1996-2000
Written in January 2024
July 1996: Stan and Barbara are about to tackle the rapids
on the California Salmon River in Northern California
🌊 Preamble
Whitewater kayaking is the most exciting sport that I have ever experienced, including skydiving. Every time I start down a large rapids, it is the same feeling as leaping out of the plane on my one and only skydive 51 years ago back in 1973, but with less control over the elements.
🌊 Heaven or Die
It is early July of 1996, and Stan and I are in a remote area in far Northern California at the Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School. It is our second year of whitewater kayaking after two brief stints on the Kern River the summer before, including two days of lessons.
We are quite old – in our mid-to-late 50's – to start whitewater kayaking. Most people begin this sport when they are decades younger.
After a long first day of instruction, mostly on the pond in front of the lodge and on easy rapids, one of the beginning students joins our instructor Frances on the front porch of her cabin.
Following is a short excerpt from the beginning of a video titled Essential Boat Control to give you a feeling for the sport. Here are my favorite lines from the dialogue:
Student: Is this a dangerous sport?
Frances: Life is dangerous. There’s risk in every sport. The good news is that ninety-nine percent of the time, you’re in control of your destiny. There is that one percent, however.
Student: One percent?! That sucks!
Frances: It does, doesn’t it? We all sure want to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die!!
At this point, fast heart-thumping music starts and you see several whitewater kayakers take some really hairy runs.
Watch the Heaven or Die excerpt by clicking on the film clip below.
If you watched the extreme kayaking at the end of the video excerpt, I must confess that Stan and I have never experienced the Class IV and Class V rapids shown in kayaks. During our 15 years of whitewater adventures in solo hardshell kayaks from 1995 to 2009, the most difficult rapids that we tackled were harder Class III to easy Class IV – but those are not for the faint of heart!
🌊 Preface
From 1971 to 2009, Stan and I enjoy 39 years of whitewater adventures on the eight rivers in California, Arizona and Wyoming shown on the map below.
Our whitewater experiences ranged from rafts (both large and small) to kayaks (inflatable, one- and two-person kayaks to solo hardshell kayaks).*
* Hardshell kayaks are the traditional types of kayak. They are made from wood, plastic, fiberglass or other composite materials, with a rigid frame. This is unlike an inflatable kayak, which is blown up (inflated) and features synthetic rubber or PVC and plastic polymers.
During the last 15 of our 39 years of whitewater adventures from 1995 to 2009, we tackle whitewater rivers in solo hardshell kayaks. Our first time iss on the Kern River in Central California in the summer of 1995.
We next spend a week during each of five consecutive summers from 1996 to 2000 on the Salmon* and Klamath Rivers in far Northern California while attending an intense whitewater kayaking school at Otter Bar (shown at the top left of the map above). Our five years at Otter Bar are the subject of this missive.
* There are Salmon Rivers in four states in the Northwestern U.S. – Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California. The Salmon River in California is named the California Salmon River, and it is also called the Cal Salmon. For brevity in this missive, I will just call it the Salmon River.
You can read all about our 39 years of whitewater adventures by clicking on the following title of my missive – 🌊 39 Years of Whitewater Adventures, 1971-2009.
🌊 Prologue
🚣🏻♀️ Whitewater Rafting Adventures, 1971-1980
Stan and I met in 1972 on a raft on the Colorado River through the rapids of the Grand Canyon – I was 31 and Stan was 35. Stan's 10-year-old son Dave was also on the trip.
1972: Whitewater Rafting through the Grand Canyon
Left: Stan & Dave (age 10) on their raft
Right: On the shore, Barbara with Jim (the boyfriend of a girl named Sue that I met on this trip)
Stan and I were both working at The Aerospace Corporation – I had been there for seven years and Stan for 10 years – but we had never met before this trip.
Note: My first whitewater experience was on the same rafting trip through the Grand Canyon a year earlier in 1971 for eight days, when I was 30 and recently single after my first marriage. I loved it so much that I signed up for this longer 10-day trip.
Stan and I didn’t start dating until late 1975, over three years after meeting on a raft.
In August 1979, we took Stan's son Dave (age 17) and my son Mike (age 15) whitewater rafting on the Stanislaus River in Northern California.
August 1979: Whitewater Rafting on the Stanislaus River
Upper left: Mike & Barbara on the rear of a truck transporting us to the river
Upper right: Stan & Dave at riverside in the morning after sleeping on the ground
Bottom: Mike, Stan and Barbara are in the rear of the raft in front of our guide while shooting a rapids.
In June 1980, we took Stan’s daughter Tiffany (age 14) and my sister Liz whitewater rafting on the Tuolumne River in Northern California.
June 1980: Whitewater Rafting on the Tuolumne River
Upper left: Barbara, Stan & Tiffany on shore
Upper right: Barbara, Tiffany, our river guide & Liz on a raft at the riverside
Bottom: Our guide, Barbara, Liz and Tiffany at the start of a hairy rapids – Stan walked around it because there wasn’t room for all of us on the raft for safety reasons.
🚣🏻♀️ Buying a Home Together, Early Retirement & Marriage, 1987-1992
After 12 years of dating while living in our separate homes in the beach cities of Los Angeles, Stan and I purchased a house together in Rolling Hills in 1987.
