...for this

Guide Journal

                Its day five or six and I thought I should put some thoughts down in ink before I slowly begin to forget them. These past few days have been mad hard, some say… the hardest… but being instructed under Seth and Mason has proved to be a doable affair, albeit extremely challenging. It took a while for us to get into the cycle we are currently in due the difficulty of learning the basic daily tasks that every Maine white water rafting guide must do. Mostly, this involves inflating, deflating, inflating, deflating, moving, inflating, deflating, stacking, softening, inflating, sloppying and chuck-and-ducking 350lb boats… over and over and over… ok you get the picture. After we semi-mastered this step we moved onto the water on day two, the lower branch of the Penobscot River.

Day 2: Saturday:  Something was wrong immediately. Something that had nothing to do with waking up at 4:30am, nothing to do with tying down our rafts, nothing to do with the 2.5hr car ride, the something that was wrong was the weather. Now, normally, the weather during guide training has been a mix of terrible and miserable but our first day on the water was a balmy 70°, mostly sunny, gorgeous day. I would say that it was an excellent day to have a birthday, yay 21! Normally a birthday like this would involve quite a bit of alcohol while sitting around a bar and being slapped on the back and reminded of how old I now was. Not this 21^st birthday though. And even though I may have dreamed throwing back a few legal Sam Adams I was perfectly content sitting in raft, 50 or so miles from the closest bar. We spent all day in the water learning our guide strokes and capsizing our rafts in the current of the Nob under breathtaking views of Katahdin. Yes it was a sunny magnificent day, but someone forgot to turn the temperature of the water up. The Nob was a frigid 50°ish degrees that would make your teeth chatter in seconds regardless of how nice a wetsuit you were wearing or how much of a sweat you were working up. It was like taking ice cream, turning it into liquid, making it much less sticky, and swimming in it. Brain freeze water. “But yeah it’s so pretty!” Well it’s not really that pretty either.  The water in the upper regions of Maine is black as Coca-Cola, it’s hard to see anything more than a foot or two down. Guess what? The rocks are black too! This makes avoiding those hunks of earth a bit more difficult. BUT! It’s day 2… no need to worry about avoiding rocks in class 1 rapids. (boring right?) It gets more exciting. After rafting out of the lower branch of the Penobscot we head to the West Branch for our first look at some class V’s, and a bit of class on hydrology. The West Branch of the Penobscot is an unreal river. With hits that have names like “Exterminator” and “Wailing Wall” you can imagine how nutty this stretch of river looks. Someday I might get trained to run these commercially but for now I’ll sit on the rock ledge overlooking the Crib Works and stare at it in awe. I thought I would get a birthday present to see someone kayak the section and sure enough someone shows up! But they avoided every hit and then got out of the river and walked around, for real? Wimps! Before I jump into day three I have to deflate some rafts, and then inflate them, and then make them sloppy so hold on for a sec. Also, Moose.

Day 3: Sunday  :  Easy day for the most part. We finally venture out on to the Kennebec which is our most rafted river. Here is how this river works. Every day the hydroelectric dam that powers Boston MA must let raftable water (4800cfs) out of the dam between 10am-1pm. This means that there is a three hour window where every company rafts, starting their daily journey down river under the shadow of the behemoth hydroelectric dam. Windfall is hosting a commercial trip today as well so we’re rafting with a total of close to 30people. Our boat, guided expertly by Seth, is a “baby” 13footer as opposed to the normal 15 footers that the customers are being guided in. So, this was my first day on the river and I can say with confidence that I was indeed mighty excited. The Kennebec River has class II-IV rapids and is a crazy bunch of fun. Seth hit every wave on the commercial line and we had a killer time through the gorge. I got eddy dumped, which occurs when the front of the boat goes under the water when exiting an eddy. It’s a good way to knock people out of your boat and definitely one of the safest. I fell out again somewhere else farther down the river but made it to the lunch spot in one piece. Lunch, chicken bacon wraps, delicious. Then we hit the much tamer lower Kennebec and rafted to the end of our journey. This was a quicker day, due to the commercial trip, but it gave us some valuable experience of how Windfall worked and how the river acted at 4800cfs. That night, after deflating, inflating, stacking, and dishes, we had class and started memorizing the Kennebec River. Every rapid, big wave, hole, hydraulic, eddy, and section of the river has a name and all need to be learned for our upcoming test. Mason set up a model Kennebec using throw rope and rocks and we began implanting the image of the river into our minds. (At this point all the girls began scribbling the names of the river’s features on various pieces of paper while Kyle and I looked at the river on the ground in confidence) After a bit more class we went to bed in expectation of our 5am wakeup.

