quickly. The boat suffered a few scrapes and bruises as we bumped down some of the shallower sections. But mostly, carrying the gear, and Benson, working on our communication, we felt pretty good about paddling. We came away from the river with a list of things we wanted to think through and hone: how to pack the canoe so Benson could sit, where to attach the GoPro for the best angles and footage, what type of rope and length we wanted for our bow and stern line, to name a few.
On our way home, we stopped in at a local paddling shop and talked to the guys about rigging the canoe and what we wanted to do. They were surprised we had gone down the river with a canoe, not a lot of people do that, and I guess, here in California, seems like an unlikely feat. The two older white men presumed that Jared was taking me down the river. In all my hope, this is what I wish would change the most: that women, that people of color are seen and expected, presumed to be the ones taking their partners down the river, not the other way around.
