Our Own Private Idaho - Part II

The Robert-o-Meter works like this: the crazier the whitewater, the bigger the grin.

“The Selway River, between Double Drop Rapids and Ladle Rapids, has averaged one drowning per year, over the past 8 years.” the veteran Selway River guide intoned.  “Don’t take it lightly.” 

~~

After awkwardly clambering up a steep slope above Double Drop Rapids in an effort to get a peek at what lurked around the bend, those words lay harbored in the back of my mind.  With the Selway rising, rocks were disappearing and ugly hydrologic features were emerging.  

The reason those who scouted the day before were nonplussed about where we were on the river was because they had noted an enormous boulder at the head of Double Drop Rapids.  

An enormous boulder.  With the rising tide, the telltale boulder was engulfed. It was the marker they were counting on to tell them they were approaching Double Drop.

From the scout, I had no doubt of the preferred route.  However, the slightest miscalculation risked an encounter with some of the explosive breaking waves toward the rapid’s tail.  The more technically difficult Ladle Rapids were far enough downstream to be out-of-sight but close enough to not be out-of-mind.

In case you wondered, I ended Part I of this tale with Robert disappearing around the corner and into the maw of Double Drop either without taking the opportunity to scout, or being unable to eddy out to scout. As it turns out, Robert was eddied out on the left side of the river down below the rapid and, unbeknownst to us, was desperately trying to scale the cliffs to reach us.  Also, unbeknownst to us, his effort failed when he peeled off the cliff into the river and was forced to swim back to his boat.

Why, you might ask, was Robert trying to negotiate cliffs in his wetsuit booties? He later explained he was trying to make his way back to us to dissuade Kook, a less experienced guide, from guiding Double Drop.

After a brief scout, we hustled back to the rafts to tackle Double Drop before it got any bigger.  I guided my attentive paddlers through the frothing mess without disaster.  The remainder of the party followed without carnage but Dane reported an adventure run captured on - at least - two cameras.

One camera was mounted facing upstream and the other mounted on his helmet.  The exciting part was the two contrasting perspectives when he engaged the nasty curling wave near Double Drop’s runout.  As his cataraft balanced on its side, it was clear from his head camera his body was scrambling to keep his world upright as the boat tottered on the brink of capsizing.  

Meanwhile, Nancy Martella caught the powerful tail wave head on and, as her boat rounded into sight from our vantage point above Ladle Rapids, we saw her clinging to the frame like a refugee clinging to flotsam at sea.  For a moment we feared she would float through Ladle’s minefield of hydraulics and, if she had, which of us would take chase, but to our everlasting relief - and hers as well - she remounted the boat and rowed to shore.

The veteran Selway guide’s admonition made sense now that we had experienced the runaway freight train of water between the two drops.  Little wonder people met their demise on this stretch.  If you lost it in Double Drop, the recovery time before Ladle, at high water, was halved. What may have been minutes in normal river levels was seconds in high water.

Still unnerved by the whitewater above, we hiked the trail to take a closer look at the infamous Ladle.

While scouting, we looked upstream and saw an inverted cataraft being flushed downriver and through the plethora of river features pocking the entire length and breadth of Ladle.  No rafter, as far as we could ascertain, was with the craft.  Apparently, another group had caught up to us.  Two kayakers were aggressively pursuing the cataraft as it was sucked downstream and out of our vision.

The ghost boat, the fierce whitewater upstream, the ever rising river and the unknown of what was right before our eyes spooked the lot of us.  

Except Robert.

River runners say “there are old boaters and bold boaters, but not a lot of old, bold boaters. . . “  

Robert fell into the older, bolder boater category.  A whitewater ninja if ever there was one.  All of us have come to understand that the bigger his grin and the more he giggles, the more difficult the whitewater we face.

After a scant reconnoiter, he bombed his cataraft down the middle of the rapid and, though he did not make it look inviting, he was scampering back upstream grinning from ear to ear.  And, when I say ‘he did not make it look inviting’, I mean he spent a portion of his time high-siding in a river hydraulic before the river released him like a fly-fishing aficionado releases a fish.

A couple of hours went by with considerable discussion of portaging the remaining oar boats.

Instead, Robert elected to row Jeremy and Mike’s rafts, Tom volunteered to take Nancy’s oar boat through and the rest of us continued to mull over route options.