Five years later in 1992, 20 years after meeting on a raft, we both took early retirement – when I was 51, and Stan was 55. We were also married that year in our home.
We had four dogs at the time and a desire to travel with them. We soon purchased a motorhome, as well as a two-person inflatable kayak to paddle on the lakes wherever we journeyed. We added an inflatable motorized boat, as well as a Jeep that we towed behind the RV to carry our boats and bikes.
1993: Our RV, Jeep, Inflatable Kayak and Inflatable Motorized Boat
🚣🏻♀️ Whitewater Kayaking on the Kern River, 1995
After two years of paddling on flat water in our two-person inflatable, we become bored and want to try it on some rapids. I feel that we should first have some instruction, so in August 1995, I sign us up for two days of whitewater kayaking lessons on the Upper Kern River – a 4½-hour drive north of our home.
On the day before our instruction begins, we get brave enough to attempt the rapids ourselves in our two-person kayak. We tackle the two-mile stretch on the North Fork of the Upper Kern River called Lickety Split above the campground in Kernville where we are staying in our RV.
The largest two rapids on Lickety Split run are rated Class III (rapids with high, irregular waves and narrow passages that often require precise maneuvering). They are named Big Daddy and Ewings Rapids. The latter is the most challenging and ends right by our campground – if one doesn’t make it through upright, he or she can swim to shore and be home.
We almost capsize in the third large hole in Ewings Rapids, but we make it through thanks to Stan. We feel confident enough to repeat the same run a second time.
The following day, we check in at Sierra South for our two days of kayaking lessons. I think that we will be given lessons in our two-person inflatable, but instead we are each put into solo hardshell kayaks.
Our first day of instruction takes place on still water at Lake Isabella. Once we are in our hardshells with our neoprene skirts securely fastened around the openings, we are told to tip over. We hang upside down until given a rescue hand. The rest of the day, we practice our roll – righting a capsized kayak by use of body motion and/or a paddle.
The second day, we spend the morning on a flat section of the Kern River practicing our roll. Neither one of us is successful. We spend the afternoon of instruction on the Lickety Split run.
Early Whitewater Kayaking Adventures on the Upper Kern River
Top left: I am taking Ewings Rapids in my new hardshell kayak in 1996
Top right: Stan going through Ewings Rapids in his hardshell kayak in 2002
Bottom: Stan and I in Ewings Rapids in our two-person inflatable kayak in 1996
Two weeks later in late August 1995, we return to Kernville where we purchase our own solo hardshell kayaks and gear at the Labor Day sale. We successfully paddle them down the same route on our own.
On that trip, we meet a couple on the river who tell us about their wonderful experience at a remote whitewater kayaking school called Otter Bar in far northern California. We are convinced that we should go there next summer. This summer is the beginning of our 15 years of whitewater kayaking adventures in hardshells from 1995-2009.
Each summer during the next five of those 15 years (1996-2000), we undertake seven days of intense whitewater kayaking lessons at the Otter Bar Kayak School located on the Salmon River in Northern California. Our classes each week include an overnight kayaking trip with raft support on the nearby Klamath River.
We also spend a week or two during each of those summers kayaking stretches of the Upper and Lower Kern Rivers … but those are stories for future missives.
🌊 Five Weeks of Intense Hardshell Kayaking Lessons at Otter Bar, 1996-2000
To improve our whitewater kayaking skills, for five summers in a row from 1996 through 2000, we attend an intensive seven-day kayaking school called Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School* in a remote area in Northern California.
* Although we never see any river otters during our five trips to Otter Bar, we are assured that there are many of them that live in the area, but they are normally seen in the colder months.
* A bar in a river is an elevated region of sediment (such as sand or gravel) that has been deposited by the flow.
🦦 Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School
For 39 years, from 1981 to 2019, Otter Bar was the premiere destination for learning to kayak on whitewater. Otter Bar is 2½ hours from anywhere (Eureka is the closest major town). It is nestled deep in northern California’s Klamath National Forest about 50 miles south of the Oregon border between the fir-covered Marble Mountains and Trinity Alps.
Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School on the Cal Salmon River in far Northern California
The lodge at Otter Bar, long renowned for its peaceful beauty, is situated on 60 acres on the Wild and Scenic California Salmon River. With various stretches of the Salmon and Klamath Rivers within easy reach, there are many options for whitewater kayaking.
Otter Bar’s intensive seven-day, all-inclusive beginner and intermediate program with a rest day in-between takes learners from the flat water of its quarter-acre, spring-fed backyard pond – where veteran instructors teach paddle and roll techniques – to the surf waves of Class III rapids. With just 12-14 students a week and an intimate 3:1 student-teacher ratio, Otter Bar found the perfect recipe for whitewater kayaking instruction.
Each week of instruction ends with an overnight trip on the Klamath River. The grand finale for us is kayaking the Persidio run, featuring a Class III rapids called Kissing Rock.
The following story tells about the origins of Otter Bar and its founder Peter Sturges, with excerpts from two magazine articles from 1992 and 1993.
🦦 Getting There
Getting to the Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School feels like entering a less-spoiled dimension. On each of our five trips, we fly from Los Angeles to the Arcata-Eureka Airport on the coast in far Northern California. There we and a couple of other guests are picked up in the afternoon by the lodge’s van driven by JD (who also mans the support raft on the overnight kayaking trips at the end of each week).
