Date: 2005-06-19
From: points north

To: points further north
Miles today: 0.0

Ahoy there to my landlubber-ing friends! I've arrived safely on shore after a 5-day canoeing trip on the River Shenandoah, involving dangerous rapids, high turbulence, capsized vessels, lost equipment, blind navigation, death-defying leaps from rope swings, and an unequivocal good time. The past week has _definitely_ been through unchartered territory, on a river trail rather than a hiking one. But, today, alas, we return to hiking once more. Strapping on the ol' pack again, after a _heavenly_ five days of floating down the river (plus the three zeroes in Waynesboro, plus the two zeroes in Washington, DC... Wow, a _lot_ has happened since I last updated you all...), my pack is dang heavy. Fortunately, our plans include a mere 5 miles of walking today, to ease us back into the swing of things before churning out the big (hah!) miles once again. If all goes according to the prearranged schedule (hah hah), we should meet up w/ our friends who opted to _walk_ the Shenandoahs, rather than paddle them. (What fools they be...) Cuppa Joe, Break, Gypsy Lulu, Touk, and others. But, back to the canoeing -- it was _awe-some_. There were nearly 40 of us that departed on the same day, but our little pod of four -- me, Feelin' Free, Serenity, and Poet -- quickly set our own pace of a snail's crawl (or should that be 'turtle', considering we were on the water?). We set ourselves the noble goal of going the slowest and traveling the fewest miles, a goal we _thought_ we'd accomplished, until we discovered that, somehow, we managed to pass 4 other canoes, and thus fail in coming in last place. Bummer. But, we still managed to enjoy ourselves, even if we were speedy little things. In our 5 days on the river, we traversed a whopping 58 miles! (The outline for the trip listed 110 miles as the end point.) So, we went more than halfway! (The turtle group went an enviable 25.) Only one canoe made it the whole distance, and another group of about 6 canoes ended 15 miles ahead of us. Hey, we're hikers; did they expect us to _work_ and _paddle_ or something? The four of us, we spent a considerable amount of time just floating down the river. (And, the Shenandoah? It's not really very fast-flowing or anything.) We came across numerous rope swings along the river banks, two of which were superbly excellent. The best was on Day 4, toward the end of the day. We could see it from several hundred yards away. (Well, Free and I could see it. Due to an unfortunate capsizing incident on Day 1, both Poet and Serenity lost their glasses, which contributed to some of the 'blind navigation' I mentioned earlier. (I'll go in to more detail later.) The rope dangled from a _huge_ sycamore tree, angled out over the river. Someone had thoughtfully nailed boards into the trunk, in a quasi-ladder. There were a few local boys there when we arrived, so we observed their technique before testing it ourselves. Let me tell you, it looked positively frightening, scaling that "ladder". And then the leap off of the tree, swinging out over the river, 10-15 feet over the water? Whew. But, it was exhilarating, once you conquered the fear, got over the knot in your stomach, and just said to heck w/ it, and jumped. The momentary, gut-dropping second of free-fall, suspended over nothing, followed by a monumental SPLASH! Wahoo! In addition to the rope swings, there were swimming holes galore, every day. We weren't exactly _clean_, but river funk is vastly preferable to hiker funk. (At least, it's a different sort of smell. Variety being the spice of life and all.) My hair was certainly funkified after 5 days of swimming. (Did I mention the plethora of cows that dotted the banks, using the river as a water source. And a privy...) By Day 2, I had a really nice spike hairdo. (Oh, by the way, Poet cut my hair while we were in DC, so it's short short once again.) By Day 5, I was working on a fro. (Free's hoping for dreds for herself.) But now, after a shower and copious shampoo, I actually look somewhat normal. Somewhat... So, all in all, the Great Canoeing Incident of 2005 was an unequivocal success, w/ a great time had by all, even if we all couldn't see exactly clearly for the majority of it. Yeah, the whole capsizing thing. It happened on Day 1, and was - in all seriousness - pretty terrifying, however shortlived. Both of our canoes flipped, which meant that _all_ of our stuff was thoroughly waterlogged. Fortunately, another group of canoeing hikers had pulled up onshore just past where we flipped (b/c, as we discovered, several of _their_ canoes had flipped there too), so they we able to catch a lot of our gear as it floated downriver. I say "most" of our stuff b/c, un-fortunately, some things were lost. Most notably, the two aforementioned pairs of glasses. And then, there was my wallet. Yes, the river et it, and it now lies in a watery grave, somewhere on the bottom of the River Shenandoah. Ah well. It could have been worse. My tent poles also failed to survive, which led to some rather interesting rigging of my tent the past few days, in order to make it serviceable. I think we've got it down to a science now, though. All I need is a good tree right above me... But, even considering the flipping of the canoes, we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And are now reluctant to return to our existences as turtles (not b/c of the pace, but b/c of the resemblance, carrying our homes on our backs). No, I'm really looking forward to hiking again, walking miles that I haven't walked before, seeing new vistas, new scenery, new territory. It'll be grand! But, I have many, many, many chores to complete and errands to run, and I've procrasinated long enough... so, until my next report, this is Canoe-mate Scholar, signing off. Peace out.