The same guide who warned us of the fatalities had also proffered that, though it ‘looked’ like there was a ‘sneak’ route on Ladle’s left side, rafts couldn’t achieve the escape velocity to reach it.  I watched Robert tenuously survive a couple of ugly sample runs and determined the paddle raft could improve on all three of them by going slightly further river left.  

I wanted to sneak left but I feared jeopardizing my crew.  Robert joined us in the paddle raft to help with the ‘lay of the land’.  He also thought we could improve on his three hair-raising ‘Mr. Toad’ wild rides.

As we approached the top of the rapid, passing a monster reversal churning to our left, I gave a quiet forward command hoping to get just far enough out of the roaring midstream flow to slow our speed and set us up to thread the needle between the multiple sentry hydraulics that Robert had monkeyed around with all morning.

Unexpectedly, my paddlers responded like a prize steer pent up too long and released onto the rodeo grounds.  We shot across the lip of the rapid several boat lengths farther left than any of us anticipated.  The next thing I realized we hit the slot I yearned for all along, I straightened the bow into the oncoming waves and held on for dear life.

From shore, Dane said later it looked as if our raft was a hydrofoil.  Gliding beyond the turmoil and completely dodging the fray.  We eddied out as the final three boaters, elated to know they had other options besides the messy middle - one of them being as close to a dry run as you could ever hope - hastened to their crafts.  

There was more.  There was plenty more.  Like the ‘boils of death’ at Little Niagara, and the ‘Wave that never peaked’ at Wolf Creek.  And the lousy weather that never got better as we moved on to the next dreary, wet trip on the Lochsa River.  

But cheating Ladle - accidentally - is the Selway story I’ll never forget.

###

Thanks to Dane Doerflinger for the stellar photos of the Selway.

Also, I was asked if the epic river poem, Belle Zabor, by Vaughn Short, was online.

It is!

To those of you who are not boaters, this is a long-winded poem best recited around a campfire while on a river trip. Preferably the night before the biggest rapid you are to encounter on your trip. It is written in the style of Robert Service - author of The Cremation of Sam McGee.

The Ballad of Belle Zabor

From a canyon deep, from a canyon dark
From a canyon steeped in gloom,
The listening ear can always hear
A deep pitched song of doom.

Far beneath the rim of this canyon grim
Speeds a river wrought with woes.
And the shadows are deep, and the light is dim
Where the wild water froths and flows.

The walls are sheer in this canyon drear.
In the river huge boulders lie,
And they cause the water to surge and boil,
And they cause the spray to fly.

At one wild turn where the waters churn
The bottom drops away,
There the river falls on the rocks below
And the air is filled with spray.

In a frightening whirl the waters swirl
And they form a deep dark hole.
Around its edges the rocks are ringed.
To make the huge waves roll.

For miles around can be heard the sound
Of this rapid’s mighty roar.
And a tale is told of how it got its name-
The name of Belle Zabor.

Smooth as a dream this raging stream
At the mouth of the canyon flows,
And there on its banks in yesteryears
A tiny hamlet rose.

In a grassy vale at the end of a trail
That wound from the winding street,
A woodsman dwelt in a cabin of log,
Kept by his daughter sweet.

With a temper quick, not one to trick,
The woodsman guarded the maiden well.
Old Zeke Zabor was not one to cross
And he worshipped his daughter Belle.

Now they tell of this daughter Belle,
Of her beauty and her charm,
And how old Zeke watched night and day
To keep this maid from harm.

But there came one day a riverman
With charm and wit to spare,
And he lulled old Zeke with good red wine
While he wooed the maiden fair.

Soft as a breeze in the whispering trees
He murmured vows of the eternal kind,
And not at all did the maid suspect
The fickleness of a riverman’s mind.

Fast in her arms he reveled in her charms
While in a stupor old Zeke lay.
When the poor girl slept then her lover crept,
To the river he stole away.

He climbed in his boat and put it afloat,
Pulled hard for the middle of the stream.
The moon came out and the stars were bright
And the whole world seemed a dream.

All seemed so right in that balmy night
‘Till he felt the currents tow.
He leaned to his oars and he have it his best,
But his boat was swept on down below.

He knew he was doomed when the canyon loomed,
But he made a hell of a fight.
The water raged as the walls grew high
And shut out the last of the light.

No time to repent for a life misspent
Or regrets for things left undone.
No time to recall the bad and the good
Or the things done in the name of fun.

