Post Traumatic Swim Trip Report (01-28-2008
12,000 cfs)
Salt River Canyon at 12K & My First Flip (As recounted to Bob
Kerry by a friend)
This is a long drawn out tale of one boater’s first flip. It made an impression on me. It’s
a cautionary tale of carelessness, carnage, and extreme good fortune. Maybe there’s
something here others can learn from or maybe it might provide an increased awareness
of the hazards of running at flood stage. Things happen fast and consequences can be
extreme.
We launched at the Salt River Canyon (SRC) Muleshoe Campground at the Highway 60
bridge on 1-29-08 at 10:00. A visual reading of the gage that morning indicated
9ft = ~ 12K cfs. The flow had receded from its peak of 16ft = 55K cfs, 24-hours earlier
and baseflow was about 2 feet 24 hours before that. We had planned to launch for a 2-day
run on Monday, but the river was uncooperatively huge. It was still roaring at 40K when
we got there after dark. The revised plan was to wait overnight for it to recede to 10-15K
and launch at 8:00 to attempt bridge to bridge, 52 miles in 1 day. Thus, we were 2 hrs
behind already when we launched at 10:00. It had rained on us a bit overnight but the
weather was sunny and as nice as you could hope for, but seldom get in SRC.
Two rafts launched, a 16’ NRS, and a 15’ Hyside piloted by me.
Both pilots were experienced oarsmen that had run SRC at high water and multiple Grand
Canyon trips. The two passengers along had extensive kayak experience but no rowing
experience. I certainly can’t blame the little boat. I rowed the 15’ Hyside on the Grand
the previous April. Fully loaded and rigged, it was a great boat on big water.
The root cause of this incident was launching on big water with no margin for error and
my rig somewhat improvised and not pre-tested. Part of my field-tested rig had been
mobilized to Flagstaff for an upcoming March Grand Canyon trip and I was improvising
with my remaining equipment. In the only sort-of-eddy I saw that day below Grumman
/Reforma, I was trying to fix my seat so I could brace into it. I drifted into current; I
thought I had a minute before Mother Rock….. I knew it was coming up. A moment’s
inattention…………I saw some turbulence ahead, no hint of a rock, we came up on it fast
as I tried to move right. I squared up for it but there wasn’t much indication of the horror
ahead. The Mother of Holes yawned below us.
I can’t forget the image from the top of the hole but I’m trying. By my estimation, it was
much bigger than Crystal at 12K. Crystal is a tight little, collapsing hole. This was an
enormous, ugly, half pipe from hell. It was the scariest thing I had ever seen.…so far.
We dropped into it vertically. It was deeper than my 15-ft boat, I estimate 18 to 20 feet
deep. My stomach felt like when you stall in an airplane as I fell forward in the boat still
holding oars, onto my passenger who was holding steadfastly to the seat straps.
We crossed the bottom of the half pipe and rode up the other side into a near vertical
climb; however, I don’t think even the front of the boat cleared the crest. There was no
way we were punching through this hole in this light boat. I was wishing I had 400
pounds of groovers in the front about then. We stopped climbing and slid sideways.
Mother was keeping us..........She wasn’t being playful.
“Well this is not good” I’m thinking at the beginning of the ride as we surfed sideways
back down into the trough of the hole on the incredibly fast water. The boat was thrown
about violently from side to side, tipping at all angles. It was like being in a prolonged
car wreck at 100 mph that seemed to go on forever. Or like being towed behind a high
speed jet boat. I had time to consider a wide range of topics. I inferred my passenger
vanishing in a blur after a particularly violent tilt and slam. I wished him well. I noted
the starboard oar was gone. I considered reaching up to turn on my new helmet cam.
Seemed risky, I decided to hang on instead. I had tunnel vision; I’m not even sure what I
was holding onto. My legs were sliding everywhere, under the cooler, not good. It
seemed that minutes went by….. I don’t know. I was hoping for a happy ending, that it
would spit the boat out somehow, but it was not to be. Mother eventually got bored with
slamming the boat in its upright position, grabbed the upstream tube, and violently
flipped the boat.
I tried to make sure my feet were clear as the boat flipped over. Plunged into the torrent,
I experienced myself being sucked down into deep blackness……..Then it got lighter as I
only neared the surface in about a 4-second cycle.
On my 2nd or 3rd pass I’m thinking “This is really not good!” I had a sense of passing
under the shadow of the boat during the near-surface part of the recirculation and figured
if I could grab something maybe I could pull my head up for a little air. I started flailing
with my arms and legs. I think maybe this changed the hydrodynamics enough for the
current to drag me to the outer part of the hydraulic, and on the next pass, I popped out.
The boat popped out shortly afterward. Thankfully, Mother had lost interest in us.
A dry bag floated by. It had 150’ of PMI static rope with a rappel rack, ascenders,
caribiners, etc. and had torn the foldover closure buckle loose and was floating by, an
open bag, filled with heavy stuff but not sinking, not even any water in it. A day of
miracles. I grabbed it, which made swimming interesting. I briefly considered swimming
the 10 feet out to the boat as it passed by upside down, if I got lucky I could climb on in
time to ride through the hole at Overboard! I decided to use my remaining strength to get
to shore on river left. So long my faithful Hyside, good luck!
After several attempts grabbing tamarisk trees and being submerged by the fast current, I
finally got ashore. After I could breathe normally again, and eventually stand, I started
making my way up and across the steep, heavily vegetated slope covered with loose
rubble. I got up high enough that I could see down to the Overboard curve and saw none
of our team. Fortunately, the 2nd boat pulled over as soon as they could, below Overboard
and sent someone to look for me. With his help and encouragement, I covered the ¼mile
distance to the other boat.