The drive to Otter Bar is a little over 100 miles to the northeast from the airport, and takes 2½ hours.
"That's the last of civilization you'll see for a week," JD tells us cheerily as we leave the strip town of Willow Creek, nearly half of the way there, where we turn onto Hwy. 96 along the Trinity River. When we reach the Klamath River, the road turns right and runs along that river until we arrive at Somes Bar at the confluence with the Salmon River. There we turn right onto the nail-biting, one-lane Salmon River Road through the steep mountain passes of the Salmon River Gorge along hundred-foot-high cliff edges with few guardrails until we reach our destination.
Otter Bar Kayak Lodge is two miles before Forks of Salmon, an unincorporated community with a population of 133 situated at the confluence of the North and South Forks of the Salmon River, hence its name.
🦦 Accommodations
The remote 3,000-square-foot lodge at Otter Bar is a wonderful place to get away from it all. It is outside the normal power grid, completely out of cell phone range, and more than an hour’s drive from the nearest gas station.
As we pull into the lodge, Peter Sturges greets us like we've known him forever and then guides us to the dining room where the other guests have just been seated. The candles are lit, wine is flowing, hors d’oeuvres are waiting, and the conversation is humming. The kitchen crew is in the midst of preparing our gourmet dinner. Several of the guests have been here before and some already know each other from previous summers.
The communal living room has a fireplace and a TV set, but there is no TV reception, and radio reception is poor. However, there is a VCR and a decent library of films.
After dinner, we are given an overview of our program for the week. We are then shown to our room, which is one of the three cabins outside of the lodge (photo on the left). On the way to our cabin, we pass the giant outdoor hot tub and a sauna, and are told that we can schedule post-river massages any days we would like.
🦦 Cost
The cost per person for our week at Otter Bar includes professional instruction, seven nights’ lodging, three meals a day (including wine with dinner), a kayak and essential gear, a sauna and hot tub, and an overnight camping trip.
The amount per person over the five years we attended went up $100 nearly every year from $1,390 in 1996 to $1,690 in 2000. In addition, we paid $40 for shuttle service to and from the airport in Eureka. Our round-trip flights from LAX to Eureka ranged from $187 to $230 per person. Thus, the total cost for each of us for eight days went from roughly $1600 to $2,000 – not too shabby for all that we received, even 20 some years ago.
🦦 Instruction
At 8 a.m. each morning after breakfast, except for the last two mornings when we are on the overnight trip, we meet in the lounge for a half-hour of chalkboard instruction.
Chalkboard lecture in the lodge at the start of each day after an early breakfast.
In the foreground are our lead instructor Creek and Stan.
Next we go to the pond for hands-on instruction and practice in our kayaks on flat water. After an hour or two of pond instruction, we move on to various sections of the Salmon River for more instruction and practice in moving water and rapids.
Below is an excerpt from a 1992 newspaper article about Peter Sturges showing how kayaking instruction evolved since he founded the Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School in 1981.
🦦 Equipment
After our introductory 8 a.m. chalkboard lecture and equipment demonstration on the first morning of our week at Otter Bar, we adjourn to the equipment storage area where we are fitted into our kayaks and the gear that we will be using for the next seven days.
The only kayaking gear we are required to bring are bathing suits (or shorts) and footwear (old running shoes or sturdy-soled neoprene booties are recommended, because you often end up trudging in waist-high water on the rocky riverbed). In addition, we bring our own sleeping bag and ground pad for our overnight trip.
Otter Bar starts every season with a new fleet of the latest-model kayaks. We are each outfitted with the following gear:
Paddle Jacket
PFD – personal flotation device, aka life vest or life preserver
Helmet
Spray Skirt – which fits tightly around your waist and flares out below so it can be stretched over the kayak’s ellipsoid opening, rendering the boat watertight. It has a ripcord attached to the front which can be yanked on for easy exit when upside down in the the water.
Nose Plugs* – which are attached by a nylon string to each helmet
* A word or two should be said here about nose plugs: They work. Capsizing without nose plugs sends water coursing into your sinuses, resulting in a hurried message to your brain that says, "Hey! I'm upside down underwater, my sinuses are flooded, that hurts - I'm going to drown!" Capsizing with nose plugs goes more like this: "Wooooow, I'm upside down underwater – oh, hello little fishy. I guess I'll try and roll now."
Knife – to cut yourself out of your kayak or brush should you become trapped
Kayak
Two-Bladed Paddle
⬅︎ On our first trip in June 1996, my kayak is a 12-foot long, purple Perception Corsica S, which pairs perfectly with my purple PFD. I even have a matching purple paddle! Stan is outfitted in his favorite blue colors.
On our third trip to Otter Bar in 1998, we go earlier in the season in May, when the water and weather are much colder. On that trip, we are also provided with:
A Head-to-Toe Dry Suit
A Neoprene Head Cap (to wear under our helmets for extra warmth)
Paddling Gloves (for warmth)
On our third trip in May 1998, I am on the right on a river bank fully garbed in my dry suit, helmet, PFD with a knife, spray skirt, gloves and booties. Our instructor Jason is on the left with another student in the center.