He gave no cry when his boat leaped high
And his oars pulled only air.
Then he was down in the swirling hole-
No time for a muttered prayer.

Though his heart was stout, time ran out,
from the shattered boat he was thrown.
The dark waters surged up over his head
And the river claimed him for its own.

The very next day they found where he lay
In an eddy by the rock strewn shore.
They lifted him out and carried him away
To the grief stricken Belle Zabor.

At a total loss by a new formed cross.
Belle wept in wild dismay,
As she flung herself on the new raised mound
Where her ill-fated lover lay.

With a wailing sound she leaped from the ground-
To the raging river she fled!
For her life had no meaning left
With her lover cold and dead.

Where the wild waters swept with a scream she leapt
And the rapid took her for ever more.
When it took her life it took her name,
For now they call it Belle Zabor.

Now they say at night when the stars are bright
And the moonbeams flit around,
From out of the din of the rapid’s roar
Can be heard a sweet, sweet sound.

‘Tis music played by the long dead maid
As she pleads with the men on the shore,
“Oh cast your craft on my plunging waves.
Come run the Belle Zabor!”

In the little vale at the end of the trail
Old Zeke lived out his remaining days,
Then the cabin was empty, the windows dark
The old place was falling to stays.

But one bright day there passed that way
A young man with his son and his wife,
And he saw the old cabin and at once he knew
‘Twas a dream he’d dreamed all his life.

From dawn to night ’til the cabin was right
He toiled with his wife and the lad.
And there they dwelt and all was well.
It was a good, good life they had.

But one night late came the hand of fate
And the song of Belle he heard.
He did not know what troubled his mind
For he recognized not a word.

As the days progressed like a man possessed
He brooded and he knew not why.
Deeper and deeper his mind was drawn
To the dead maiden’s plaintive cry.

“Oh come and rest on my trembling breast.
Know the sweetest love ever gave.
I’ll tell you this, you’ve never known bliss
Like a visit to my watery grave.”

The man never knew as his troubles grew,
‘Twas the siren song in his ear
That tugged at his heart and poisoned his mind
And filled his soul with fear.

He could not eat, the song’s hypnotic beat
Ever enticed like a deadly lure.
Though he tried and he tried to shut his mind,
‘Twas more than he could endure.

The sleep he lost as he turned and tossed
Made his cheeks grow wan and pale.
His temper was short and his moods were dark
And his body grew lean and frail.

In sleep at night came a revealing light,
He leaped from his bed and he swore,
“I am the man! I have the plan!
I’ll run the Belle Zabor!”

“I’ll build a boat that will ever float,
For I dreamed this in my dream.
It must be strong and it must be stout
And it must be tight of seam.”

“It must take the knock of the jagged rock
And still bounce back for more.
It will be a boat that can not sink,
The likes never built before.”

Like a man entranced the risk he chanced
Never entered into his mind.
He vowed he would build his boat
Of the strongest wood he could find.

In the country about he searched throughout
And he selected his material well.
Day after day in a skillful way
His hammer rose and fell.

Stroke by stroke from seasoned oak
He carved his planks to fit.
He sealed them tight with pitch of pine
And the boat grew bit by bit.

Fore and aft as he fashioned the craft,
He built chambers water tight.
He made it wide and broad of beam
So it could tilt and bounce upright.

At last one day before him lay
The boat of his fondest dreams.
And it seemed a very able craft
To run the wildest streams.

His wife implored, but he ignored
Her pleas of not to go
For he said, “It’s destined I try my boat
On the rapids down below.”

“For I had this dream, and it would seem
The first I was meant to be
To run Belle Zabor with boat and oar.
That is my destiny!”

Despite his wife’s fears and her flowing tears,
He launched out in the stream.
He settled himself unto his oars
To fulfill his fleeting dream.

At the waterfall ‘neath the towering wall
The rapid roared its siren song-
“Hurry down to me, wild and free,
Your journey won’t be long.”

With skill and poise, as the approaching noise
Louder and wilder grew,
He tested his craft with the bite of his oars
And his boat responded true.

The moments passed and the time ran fast
‘Til before him the rapid lay.
He could not see what waited beyond
In the churning froth and spray.

He went over the top of that awesome drop!
He plunged into the deafening sound!
The water took hold of his thrashing boat
And spun it hard around!