Day 4: Monday:  Our first all day river experience began today with an early start. Tuesday morning opened bright, early and sunny as we set off down rt201 towards Harris Dam. We brought 8 boats today in expectation of having water for a good part of the day and to get into the mold of Kennebec training immediately. Guiding is hard, no doubt about it, and navigating the 15ft boat down the river the first time was a nerve wracking experience for sure. I watched my roommate Kyle lay down a money run on his first try and then all of a sudden I was up to bat. My run went smoothly for my first time, I guess. I didn’t hit a hole, or a bad pourover, or a horrible wave and I got the boat to Cary Brook in one piece. Cary Brook is our halfway point on the Kennebec for training. It has a staircase reminiscent of the biggest stair case the Wilds of NC has to offer, yet its soaking wet and your carrying gear and an extra 10lbs of water weight up it 2 or 3 times a day. A workout, to say the least. The girls guided the river after Kyle and I and we got 4 boats (2 at a time) down the river at an easy 4800cfs. The last two boats of the day were going to be heading down the river at 1000cfs, which neither Seth nor Mason had navigated before, so the challenge increased tremendously. It was my turn to guide again, and I did the best I could, but I really had a very small idea of what I was actually doing. Every guide must know the commercial lines of the Kennebec River. This line is put into place to give guides a safe route down the river that is still dangerous to an extent, but less dangerous than other lines that a guide could choose. This commercial line was almost non-existent at 1000cfs so we kind of had to make a new one. Seth jumped into my guide seat a few times to save my life, his life, and everyone else’s life that was in the boat during the run. We made it to Carry Brook unscathed, thanks to Seth and Mason’s amazing ability to read the river, and started the long and arduous journey down the lower Kennebec to Ballfield where we would load the boats and head back to base. Seth and Mason hit the slow moving river in their own boat before us trainees had gotten all the other boats (the ones waiting for us at Carry Brook (Remember those stairs? We raft to Carry Brook, tie the boats, hike the stairs, get in the van and head back to Harris Dam)) untied. So, Kyle went first, navigating his boat which was tied to two other boats in a stacked-train looking thing, I followed in one boat, and the three girls were needlessly abandoned in their own boats as us men took off down the river. Now, in hindsight, it was quite mean. Seth and Mason ended up waiting so long for the girls that they hiked back up the river to go find them while Kyle and I created an uber raft and slept during the three hour journey to Ballfield. We learned our lesson and promised to do a better job the next day. That night we dined on Cathy’s (Seth’s wife) delicious cooking and had class till about 10. Another day on the Kennebec in the books.