🦦 Hands-On Instruction – Proper Techniques of Kayaking
After outfitting us with a kayak and gear, our brawny instructor Creek explains that we will be spending the early mornings of our first several days padding around the training pond, over-dressed for danger in helmets and life vests. We will concentrate on the basic techniques we'll need to know on faster water beginning with elementary paddling strokes. Instructors will videotape us to critique our technique.
The pond in front of the lodge at Otter Bar. The cabins are on the right behind the dock.
Our basic pond instruction will progress to techniques needed on smaller rapids and then on to advanced techniques for more challenging whitewater.
The spring-fed pond in front of the lodge is no more than four-feet deep and is encircled by grassy lawns and wildflowers, maintained by Peter Sturges's home-made irrigation system. It is surrounded by mountains and tall trees.
Our kayaks are all lined up around the edge of the pond, ready for us to don our gear, climb in and push off into the water.
Kayaking is counter-intuitive. To stay upright, you have to relinquish logic and surrender to forces that tell you to resist but that will ultimately lead you where you want to go. In other words, if you want to avoid tipping, you have to lean into – not away from – the water. Creek calls it "domination through submission.”
The following table describes the various paddling and rescue techniques that we are taught during each week.
Paddling and Rescue Techniques Taught
More on Rolling
Rolling is an ingenious but maddening technique requiring a sweeping paddle stroke and a swift twist of the torso to right a capsized kayak. The last thing to surface should be your head – difficult to do when all you want is to be able to take a desperate breath of air! It is the most difficult maneuver I have ever tried to do!
When Creek demonstrates the roll, it looks easy. One moment, we see nothing but the bottom of his boat. The next, he's somehow swiveled back upright in a single fluid motion. But the first time I go over, I find myself stuck underwater in a confusion of flailing arms and a useless paddle.
Creek, thankfully, is unfazed. "Let's work on that roll," he says, getting out of his boat and standing next to me. And for the next dozen attempts, he is right there, patiently translating the mysterious move into language I understand. “Keep that left arm down,” he says. “Imagine you're holding the keys to your Porsche in your armpit."
Some kayakers regard the roll as the be-all and end-all of the sport, but Peter Sturges de-emphasizes it in his school, treating it more like a helpful tool. I develop a roll that works most of the time in flat water, but is shaky and problematic in choppier situations when I resort to the Eskimo rescue.
On the right: I am coming up the wrong way – head first – from an attempted roll in the pond as Stan watches. I fail to stay upright as a result.
It isn’t until my fourth Otter Bar trip that I succeed in my first combat roll.*
* A combat roll is when you roll yourself back up after going over in a rapids.
Stan manages his first combat roll on our second trip to Otter Bar. It surprises me that he beats me to it – men typically are less flexible than women and try to muscle their way through the roll motions and fail as a result.
Our morning pond activity concludes with each of us demonstrating our newfound skills before an unforgiving video camera.
🦦 On the River
First Day: After our pond practice on our first day, we carry or drag our 45-pound, 8½-foot long kayaks down to the calm, though moving, stretch of the Salmon that runs through the Sturges' property. On the way, Peter Sturges quips, "OK, guys, ready for the school of hard rocks?" We break into groups of three – Stan and I are put in the same class with another guy, and our instructor Creek turns us loose on a small rapids.
July 1996: First Otter Bar trip - Barbara on the river
After a box lunch on the riverbank, we are given a roll class in the river covering the ferry, eddy peel out, and S-turn.
We continue kayaking through various rapids to the takeout, where we and our kayaks are transported back to the lodge.
Later in the week, we are driven to incrementally more difficult rapids on the lower Salmon River and the Klamath River (into which the Salmon flows) – but we are never taken to rapids that are more difficult than our instructors feel we can handle.
Stan with his kayaking gear in front of the trailer holding our kayaks for a drive to another section of the river to paddle.
Following Days: After the first day, we typically start each day with a half-hour chalkboard lecture, followed by pond practice for an hour, and then six-plus hours shooting rapids on the river.
🦦 Après Kayaking
By 6:30 in the evening, we are in the sauna and/or jacuzzi, or enjoying a massage. Dinner is on a long picnic table on the lawn, where wine is served.
Stan and I are seated on the right at our dinner table on the lawn.
Thursday is "margarita night," featuring not only the tequila-based cocktails and excellent Cal-Mex food but also a guitarist or two who perform as we dine.
After dinner, since Otter Bar is out of range for TV reception, we are often shown a whitewater kayaking DVD for entertainment – I often make copies of the DVDs to take home with me. We also play Scrabble and other games while listening to music.
By ten, we head off to our cozy, private cabin and fall asleep to the sound of the river.
🦦 Wednesday Is a Day Off
Well, not quite. We do roll practice in the morning in the river with all of the students and instructors. There is time for a massage afterwards. In the early afternoon, we do roll practice in the pond. Later during one afternoon, we are driven downstream to the lower Salmon River to watch demonstrations by our instructors in large rapids.
🦦 Overnight Trip on the Klamath River – Friday & Saturday
On Friday morning after breakfast, we pack up and are driven to the Klamath River along with our kayaks, a raft and our camping and cooking gear for two days of kayaking and a night sleeping on the ground by the river. JD, our driver to/from the airport, goes along to man the support raft and head the kitchen detail.
