Post 3: That Thang

 

 

     "That thang hard to steer?" shouts a ragged-bearded man in torn cargo pants from the Caldwell boat ramp.

His thick eyebrows are raised under a forage cap, one hand dangling a cigarette, the other tugged by a miniature pinscher toward a nearby grassy bank.

     Both my hands are twenty-five feet away and frantically attempting a first outward sweep from the kneeling position to miss a submerged tree trunk. It's my test run on the Greenbrier, a wild and undammed river tumbling south out of the Alleghenies for a hundred-sixty-two miles before dumping into the New River at Hinton, West Virginia.

     The ridges east of this highland stream mark the divide between waters flowing into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, my river's ultimate destination. From the Greenbrier's source in mountainous Pocahontas County, the watershed is shaped like a long-tailed letter N written backwards, first roughly south, then northwest on the New, then a long jog south on the Ohio and Mississippi all the way to the Gulf. I say roughly south because that first arm of the waterway is bent a thousand times by ridges and shelves of the ancient southern Appalachians. My boat and body will need to negotiate these frequent twists and turns.

     So far I'd found the SUP fins too long for a rocky bottom, the wet suit too hot for an Appalachian spring, and the training too static for standing balance on a rippling river. Otherwise, the Red Paddle touring package is about perfect. My steering is another story. I had thought canoe and kayak experience would translate readily to the six-and-a-half foot paddle, but a strong current, wobbly footing, frequent obstructions, and narrow negotiable channel prove otherwise. I'll have to watch the company's instructional paddling video more closely before actually running a stretch of the Greenbrier on this "thang".

     "Harder than a kayak, easier than a canoe," I call out to my country critic as I glide out of earshot, keeping both hands on the paddle and both eyes on a submerged boulder suddenly appearing from the late afternoon shadows.

"Yee-haw," I think I hear him scream as I disappear around the bend.