My passenger related that he had hung on outside the boat for awhile but broke loose and
washed out near the edge of the hole without recirculating. He flushed out fairly early,
and made it to river left further downriver. He caught my boat at one point but couldn’t
hold onto it.
Now I’m a passenger in the 2nd boat, and I’m telling you, I did not like getting splashed
up front. Beneath my dry suit I was wearing a NRS wavelite union suit, a 2nd light
polypro layer on top, and heavy fleece pants 300 wt. My legs were OK but I felt naked on
top as the cold waves hit me. I needed more fleece on top to endure cold waves as a
passenger.
My boat had been gone maybe 45 minutes. It could easily be 5 miles downriver by now.
We had serious doubts about being able to recover it even if we found it because of the
fast water and lack of eddies. I figured I might be searching for it in Roosevelt Lake 60
miles downriver. We floated fast water for the mile below Overboard; the usual rocks
and eddies were all turbulence and holes.
We finally spotted my boat perched precariously on some bent over, flooded tamarisk
trees. It was still in fast water and it was 20 feet to a vertical rocky shoreline across more
fast water. We managed to get the flip lines free and flipped it in mid channel by
standing on it and falling back into the other boat. One Carlisle aluminum oar was
broken in half but still hanging. One fiberglass spare oar was broken. Both remaining
oars were badly bent. The seat was bent and tweaked. I was able to get the spare oar on
and row despite the curvature of the oars.
We rowed on down not far to 2nd campground and found a beach to pull out on. It was
12:00. I straightened my oars by leveraging them in my boat frame while we discussed
our options. We figured we had no margin for error at this point to make it out before
dark and people would worry if we did not. As we talked, I began to realize that my left
arm was hurting. My team was great; they encouraged me to make the safe decision I
knew I should. One boat with no spare oars and a shaken pilot was no way to enter the
challenge that lay ahead. Someone said “There will always be another trip if you make
the safe decision.” We decided to abort the trip.
Two hiked out to the SRC rest area and borrowed a Verizon cell phone which had
coverage from there! (ATT does not work) They called our faithful driver who quickly
made arrangements to get both our vehicles back from the 288 bridge. It was an
expensive trip; we had to pay double because it was two full shuttles for each vehicle.
Worth every penny because we did not have to wait other than the time it took to drive it.
The road above 2nd campground was completely covered by wood and logs in one place
where the river had been up over the road.
My awareness has been increased. I have been humbled, but I am determined to be born
again as a safer, more aware boater. I tell you what; it’s a lonely feeling when your boat
is gone with everything on it, and nobody else is in sight for a long way and you have no
idea what has happened to your team. If you are in the wilderness when this happens,
you won’t even have a drink of water, much less a water filter or a bottle to walk out
with. Maps for hiking out are on the boat. Everything gone. That’s when you have to ask,
“Where’s your signal mirror now, smart guy?”
Lessons Learned
Don’t launch on flood water without a field tested rig. If you do, don’t try to
tweak it, a moment’s inattention can ruin your day(s).
If you are surfing wildly in a hole, I don’t know what to tell you.
Hang on and high side. Hope. Pray for a good swim. If you are recirculating in a
hole..…. try something different than what you are doing.
Flip lines are essential in fast water. I was glad to have them, but it was still very
scary trying to reach under my boat just to get flip lines deployed, trying not to
slip off the boat in fast water. I’m tying floats on them. With no flip lines, it
would have been very difficult to get a rope tied to the frame in fast water.
I’m tying 6-inch long webbing loops though the floor holes on each end of the raft
to provide handles (2 in series) for climbing onto an inverted boat. Otherwise, I
doubt I am going to be able to pull myself up on that boat using my fingers in
those little holes after a cold, exhausting swim. I’m considering some kind of
etrier or rope step. If I did manage to right my boat in moving water, am I going
to be able to climb into it?
It’s important to me to have a seat and a foot brace to brace myself in the boat.
Otherwise when the boat tilts, you slide around or fall off. It’s important enough
that I will make sure I have it right before I launch.
I like aluminum oars, you can straighten them out using a tree fork or your boat
frame and keep on going. I did not like my fiberglass oars, when stressed they
broke. I shudder to think about the oars with counter weights helicoptering on
their safety tethers in the hole. The counter weights fell off.
3 boats would be better than 2. The 3rd boat could chase separated swimmers or
equipment. Carry more spare oars so that if one boat gets stripped the others can
provide spares, they would need to have uniform settings for oar stops.
For running at flood stage through wilderness, you should have spare oarsmen
with experience who can take over if a primary pilot is injured, spent, or MIA.
Satellite phone is really required for attempting a remote run at flood stage. It
needs to be clipped to your pfd so you will have it if you need it. There is
nobody coming along behind you, you are on your own. With no phone you
might have to attempt to walk out if someone needs medical help. Or shiver with
no food or water until the helicopter comes in a few days.
You should be ready to walk out or hunker down without your boat. Iodine
tablets, a space blanket, mirror, fire, compass, map. I might breakdown and by
some kind of camelback water bag.
The Bar-B-Que pay station at the put-in was stocked with forms and served our
purposes well. We wasted an hour trying to get permits at Sportsman’s
Warehouse, but the tribe told them not to issue permits till they update their 2008
software.
SRC boaters should consider using Verizon as their cell provider for coverage
from HWY 60 Bridge area.