July 2000: Barbara & Stan on the overnight kayak/camping trip
On Saturday after a morning of kayaking, we stop at Somes Bar near the junction of the Klamath and Salmon Rivers for a picnic lunch before heading for the airport and our flight home.
🌊 Highlights of Our Five Trips to Otter Bar
Following are eight highlights that stand out in my memories and illustrate some of the many adventures we experienced during the five weeks over five years that we spent at Otter Bar.
💦 The Hand of God
💦 Shooting Rapids
💦 My First Combat Roll
💦 Kissing Rock Rapids
💦 Shooting Up the Rock Wall
💦 Rain, Hail & Rockfall
💦 Almost Abandoned In the Wild
💦 My Most Relaxed Week
💦 Pig Poetry & Rock Sculptures
I have very few photos and videos from our trips, because we were too busy kayaking to take many then – especially action shots.
I am paddling down a large rapids on the Salmon River during our first trip to Otter Bar in 1996. I fail to negotiate around a small rock and flip over. I try to roll back up (which I have never yet succeeded in moving water) and fail.
In this situation, we have been taught to go into a tuck (pull your upside-down body forward as close to the kayak as you can get) to protect yourself from hitting your head on rocks on the bottom of the river and to make it easier to roll back up and/or be rescued.
As I wait for a rescue from my instructor, I do as I have been taught. I reach my hands above my upside-down kayak, pound on the bottom to attract my instructor's attention to my plight, and then run my hands back-and-forth along the sides of the kayak to be able to feel for the bow of my savior's boat. Once I feel my rescuer's bow, I will grab it with that hand and bring my other hand under my kayak to grab it with both hands. Then using the instructor's boat as leverage, I will bea able to easily flip my boat upright.
I am underwater for what seems like forever, banging on my boat bottom for a rescue. I am wondering how long I can last with no air before I have to bail out. I can do this by reaching forward, grabbing the loop attached to the front of my skirt (which is wrapped around my kayak opening), yanking it back to free it from the kayak, pushing myself out upside down, and swimming to the surface.
All of a sudden, I feel something bump my kayak and I am suddenly pulled upright. I have been saved by the Hand of God!!! *
* The Hand of God rescue involves paddling alongside the upside down paddler, reaching completely over the top of their kayak and grabbing the cockpit coaming on the far side. You next pull up on that far edge while pushing down with your other hand on the close edge, and then roll the kayak upright with the paddler still in it.
Photo from the Internet showing the Hand of God rescue technique. Unfortunately, I have no photos of my rescue.
No one has ever told us about this rescue method before. We are taught the technique during our roll practice in the pond later in the week.
💦 Shooting Rapids
One day during our second trip to Otter Bar in June 1997, an extra instructor joins us and videos Stan and me shooting several rapids. View some of the video footage by clicking on the photo below showing video clip images of the two of us. You can recognize which one each of us is by the color of our kayaks – Barbara is in the purple kayak and Stan is in the burnt orange kayak.
June 3, 1997: Two video clips taken of Barbara (left in her purple kayak) and Stan (right in his burnt orange kayak) during our second trip to Otter Bar
💦 My First Combat Roll
It isn’t until my fourth Otter Bar trip in June 1999 that I succeed in my first combat roll.*
* A combat roll is when you roll yourself back up after going over in a rapids.
Stan and I and another student are with our instructor on a hairy section of the Klamath River that we have been down once before. We go to shore on river left after a medium-sized rapids and climb up a rocky rise to scout the situation ahead.
The river is flowing swiftly and narrows as the main portion pours steeply over a ledge into a large, mean frowning hole* that takes up most of the river.
* A hole, also known as a hydraulic, is a river feature where water drops over an obstruction (rock ledge or a rock) into deeper water on the downstream side. This causes water on the surface to be drawn back toward the rock or ledge.
** Holes can be very sticky, even when small. There are smiling and frowning holes. Looking downstream at a frowning pourover, the edges of the hole curve upstream on each side and vice-versa for a smiling pourover.
An example of a large frowning hole similar to the one we experienced. The river is flowing from left to right over a drop, causing the current in the middle to flow strongly upstream. There is a narrow chute on river left (at the far side of the river) where you can bypass the hole. (Unfortunately, I have no photos of the hole we experienced.)
We all know that this is a keeper hole – if one of us should go into this hole, it is almost impossible to kayak out of it. If you do, the best way is to keep your kayak sideways to the pourover and keep the bottom pointed upriver toward the spillover as you paddle strongly toward one of the sides to escape. A large frowning hole like this one inevitably pulls you back in.
If you cannot paddle out, you have to tip over, bail out of the kayak, and swim toward the river bottom heading downriver. You must swim under the strong surface wave heading back upstream into the hole, and come to the surface below it – if it is even possible.
The only alternative to avoid this hole is t0 paddle close to the high rock ledge on river left where a very narrow, 2-3 foot channel flows swiftly between the rocks and the edge of the hole. The danger here is that there is a strong eddy current going upstream very close to the rock which can flip you over. That is what happened to me the first time that we paddled this stretch, and I went through the long, large rapids below the hole upside down until I could finally bail out and swim to shore.
After our scouting trek, we return to our kayaks and prepare to go downriver. Our instructor goes ahead of us so he is ready to render assistance, if needed.