Day 5: Tuesday:  Ok, waking up early has started to become more difficult. To make matters worse; we pull past the guard station at Harris Dam just as the sky opens up with thunder and lightning and all the good things that come with that. Undeterred we begin pumping up the boats in the downpour, in the middle of a field, with a pump up machine called a squid that runs off of electricity. RAFTING!! Every morning the field is covered in trainees from roughly a dozen companies all with the same goal, become a guide. The rain had not stopped the Windfall crew or any other crew from the daily morning tasks. On a brighter side we had Jen cheering us on!! We would find out that day five would have been much harder without Jen’s constant encouragement. The rain eventually stops, the dam sirens go off and the water is released as we start rafting. The routine stays roughly the same. 8 boats, 4 trips, miles and miles of whitewater and we’re practicing our guide strokes on the Kennebec. Now, there are three things that I have been fighting with mentally and physically a bit more than everything else. #1 the bugs. UNREAL. Heather, a fellow trainee had to be rushed to the urgent care center because the black fly bites had become so bad she was having trouble seeing. Not to delve into her personal life too much but she did share with us that she woke up one night in tears from the mental/physical pain that these things cause. Kyle was attacked pretty heavily as well, with so many bug bites on his face it looked like he had severe acne. The rest of us were more fortunate when it came to the insects but they still SUCK. #2 The Sun. No matter how much sunscreen I put on I still got roasted. I had trouble sleeping just because my hands and face felt like they were on fire. Now, the Sun is definitely better than rain I must add but this constant burning has been terrible. #3 Swimmer’s Rapid. Just past Magic there is a section of the Kennebec called Swimmers Rapid where customers are encouraged to swim through due to its depth and safety. Everyday our troupe is tossed in the ice water to practice getting in the raft. Now, you might be thinking, “How can that be hard?” Well it is punk! Not for Kyle and I, but the girls fight the daily battle of getting back into the boat every time we get to Swimmers. And if it isn’t the inability of getting back in the boat that frustrates you it’s the temperature of the water. I was freezing, every day, so cold. So many layers of polypropylene and I was still glacial. But, trying not to complain I jumped in the water every time with my fellow trainees and shivered till Carry Brook where I would warm up a bit running up the stairs and warm up a lot inside out Windfall van. Might I add that sitting in a van soaking wet is becoming more familiar every day. There are so many small things that could bother you that you just have to ignore. Squishy miserable wetsuit in a cramped van became the norm, a ‘no-big-deal’ where otherwise I would kill to change my clothes. Of course, time would never allow and it would be unpractical in almost every single way. You just had to deal. Ok, so where was I? Kennebec Day 5. The day remained overcast, the rain held off, and we got all four runs in and made it to Ballfield. My third time guiding was ok, I’m still getting the hang of it. I better figure this out soon, I’m supposed to be a pro by guided trip #5 yeeeeek!!! That night, food (Thanks Cathy!) class and bed. Which, actually I’m going to bed right now. I think we have day #8 tomorrow yee-haw!! Flip boat in the gorge training maybe? I’ll find out soon…

Day #6 Wednesday :  So the days have certainly molded into one another and as I sit to write this I am finding it quite hard to recall specific details of day 6. What I do know for certain is that we rafted a lot. Water water water more water and cold cold stuff it remained. Wednesday, hmm… OH! I’ll start with this. The staging area is such an interesting place in the mornings before rafting starts at 10am. There are 4 or 5 other companies who are also training during this week so naturally there is a bit of competition. One company, Magic Falls, thinks they’re the shiznad one morning and challenges us to a completely pointless throwbag stuffing competition. Like, there is no circumstance in the entire rafting world where 4 people would stuff a throwbag but apparently Magic practiced this quite extensively. So, Magic with multiple-people-throwbag-stuffing-practice challenged Windfall (who has certainly never practiced this because it makes no sense) to their little duel. Of course, we get whipped, and made fun of, and asked if we had forgotten to change our tampons, and told a host of other mean things that make perfect sense considering the industry. But that is just it. Windfall is here to represent a Christ like attitude in the rafting industry and yes we did blame our loss on lack of practice but for the most part we held our tongues. Windfall has a much different approach to training. Magic falls, Three Rivers and I’m sure some other companies, beat the crap out their trainees. They train twice as many people as they’re going to keep and then beat the living daylights out of them like a military bootcamp. These trainees sleep in tents behind their rafting company’s dumpsters or in random campsites and then endure 10 days of pain only to watch half the group wither away due to the stress. Magic hires so many because so many people just can’t make it through training. Windfall trains as many people as they need because Seth and Mason believe they can make ANYONE a raft guide with proper training. And instead of having the trainers beat the crap out of the trainees; Seth and Mason let the river do the lashing. And lash it does. So we can take a few jibes from another company’s girl trainee who thinks she hot stuff. We’ll call her Trisha because we’ll be re-visiting her later. Back on the river; well I know I did two runs this day. I know the river pretty well at this point in the game. Stay away from the pourovers, goodbye hole, raft ripper and kayak keeper, ok got it… OH! I remembered something. My first run was miserable. I missed basically everything except the first wave and the unfortunate rafting trip continued. Ok, so the only class IV on the river is a pretty tricky hit. You have to 45° to a whale tail, kiss a pourover and TELL YOUR CUSTOMERS TO PADDLE. I forgot that last part on my first drop and ended up doing what is called a double-drop which gets the raft precariously close to a big nasty rock. Ooops. But, survived and cleaned up the end of the run pretty well. Mason had been my guide and for some reason I was always having trouble when he was in my raft. It continued the next day but after sitting customer for a ride and climbing many stairs and swimming I was up again to guide with Seth. I nailed the run 100% better than my previous. I missed all the bad stuff, hit most of the good stuff and even remembered to have my crew paddle! Solid. The day ended with a long ride down the lower half of the Kennebec with Heather and Seth. The lower, being unreasonably cold and boring, was much better today with warmer weather and good conversation. Everyone’s habits and mannerisms are becoming more apparent at this point in the game and our team is coming together, or falling apart. Because there are only 5 of us trainees it would suck to be getting on each other’s nerves so for the most part we’re an excellent team. And, we’re all living together at Windfall so we better like each other now or it will be a long summer. Heather and Seth and I swapped stories and what not all the way down the river. Heather is getting married, booorrriiinnnggg… Everyone is getting married these days! It’s like we’re growing up finally. Fleeing the parent’s coupe and running off with some maiden or male version of whatever a maiden is. One of my best friends, Landon, is getting married too. Of course, I can’t say I’m not happy that all these folks that are tying the knot that only a court can untie but like, I think this is all too soon. For me anyway. I’m never getting married. I’m going to keep rocking flatbrims and never grow up. Yup. Never growing up. Ok, tangent. That night, after loading over 2,000lbs of boats on the trailer, we made it home, had a marvelous dinner, and broke out our binders for some more class. After class, bedtime.

