Riding Solo
There’s something special about paddling alone. Riding solo down the current, picking and choosing, finding the A’s and V’s, witnessing wildlife unawares. There’s an element of danger, electric licks, a charge heightening your senses. With no one to back you up in case of some RRS, the experience throws you into an otherworldly responsiveness. I may be promoting ignorance as well as bliss here.
RRS (Random River Shit) refers to the transient nature of flow. You know that thing about water…It gives and it takes away. You have no way of knowing what has changed underneath you each day. On a Wednesday, I watched a guy take a swim through a rapid thinking nothing of it once he was back in the boat. Upon returning Friday, with a much lower water level, we found a rusty, jagged Stop sign wedged upright like a bloody sawmill blade thirsting for a limb in the exact place the swimmer had been. I signaled the other guides and we eddied out to retrieve the flotsam, but who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Sometimes you need to go it alone, thus getting out of your comfort zone, inputting new data, hard-wiring to bone, holding back what’s fleeting from being blown.