Post 5: Inverted Vs

Naked Man's Rock

     The short run from Hopper to Caldwell is difficult for late May in the West Virginia hills due to an unseasonably low flow. There are several ledges on this two-mile stretch where the lone negotiable sluice only becomes visible as one frantically veers into a single inverted V.

     A first lesson in canoeing 101 is to miss the point of the V where an underwater rock lurks and head instead into the open top for an unobstructed path. I fail even that practical exam on the one rapid of this trip, Naked Man's Rock.

     In higher water, the channel past these twin tanning boulders is broad, but it shrinks in summer to a narrow chute shooting past the jutting jaw of the larger slab. I'm angling for a photo on the approach and miss a split in the current. Before I can raise the paddle to steer right, I'm careening from rock to rock in a jarring descent to the left of the open flow. 

     I pull out of the stream below the class I-II rapid and glide into a deep pool behind the boulders. There's a metaphor in this whitewater failure that I'll save for a different run, because this is where I once took my two children on unbearable summer days. The younger would usually wade the upstream riffles while the older and I took turns leaping from the rock. We'd invariably have rashes on our legs by the end of the day, and it took me a couple of summers and a dump run to figure out why.

     The local landfill is located on a hillside just above the layover road down to Hopper. I had assumed that a dump is an enclosed structure with decomposition happening in a sealed basin, but a little research revealed that the clay lining of most landfills only slows the seepage of wastes, toxins, and microorganisms. We subsequently moved to an upstream swimming hole, and that was the end of our post-swim cellulitis.

     Raising children is a little like shooting the rapids. You try to steer for a clear channel, but identity development and personality issues poke up into pointed Vs that jar you off balance. So you hang on until popping out into a clear pool where the wild aquatic life is visible on the rocky river bottom. That's where you'll refill your well, in my case with a slug of spring water, a bar of dark chocolate, and a better view of who that once-little person has grown into.