Day #7: Thursday:  Wakeup, two bowls of Special K, two PB&J’s in the backpack, wetsuit on and I head out the door. Honestly it’s becoming hard to differentiate the day’s activities. I’ve been writing this once every two or three days due to my exhaustion at the end of a long day. I’m sure that most of these activities have the possibility of being listed on the wrong day but I’m doing the best I can! As far as I remember nothing particularly exciting happened, EXCEPT THIS… I’m guiding first with Mason and Kyle. Once again the ride was much less a failure. I wasn’t doing too badly, but I should be better. Mason jumped out of the raft to simulate a clumsy customer and I signaled and got him in nice and quick, then all hell broke loose. We enter upper alleyway and see a Magic boat had eddied out right in the alleyway, a strange thing to do. Upon further inspection we see that one of the Magic trainees is laying on her back with a look of obvious pain. Immedietly Mason yells “GET IN THAT EDDIE!!” and he starts blowing his Fox40 like mad and signaling to our boat but our boat is too far up stream to see us. (bad spacing) Then Mason accidentally falls out of the boat in the rapids and we miss the eddy that Magic was sitting in. I get Mason back in the boat and he takes control over the guide spot. We get to the next eddy and wait for the magic boat and our boat. The magic boat pulls in first with the shocked girl and Kyle and I realize that “HA! Its Trisha!” Now, not the nicest thing to be thinking but after the fat chick had mouthed off to us we were somewhat enjoying this retribution of the river gods. Mason communicates with the Magic trainer, asks if we can help, and then we carry on our merry way. We would find out later that she fell out of the boat, but her leg stayed in giving her knee a nice hyperextension. Lay off the Twinkies? Anyway, the rest of the run went all right but I was still a bit frazzled after the fiasco. We rafted until we ran out of boats and hit the faster moving lower, making good time, and get home around 7:30. A long day on the river indeed. But that didn’t stop class, oh no! Class, then bed.