Though sturdy the boat with a strong will to float,
And the brave man at the oar,
They were no match for the fury and wrath
Of the wild rapid, Belle Zabor.

With all of his might, he pulled fast to the right,
He tried to avoid the hole.
Hard he crashed into a rock on the rim,
And it caused his boat to roll.

His chances were dim as he tried to swim,
But his efforts were to no avail.
The mad waters dashed him on the rocks
And they broke his body frail.

The day was sad for the widow and lad.
The walk from the graveyard long.
The mother patted the boy on the head
And bade him be brave and strong.

But when he got his chance the boy in a trance
Into the deep, dark canyon fled.
‘Til he stood on the brink of the awesome fall
Filled with fear and dread.

But as the moments flew his passion grew
Until he shook his fist and swore
In a towering rage, “When I come of age
I’ll run you, Belle Zabor!”

The years flew fast until at last
The boy left his mother’s side.
And her pleading tears were to no avail
To this headstrong youth with pride.

Fast in his head were the words that he said
When he made his childhood vow.
Ever and ever it burned in his mind
And he swore he’d do it now.

His mind was on fire with a wild desire-
This rapid he must run!
He set forth into the world
To seek how it could be done.

This fledging boy, he sought not joy.
He had a desperate need
To be able to guide a heaving boat
And a raging rapid read.

At camp on the bars at night ‘neath the stars
He heard tales the rivermen told.
And he listened well and he listened long
To the wisdom of the old.

Never before had youth at oar
Strived so hard to learn.
He seldom spoke and he never smiled.
And his manner was cold and stern.

When he did hear be it far or near
Of a river hard to run,
Then he set forth be it south or north
And he ran it not for fun.

He did it to learn, for he did yearn
All the things to know
About the rapids, wild and free,
And how a boatman should row.

How to survive the knock of the jagged rock,
How to avoid the swirling hole,
How to brave the wildest wave,
And what to do in a roll.

As time flew his skill grew
As a boatman shrewd and strong.
On every stream he was supreme.
He stood above the throng.

As oarsman staunch, wherever boats launch,
They sought his services out,
In times of distress with great finesse
He proved both skilled and stout.

But they thought it sad, this handsome lad
Never smiled or tried to joke.
The rumor grew of an ill-fated love
And how his heart was broke.

For many said at night in bed
On some lonely river shore,
They often heard him toss and turn
And murmur, “Belle Zabor.”

But he was never swayed by winsome maid.
For him life held no fun,
Until he could fulfill his burning need.
This rapid he must run!

Time slipped past and at last
He’d made himself such a name.
At oar of boat he had no peer,
To him all rivers were tame.

Then he knew what he must do.
The time had come and now
He must return to his boyhood home
And fulfill his awesome vow.

The mother was glad to see the lad
But her heart cried out in pain,
“Oh stay away from the river, Son!”
But her pleading was in vain.

He brought with him for his journey grim
The latest boat on the scene.
It was strong and its sides were tough.
It was made of neoprene.

His smile was brave, as a kiss he gave
To his mother on the shore.
Said, “The time is now to fulfill my vow
To the rapid, Belle Zabor.”

The water was fast, for in days past
Rains had raised the river’s flow.
Never before in such violent rage
Had the rapid roared down below.

His heart beat stout. He had no doubt
As the rapid closer and closer grew.
He’d be the one! He’d be the first
To shoot a boat on through!

He pulled hard to the rear as the rapid grew near
To slow the boats wild flight,
Then his craft went over the edge
And he dropped down out of sight!

Never before had man at oar
Rowed with such skill and might.
Where the wild waves roll he avoided the hole.
It looked like he’d won the fight!

But at he very last when he tried to slip past
A jagged rock that stuck
Barely above the foaming froth,
The side of his boat he struck.

With a sickening tear he lost the air
In a front compartment of his boat.
Water poured in! He was out of control,
Although he was still afloat!

He could not guide with that deflated side.
His boat flipped in the very next wave.
Between rocks on the right his body wedged tight,
And he went to his watery grave.

If you want to live, this message I give
To all brave rivermen;
Whether you tread the narrow and straight,
Or revel in the deep dark sin.

No matter how bold, if you want to grow old,
Heed what has gone before
Fulfill your dreams on the wildest streams,
But don’t try the Belle Zabor!

–Vaughn Short, Raging River and Lonely Trail