The American River Tried to Kill Me
Up a Creek with a Paddle
Northern California’s American River starts high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It carves a liquid line through the pancake-flat Sacramento Valley. Along the way, dams and reservoirs call the shots on flow rate — cranking it up or down for power, water, flood control, and the ever-hopeful salmon population.
Depending on the mood of the dam operators upstream, the river can be a lazy drift with a cold beer balanced on your chest, or a white-knuckled carnival ride ready to eat you alive. I’m no Lewis, or Clark, but I know my way around a paddle.
However, the moment we shoved off at a place called Chili Bar, the movie Deliverance flashed before my eyes. Not the nightmare “squeal like a pig” part, but Burt Reynolds snapping his femur and rag-dolling down Redneck River. That part.
I swear, if I heard banjo music, I wasn’t getting in the raft.
Old Men River
We were seven. All of us over 60 except for one outlier — my 24-year-old son, Alex. The raft is owned by my brother-in-law Mike and his college buddy, Andy. They take turns piloting. Caked in sunblock, fully briefed on safety measures, and loaded with a full tank of gas (cooler of beer) we dipped our paddles in the water and set out like a Viking warship.
Two in the front, two in the middle, two in the back, and the lone pilot steering from the very back. That was the seating arrangement. The front row gets most of the action. A lot of drenching. A lot of bouncing. That’s where Alex volunteered to sit. Ah, the folly of youth.
Alex on the Rocks
To me, the flow of the river is akin to Morse Code — dots and dashes. Dots are the tranquil sections where you can relax, crack a cold one, and laugh way too loud at jokes that shouldn’t leave a seventh-grade locker room. The dashes are the rapids, where you wedge a beer in the top of your life jacket and gird yourself for some true white-water action — or a sustained state of panic, depending on your intestinal fortitude.
The rapids have treacherous sounding names: Meatgrinder, Troublemaker, Deadman’s Drop, Satan’s Cesspool. It all adds to the allure and “danger” of the experience. Last year was my first time rafting, with nearly the same crew. It was insane. It was a blast. And no one went in the drink. This year? Well…
I forget the name of the rapid, but we were paddling like mad men, first the left side of the raft, then the right, then the left, then the right, depending on which direction the vessel needed to go. Then it happened — we slammed against a granite boulder and the raft pitched sideways at a gravity-defying angle. Alex went flying, ass over elbows. One second he was in the raft, the next he was swallowed whole by white water. Cold, snow melt white water.
In an instant he popped back up, like a cork. I was on the opposite side of the raft and thrust out my paddle, handle first (the way we’d been instructed) for him to grab onto. Two other crewmates grabbed him by his life jacket and hauled him in.
Back on board, the initial look of frozen shock on his face melted into a grin. “Alex, do you want to trade places?” I asked. “Nah, it’s fine, I like it up front.” Damn, man, if that was me I’d be like, “Helicopter my wet ass out of here!” But he got right back in the saddle.
Give that kid a beer.
“Hey, where’s Mike?”
Granite rocks, some with flint-sharp edges, others the size of Easter Island idols, are littered throughout the entire length of the river. It’s the placement of these boulders that cause the rapids. When said boulders narrow the stream, the water moves faster, like air passing through a carburetor’s venturi. (Looks like I learned something in high school auto shop after all.)
After a slow mosey through some “dots” (remember my Morse Code analogy?) we were about to hit some dashes. And boy, did we. We hit them, and they hit back. The front of the raft took the brunt of it — and so did the back. It all happened so fast, but somehow the raging water buckled the craft just right and Mike was catapulted out of the driver’s seat like a bowling ball dropped on a trampoline. We were a boat without a guide, a car without a steering wheel. We were at the mercy of the river.
Somehow, my guess is divine intervention, our captain-less vessel reached a calm patch on the right side of the shore, out of the churn. The six of us snapped our heads around. There was Mike, upriver, in the river, pinned in front of a massive granite boulder. The stunned look he wore rattled me. His head was above water, but he wasn’t moving. Did he hit his head? Did he pull a Burt Reynolds?
A kayaker saw what happened and paddled to him. Mike reached for the tail-end of the kayak, grabbed hold, and was brought safely to us. He was still in one piece. As Mike climbed back in the raft, I turned to Andy: “Should you take over?” With confidence in his voice he replied, “He’s good.” And he was. Mike, like Alex, hopped right back in that damn saddle. Give that man a beer. I’m thinking, Holy shit, two men overboard in one trip, what are the odds of it happening again.
Apparently 100%.
Alex on the Rocks: The Sequel
The river doesn’t care about the odds, or the fact that it already punched our ticket twice. And yet, what did we do? We served ourselves up like a glassful of bar snacks because that’s the deal. Risk, bravado, repeat. It’s the only way.
We we’re coming up to one of the more notorious rapids on the run. Alex still positioned bravely in the front. Before you see the rapid, you hear it. That sound. That unmistakable roar of untamed water. Feral. Ferocious. Playing at an ecstatic volume. We approached it like true water kings, our paddles like tridents, stabbing at the water, making our play to domesticate this bad boy of a rapid. But the river had other plans.
The water was turbulent, and the raft bucked like a rodeo bull. The spray lashed the raft. It was stinging cold. Massive boulders surrounded us, daring us. We paddled, we bucked. We paddled some more, we bucked some more. At the rapids’ most violent point, where the water seemed to boil with anger, the raft heaved. Alex lost his seating and tumbled in headfirst. I yelled “Alex!” so loud, in Sacramento, I’m sure I shattered a few windows in the Capitol rotunda. I watched as my youngest child fell into a gaping maw of violent water.
Alex did not surface right away, like he did the first time. He was submerged. It was probably only three to five seconds, but it felt like three to five years. Like a jail sentence. “Where’s Alex? Where’s Alex? Where the FUCK is Alex?” Pop! Oh, there he is. At that point, Andy, to my right in the middle seat, lurched forward and grabbed Alex by the scruff of his life jacket and hauled him on board.
As it turned out, Alex never let go of the raft. (A rope runs the length of the raft’s rim, part design, part lifeline.) Even submerged, with water twisting around him, boulders scraping his back, and the raft hammering the top of his head, he kept his cool. It’s almost like the first spill was practice, a scrimmage, and the real season started right here – and Alex took home the win. On the drive back to the hotel, he said that after he fell in the first time, he had a thought that if he went in a second time, it’d be funny if he yelled, “Not again!”
Give that kid another beer.
By the way, Andy, planted right behind Alex? Divine intervention, round two. He reacted with feline precision, snatching him out of the maelstrom without breaking a sweat. Andy’s the kind of guy if you were in the army, you’d want him in your platoon. Street fight? He’d have your back.
St. Andy.
You Can’t Step Into the Same River Twice
Rafting the South Fork of the American River is an all-day hustle. You’re out there with your buddies, in the elements, eating, drinking, floating. You can swim if you want, you can dive off granite platforms if you want. If you’re like me, you just crack another beer and let the current do the work.
As you make your way down the river, you pass aptly named landmarks like Gorilla Rock and Lollipop Tree. Morning blurs into afternoon, hours vanish – snap! – like that. One minute you’re high fiving each other and telling bad jokes, the next it’s pandemonium. The river dishes out drama when it damn well pleases. All you can do is hang on and play along. You’re not in charge here. You’re merely cargo.
When I tell people the story they all give me that look and say: “You’re not seriously going to go again, are you?” My answer? Hell yeah, I am. What’s the alternative, sit around polishing the furniture? Life is short. Safe is boring. If you’re not at least a little bit bruised, you’re not doing it right.
Wait, do you hear banjo music?
Image: Shutterstock