Day #8: Friday : I’m starting to run out of cereal and Wonderbread. As I pour the last crumbs out of my Special K box into a bowl that’s about the size of cup holder I realize it’s a perfect metaphor. I don’t know what of quite yet but it would have something to do with running out of something. Like, time or money (classic) or hopes and dreams. But, at 5am all I can think of is “Dangit… I’m hungry.” Luckily the whole milk makes the small bowl of cereal that much more filling. Grab a pop-tart and I hit the road with the crew. Big day today. We brought 4 baby’s and 6 normal rafts which, water depending, would be 5 runs worth of boats. We didn’t get far before our first fiasco showed up. On the road to West Forks Mason has a panic attack regarding his carbon fiber paddle which, I might add, costs the equivalent of 1/3 the purchase price of my Volvo. But, the paddle was found, undamaged and we got back on the dead-moose ridden rt201. These truck drivers up here plow into the strange looking horses with antlers like they’re nothing. Just leaving a line of wreckage that is much less important that the loads of logs they’re hauling around at 80mph. The weather is looking killer today and we have water till 6pm at 4800cfs so we get right into the activities with a spring in our step. After one normal run our bus driver Ed has a good training idea. Seth and Mason get into a boat in front of us and we’re told to follow them. The girls are up for some guiding and we make it down the river successfully twice. Seth and Mason kept rafting in the bad stuff to try to get one of the girl guides to follow but they kept their commercial lines and it went great. My turn. This one will be a bit different. This is flip boat training. Mason takes the lead in a raft by himself and I guide the raft filled with us five trainees and Seth. We get to Whitewasher and I turn the boat at Big Kahuna so Seth can flip it. After almost failing I get the boat sideways and the boat flips over. Next. This is hard. Getting into the boat when its right side up is pretty easy; lock your arms, kick the water and boom you’re in. When the boat is upside down there is really no rhyme or reason as to how to get in the boat. You just have to do it. As the guide I’m supposed to be the first in the boat. I crawl my way onto the upside down boat as best I could and then haul some of the other trainees on top of the raft with me. We get back into positions as best as we can and paddle the capsized raft into calmer water where, with a bit of teamwork, we flip it back over and get in. Flip boat training success. The rest of the day went on without incident and we rafted the boring lower and went home to warm clothes, food, class and bed.

Day #9 Saturday  : I’ve given up on breakfast for the most part. A pop-tart with some Gatorade and a side of doxycyline do me just fine as I rush around the base getting all my stuff together. Getting my still moist wetsuit over my borrowed wet fleece longjohns is the worst part of every morning and today is no exception. Luckily I find an extra pair of wool socks that haven’t been worn yet and my cozy feet warm the rest of my body all the way to Harris Dam where I then get them soaked in the 50° water almost immediately. Still, the Smartwools on my feet seem to erase the rain that is falling on my face, the rain that is chilling me to the bone even before I start swimming. The dam sirens blare with a nuclear apocalypse feel and the water releases at 4800cfs. Seth rasps a heart “Rafting!” and the day gets under way. I was a customer for all the runs I was on in the river. Just paddling and paddling and paddling some more. I almost got ripped out of the boat by Magic at one point; I flew back as the force of the 12ft wave hit me in the chest and Seth’s helmeted head went into my back (See kids, we wear helmets for a reason) but I maintained hold on the boat and my paddle and we made it down the falls. The next two runs involved a bunch more paddling and then I finally got a break. Because there was a commercial trip going down the river today we were short a bus driver so Seth and Mason had Kyle, Marissa and I drive the van to Cary Brook. Once it was my turn to do so I took it nice and slow on Take Out rd, which resembles a logging road that was bombed out at one point, and park the van to ready my gear for the lower Kennebec. My hands looked like they needed some more sunscreen so I liberally applied them with my Coppertone and then decided to do the same to my nose. I missed my nose and sprayed the sunscreen directly into my left eye. Now, this wasn’t like a minor miss where it stings a bit, this was full blow spraying of sunscreen into my eyeball. I was blind and I needed to climb down the stairs and meet our group immediately. I take a few seconds to try to recover and then hear Seth calling my name, I guess I drove too slowly because now I’m late. At this point I was supposed to be ready to rock at the bottom of Cary Brook stairs, jumping into a raft with Kyle and helping him ride the last bit of 4800cfs down the river. Instead I was crying on the rear bumper of a Dodge Van trying to clear my eyes so I could find my 13 articles of clothing I would need. Seth is now somewhere near me encouraging me hurry up so I grab a random pile of what I hope is my clothes, paddle, life jacket, helmet, fleece and what not and run in the general direction of the completely not OSHA certified stair case. I try to go as fast as possible, running into low slung branches and tripping over rocks like I’m completely wasted due to inability to see anything and lack of depth perception, all the while Kyle is telling me to get going. “I don’t want to miss that bubble man!” He says, and neither do I. I jump into the closest boat and start paddling wildly while trying to fling water onto my face. The waterproof sunscreen took about an hour of washing to remove but we made it down the lower like a bunch of GCB’s and survived another day on the lower. The rain had kept most of the bugs away and the sun wasn’t too bad but it was mad cold. Every wave that made its way over the side of the raft was like an icy slap in the face, testing my raingear and my patience. (Kyle’s too) Of course, we were fine and we headed home. That night we learned how to do a Z drag, and how to use a fire extinguisher (Because things definitely catch fire on a river, all the time) to satisfy some requirements and then we head to bed.