I leave the eddy by doing a peel out. I paddle upstream, and when I cross the eddy line of the small rapids, the current snatches my bow and I do a dynamic 180° turn while bracing and leaning on the downstream side to avoid flipping dynamically and eating it. Keeping my kayak bottom tilted upriver, I let the river turn me as I glide downstream.
At least that is what should have happened! As I am making the turn to go downriver, I can see our instructor facing upriver above the hole. My anxiety over what lies ahead makes me tense up, and my instructor's eyes widen in shock as I tip over – he really does not want to have to go into the huge keeper hole to try to rescue me!!
As I go into my tuck position underwater to prepare to try to roll back up, I know that I only have one chance to succeed or I am in deep yogurt!! I have never succeeded in completing a combat roll before. I put all of my concentration into executing the setup – I reach up and place my paddle above water on the left side of my boat. I do a long paddle sweep with my right arm and kick my knee while twisting my torso and keeping my head down until the last moment.
Miraculously, I'm coming up. My head breaks the surface as water drips from my head and drains from my ears. I've made it!!! My first successful combat roll!! I am upright and paddling toward my much-relieved instructor as we head for the narrow chute between the rocky cliff on river left and the large hole. This time, I successfully negotiate the chute and the rapids below to rest in the large eddy on river right.
I am so pumped after this feat that Stan buys me a shorter, high-performance kayak (a white Piedra) the following month when we are kayaking on the Kern River.
💦 Kissing Rock Rapids
On every trip to Otter Bar, we tackle big Kissing Rock Rapids on the Klamath River. This Class III+ rapids is a hair-raising stretch of the river and is the most significant rapids on this run. (Note: There is also a Class II Kissing Rock Rapids on the Salmon River that we call little Kissing Rock Rapids.)
After a long, flat pool, the river drops quickly where a large cobble bar on river left (on the right side of the photo below) constricts the channel. A large boulder called Kissing Rock splits the current near the top of the rapids. Each time that we take this rapids, it is better to go to the left of the boulder, but not so far left that you then run into smaller rocks.
July 1996: View from downstream of Kissing Rock Rapids with the large rock directly in the middle at the top of the rapids
A good pillow forms on the upstream side of Kissing Rock and a clean line to the left means missing the rock and the pillow to stay on the main flow that heads downstream. However, if you miss the clean line, you will ride up on the pillow and ‘kiss the rock’ before sliding off and around it – assuming that you don’t kiss it too hard and capsize!
July 1996: Stan is kissing the rock with his blue kayak in this photo and he makes it through upright.
On our second Otter Bar trip in 1997, as I approach Kissing Rock, I am behind my instructor Creek. I hear him yelling from the eddy below the rock, “Paddle left! Over here!” Suddenly the rock is dead ahead, and the next thing I know, I have capsized! Everything is chaotic and spinning. I try to roll back up, but my paddle isn't hitting the water right, and I don't make it up.
Okay, says a calm voice in my head, now try the rescue. I bang three times, hard, on the bottom of my boat, then move my hands up and down its sides, waiting to grab the nose of Creek's boat to flip myself back up. Nothing there. Where is he? My underwater count has reached higher than it has been all week – and my lungs are about to burst. Finally I bail out.
Air! Light! There is Creek. If I had just waited a bit more, he would have reached me. But I don't care. In just a week, I have pushed far enough past my fears to be able to careen downriver upside down while calmly mulling over my options.
As I come fully to the surface with water streaming off my helmet and my nose plugs still in place, I have a smile playing around the corners of my mouth. Swimming my boat to shore while hanging on to the stern of Creek’s kayak, there is one thought going through my mind – That feels like a million bucks!
The image below is a frame from a video taken on that 1997 trip of Stan and I following Creek through Kissing Rock Rapids. In the video, Creek is the first one through in a yellow kayak, followed by myself in my purple kayak, and lastly by Stan in his red kayak. Click on the image below to view the video.
July 1997: Video clip of myself about to capsize as I hit Kissing Rock
💦 Shooting Up the Rock Wall
Each year, we usually kayak down a long stretch of the Salmon River which culminates in a section where the river runs over a shallow, rocky bed where the water is only a foot or so deep. The first time, I get stuck on the bottom and have to exit my kayak in mid-stream and drag it over the rocks to our take-out on river left.
I am kayaking through a small rapids over a shallow part of the Salmon River in 1996.
Unfortunately, I have no photos or videos of myself in the rapids where I shoot up the wall.
The second time I kayak this same stretch, I follow our instructor down a narrow chute on river right which bypasses the rocky bed. At one point, the current pushes up high on the rocky ledge on the right, and I see my instructor ride up the water against the rock. He shoots up a couple of feet in the air and lands back in the narrow chute.
That looks like fun, so I try it also. However, I catch a bit more air, shooting up about three feet, and I manage to land without tipping over. How exhilarating!!
The third time we take this route, I aim a bit higher up the rock, hoping to catch a couple of feet of air between my kayak and the water below me. Oh, my God!! I aim a little too high and shoot sharply up the wall and sail a dozen or more feet into the air!! As I pass over the top of the rocky outcropping, I look down at the jagged rocks below me, and I fear that I will certainly fall on top of them.
