Several times over the last few months, I have been assigned as a guide on a ducky trip. This concerns me a tad because, aside from running stack, I have never gone down the Nantahala in a ducky. Of course, I know the river pretty well and could probably guide a ducky trip without too much trouble, but it would ease my mind to have done it with some more experienced guides before I start taking guests down.
In any case, I have skillfully avoided actually going on a ducky trip. Usually I'm moved to a fully-guided rafting trip, which is more in my comfort zone. Well, I avoided them until last week, that is.
A school group booked a ducky trip for 120 students. That's right, one trip had 120 young people in single, inflatable kayaks. Okay, not everyone wanted to be in a kayak, so two guides were assigned to rafts. One raft led the trip, the other followed behind as the sweep boat.
Who led the trip? I did. It was the first trip I ever led, and I led a massive horde. Not only that, but we had a ton of rain that day and the night before. The river was up nearly a foot. At the put-in, it was impossible to see where the ledge of the boat launch was and where the river began. Normally, we put the boats in and spend a few minutes practicing strokes. This time, we put the boat in and were almost immediately swept away. Forget the Nantahala, we were rafting the Gnar-nahala!
About a mile above the falls, an experienced guide paddled up to my raft to talk over running that rapid in high water. "This is the highest you've ever seen this river," he began, "Watch out, the falls can flip a raft with this water."He went on to remind me to catch the eddy immediately below the falls in order to set rope for possible swimmers who would follow me. There would be no rope set for my raft. We were on our own.
Coming into the falls, disaster almost struck. Just above the rapid, there was a paddle floating in the river. I set off after it, but by the time I managed to get it in my raft, my line for the falls was way off. I tried to save it, but it was too late. We were too far to the right, and I was about to hit the falls sideways and possibly flip. I straightened out as best I could at the very last minute, but Top Hole was too powerful and it immediately sucked us in sideways. We paused for a second before we spun backwards into Bottom Hole. I braced for impact, along with my crew.
The wave came, but we stayed upright. I turned the boat around and caught the eddy, just in time for the duckies to come down after us. All's well that ends well, and that was one epic rafting adventure!
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