Day #10 Sunday  : We got to sleep in a bit today, 6:30, yess… I’m up and about packing my lunch and looking out the window at the rain pouring down; It’s going to be cold today. Then suddenly a ray of sunshine breaks through, ITS SETH! He talks with Mason in hushed terms, mysteriously as usual, and then announces that we aren’t rafting today. I get to go to bed? I haven’t slept past 5:30 in a week! How am I going to manage going back to bed? I hopped back under the covers and somehow found it in myself to fall instantly asleep, how weird. I was awoken a few hours later by the smell of French toast wafting through my curtain “door”. The girls are making breakfast, happy Sunday! We eat a good breakfast and lounge around the base, studying and sleeping, until it’s time to head up to MRO for our test, THE test. The test we have to pass to get into this gig for real. MRO is treating us well when we get there with endless donuts and rice crispy treats. I stick some rice crispy treat in a mounted fish’s open mouth on the wall and grab some hot cocoa. A few guides-to-hopefully-be pull in from Magic, Dead River Exp, and Moxie and join our last mini study session. At this point in the game we have most of the material down pretty good, but these tests are tricky. Test time. After answering 78 questions (50 of them being completely arguable) I hand in my test. The test lady grades my paper, 9 wrong, solid work bro. And that’s it. Craig Boronow and Seth give me a high five as I enter the kitchen as an official whitewater guide. We have a celebration at Seth’s house with a bunch of the other guides and MRO employees and then Kyle and I head back to base to clean up and fix things.

       So what’s next? I made it, along with a bunch of other great trainees, but where should I go from here? Actually, I probably know. I’ll go rafting. Tomorrow in fact! Well, unless it’s raining. I also can’t find the pair of awesome fleece pants that have been keeping me warm all week so maybe I’ll sleep in. I DON’T KNOW! At this point in the game I find that it would be best to just chill for a bit. Have some play days on the river with more experienced guides and hone my skills before I have to bring actual customers down class III and IV rapids. YEEK! I truly can’t wait for this season to get under way. At this point we are about two weeks from any type of business and I look at that as two weeks to practice, as long as it’s not raining, or snowing or hailing or something. But there are also a bunch of other opportunities for growth with MRO. I could get my lifeguard cert, learn how to lead rock climbing trips, water fall trips or just hike around the gorgeous part of Maine that I will officially be calling home all summer. I wish I had brought my longboard. The hills around here are amazing; flat, smooth and huge with the occasional logging truck speeding along at life threatening speeds; longboarders paradise. But alas, it’s sitting in my room along with a menagerie of other things I wish I had brought here to Windfall. Can’t complain though, this town is amazing. The uniqueness of a small town like Jackman Maine is what a real journalist dreams of. I want to take a camera around the town and take a picture of every rusted out car sitting on people’s lawns, and every empty hotel awaiting rafting guests, and every restaurant and bar that has a sign like “snowmobilers welcome” “anglers welcome”, this place is so amazing. I had read in Michelle Boronow’s blog that there was a man that took his lawnmower into town every night to do some shopping or something. My first night here while walking back from Bishop’s I see him. Orange riding lawn mower with a mulching trailer cruising down the sidewalk with an old man at the controls. He throws up a wave and flashes a smile looking like the happiest lawnmowingintotown man I’ve ever seen. And this is normal! I walked past an old shabby looking house and in the front lawn, back lawn, driveway and everywhere else goes this girl, about 8 years old, zooming around on a gas powered go cart. She’s whipping the thing around like Jeremy Clarkson as her apparent younger brother held on for dear life. Jackman Maine, the definition of small town America. This is where I’ll be living, and I couldn’t be happier. Not only am I under two of the best rafting guides I’ve ever seen, learning new things every day, I’m working for a company that works for God by giving every customer at least one positive experience everyday on the river. So I’ll end with this. Please get up and have a positive experience already! Come rafting! And I’m not doing this to advertise, I honestly believe every person that comes rafting has the chance to have the time of their life. And of course I want to see some of y’all, but I want to see you in raft, zipping down the Kennebec just slaying it.