Amazingly, my trajectory carries me over the jagged rocks. Then I fear that I will crash and burn when I land on the other side. I instinctively keep my bow pointed high enough as I slide down the current on the far side of the rock and do a perfect landing back in the river without capsizing!!!
I call out in glee when I reach the others who made it to the eddy on the opposite side of the river ahead of me. No one has witnessed my great feat.
💦 Rain, Hail & Rockfall
Rain & Cold Temperatures: Our first two trips to Otter Bar in 1996 and 1997 are in June and July, the months when the conditions are best for beginner/intermediate kayakers like ourselves.
The month of May in California provides the best whitewater of the season, and is when the advanced/intermediate level classes are held on Class III+/easy IV rapids.
We must be getting a little cocky after our first two seasons at Otter Bar when we book our third trip in early May of 1998. This week really shakes us up. The water is exceptionally high and swift, the rapids are more difficult, the air and water temperatures are 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and it rains every day and night!
We are fitted with head-to-toe dry suits which seal at the neck, wrists and ankles to keep water out and your body warmer. We are also given a neoprene cap to wear under our helmet and paddling gloves for added warmth.
2006: Stan & I are clad in our cold weather gear on the practice pond in the rain
Ledge Launch: On our first day, we are driven to a section of the river where we hadn't been on our two previous trips. We haul our boats to the river to find ourselves on top of a ledge sitting four feet above the water below.
There is no way to get into the water except to launch off of the ledge into the 40º water (in the rain, of course). This is something that we haven't done before. Amazingly, we both make the launch without capsizing. But that doesn't spare us – the first thing our instructor Jason tells us to do is to tip over and roll back up.
Ice Cream (I Scream) Headache: The river feels much colder than the pond did earlier, especially when you are upside down in it as long as I am while trying to roll back up. My head aches terribly, and I feel intense pain in my eyes and nose areas.
Myself and Jason during lunch break in the rain on the rocky shore
I succeed in rolling back up in the calm water on my second attempt, thankful to be back in the 40º air. Surprisingly, after more rolling, the pain subsides and becomes much less noticeable and even disappears.
Hail & Rockfall: One day, we are practicing our ferry* across a wide rapids with strong, high waves.
* Ferrying is the act of moving from one side of the river to the other with minimal downstream drift. You do this by pointing one's kayak upstream against a rushing current, and paddling forward and toward the opposite side of the river until you cross it.
This is the strongest rapids I have ever had to ferry across, and the rain has now turned into a hard hail. With much strenuous paddling, we finally make it to the eddy under the cliffside on river left.
As we are huddled under the cliff for some protection from the hail, we are dreading leaving the eddy to ferry back across the river to where Jason is waiting. All of a sudden, the falling hail turns into small rocks!! Fearing that the rockfall may turn into a landslide and really do us damage, we quickly decide to brave the rapids instead and ferry back across.
What a week this has been! Not one I would care to repeat, but one worth remembering.
💦 Almost Abandoned In the Wild
In early March of 1997, I have a bad fall while skiing at Mammoth Mountain, and I have to be carried down the mountain in a toboggan and taken to the hospital in Mammoth Lakes. There I learn that I have torn all of the ligaments in both knees. The ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in my right knee is torn completely through and needs to be replaced surgically.
I call my orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, who wants me to wait until I see him before anything is done. Once I see him when I return home, he is reluctant to perform the surgery on me because of my age – I am only 56!!! Instead, he wants me to wait several months for my knees to heal, and he feels that I can successfully function for the rest of my life without an ACL.
By early June, my knees are sufficiently healed for kayaking, so we make our second trip to Otter Bar.
Wednesday's at Otter Bar are a day off from whitewater kayaking. After a morning of practice in the pond, we are driven to the lower Salmon River to watch our instructors demo how to play in rapids.
The rapids at Oak Bottom form a great set of standing waves at a range of flows. The famed Oak Bottom Wave is a very good surf wave and is a popular play spot. It's a short downstream paddle for our instructors from the parking area, while the rest of us hike down a trail through thick foliage to the river.
Watch this short video of one of our instructors playing in the surf wave by clicking on the video clip image below.
After watching the instructors do tricks in the waterfalls for a while, I decide to try for a different view upriver. I follow a path of sorts through the dense forest along the water. At one point, I have to climb over a fallen tree that blocks my way. In doing so, my right knee suddenly gives out without warning, and I fall hard to the ground on my back.
My back and knee are in agony, and I am unable to get up. It is useless to cry for help because of the roar of the nearby rapids. No one knows where I have gone. I lie there for what seems like hours, thinking that everyone will soon be leaving to drive back to Otter Bar and that I will be left behind – alone and helpless in the wilderness. Stan will just assume that I am riding back in a different van.
Finally, I am able to get up on my feet and hobble back down the path to where I started. Everybody is just starting to hike back up to the vans, and I haven't been deserted after all!!
Postscript: The pain from my fall resides later that day. My right knee with the torn ACL returns to normal, and I am able to kayak for the rest of the week at Otter Bar.
The following month, I am walking across our family room floor carrying a wine glass in each hand to guests when my right knee once again gives out without warning. I go splat on our tiled floor, spilling the wine when I land.
I am not injured from my fall, but I realize that I cannot live the rest of my life like this, never knowing when my knee might give out, and what damage or even death might result. I get a recommendation for another orthopedic surgeon at the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles, who work with virtually all of Southern California's professional sports teams. There in August, my ACL is expertly replaced with a section of my hamstring, and I am playing tennis and skiing again early the following year in 1998.
💦 My Most Relaxed Week
In March/April of 2000, we go on a ski trip to Val d'Isère, France. Two days after we return, I have to be taken via ambulance to the emergency room at Torrance Memorial Hospital due to severe chest pains. I spend eight days in the ICU after a CT scan shows that I have a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs). A large clot has developed in my right leg and traveled to my right lung, completely blocking the pulmonary artery. I am told that I was very close to dying at any moment before it was diagnosed and treated. The clot was most likely caused from sitting so long on the 12-hour, direct flight from Paris.
I am placed on blood-thinners for five months, and I am not allowed to ski or whitewater kayak or do any activity which might result in injury, especially to my head – it will cause internal bleeding that can't be stopped.
Four months later in late July, we decide to go on our planned fifth trip to Otter Bar. I won't be able to do any whitewater kayaking, but I can do roll practice in the pond, and I can also go along to the put-in and pull-out spots to take some photos.
July 2000: Myself in my usual seat at Otter Bar during most of this week (frame from video)
On the overnight trip on the Klamath River, I can shoot the rapids riding on the support raft. I take more photos and videos on this trip than any other because I am not braving the rapids in a kayak and I can carry my cameras.
July 2000: On the overnight trip on the Klamath River, I am riding on the support raft manned by JD, who is also our shuttle driver to/from the airport.
I even receive a dip-ploma for the week. Stan is standing sixth from the left with his hands on my shoulders. Our head instructor, Creek, is standing to the right of Stan. There are 18 of us in the photo including four instructors.
By contrast, Stan's dip-ploma reads, "This certifies that Stan Levine has endured, triumphed and paddled his way through a successful week at Otter Bar Kayak School."
💦 Pig Poetry & Rock Sculptures
🛶 Pig Poetry: Often in the lodge or on our overnight camping trip on the Klamath River, we listen to our head instructor Creek recite his pig poetry.
Watch this video that I record on our overnight trip in 2000 of Creek reading his pig poetry by clicking on the photo on the left.
The poem Creek is reciting is titled Racehogs, and is from the book The Porcine Canticles by David Lee. The words to the poem are on the right, where the section in red is what is heard on the video.
🛶 Rock Sculptures
Our airport shuttle driver JD also mans our support raft on the Klamath River on the overnight trip. JD has another skill. Our campsite is on a very rocky bed beside the river, and JD uses these rocks to create his intricate rock sculptures by balancing them on top of each other in precarious positions (click on the photo below to view a video).
🌊 Epilogue
During 15 of our 39 years of whitewater adventures, from 1995 to 2009, we tackle whitewater rivers in solo hardshell kayaks. At Otter Bar, we gain the skills to continue tackling rapids on other rivers on our own.
Each summer of the 15 years we do whitewater hardshell kayaking starting in 1995, including our five years at Otter Bar, we spend a week or two kayaking the Upper and Lower Kern Rivers, as well as once tackling Trouble Maker Rapids on the American River … but those are all stories for future missives.
🌊 All Good Things Must End
🛶 By 2007, my osteoarthritis is bothering me seriously. In 2008, I start having body parts replaced or fused, and after 2009 we stop whitewater kayaking and pursue tamer adventures. We continue with our sea kayaking/camping adventures for several years, and to this day we still paddle our whitewater kayaks on flat water at our place in the desert in Indio at the Motorcoach Country Club.
🛶 The Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School stopped offering kayak instruction after the 2019 season. In the spring of 2021, it opened for private bookings for groups who rent the lodge and property, with no staff or instruction provided.
🛶 It is now 2024 and Stan and I have been pursuing various adventures together for nearly 49 years, including 32 years of marriage. Our whitewater kayaking trips have been the most exciting of our adventures, and our five years at Otter Bar are some of our most memorable ones.
🌊 A River Rapids Song
And now it is time for a song to go along with my missive. This song titled The Green was composed and sung by C. W. McCall and was released in 1997 on his album The Best of C. W. McCall – not long before our first of two sea kayak/camping trips down the Green River through Canyonlands National Park in 1999 and 2006. [You can read my missive on our 2nd 10-day paddle down the Green River in 2006 by clicking on 🛶 Kayak Camping Down the Green River in Utah, 2006 🦟 .]
The song reminds me very much of our many years of whitewater kayaking and rafting adventures – although we only went through one small rapids on our sea kayaks on the Green River itself. The beat will get your pulse racing like ours was everytime we headed into a large rapids.
Double-click on the album cover below to hear The Green on your browser. The starting lyrics are beside it – just substitute Colorado, Kern, Salmon, Klamath, American, Tuolumne, Stanislaus or Snake for Green in the song.
It was daylight on the river but we couldn't see the sun
And we couldn't hear our voices through the roar
But we felt the boilin' current and our blood was runnin' cold
As we headed down the canyon of Lodore
And the gods were runnin' with us
On the day we ran the rapids of The Green…
And we died a thousand times in that forty miles of hell
The longest day of life we'd ever seen
But we lived to tell the story and we know the story well
The day we ran the rapids of The Green.
🌊 The End 🦦
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