Saabs, Hardshells and Folding Kayaks

I've been wanting to do a little solo river paddling for some time; ever since I did some on the Mohican all those years ago. It's so difficult to find people to go with you, especially if you aren't a hard core river rat. If I'm hard core anything material, it would have to be a Saab and Klepper guy.

I spent the last year not touching either while I was in Chile. I suffered withdrawal from the kayaking and so when I came back to the States, I found myself within a stones throw of the Colorado, on one of its not so hard core sections.

Some how one the guys I associate with here in the Grand Valley happens to also be a not so hard core 'yaker, who also happens to like to climb 14ers (Peaks in Colorado of over 14 thousand feet) and mountain biking. We have a few other areas in common, enough that I can tell we'll get along fine... except he likes hardshells. Oh well, no friendship can be perfect. Oh, he also told me I needed to sell my car and get a Colorado car. I've lived in Colorado longer than anywhere else, so I find this a bit perplexing. I've never missed a day of work in my life in Colorado on account of my Saab not being able to get there. In contrast, I've seen a lot of "Colorado cars" -AKA SUVs in the ditch shortly after a storm, -from my driver's seat. This ratio is usually about 10 to 1. But that is all another story.

Hardshell people tend to lose patience with folders for the amount of time it takes to assemble a folder. It takes me about 20 minutes, if I'm not rigging to sail. This is usually about 19:59 minutes too long for those of the non-folder persuasion. So I decided to assemble the kayak before we met.

One of the reasons I rationalized the ownership of a convertible was because I was a folder guy. Who needs to car top, if you can fit your 'yak in your trunk? Anyway, I have a special bike rack that fits into a hitch receiver for carrying bikes This same rack I've found works well for transporting oversized items that don't want to fit inside the car, -skis for example. It suddenly occured to me that the t-shape of the rack would support one end of the Klepper and with the top down, I could support the other end on the back seat. It worked fine.

I arrived right on time at our meeting place, -at my friend's house. He took one look at my 15.5 foot kayak and said "Dude, that'll never fit in the back of my truck!" A Ford half-ton? I don't know what he was talking about; tailgate down right? I offered to partially disassemble, but he didn't seem to hear me. Anyway, there really wasn't a way to accomodate his 'yak on "top" of my car.

Part of the benefit of paddling partners, aside from safety, is that you can leave one vehicle at the put in and another at the take-out. Obviously we're going to have to work on logistics a bit.

I also thought my new friend would know the Grand Valley a bit better than me. He really didn't know where to put in straight away and we wasted probably 45 minutes exploring river access. We ended up with what I had originally thought; put in at one State Park and take out at another. The only problem was that we had spent time wandering around in my car with the folder riding in back, so when we finally found a place to put in, it was getting late and my friend thought he wouldn't have time to run the nearly 7 miles in his shorter river kayak. The river was running at what I estimated was between 3 and 4 miles per hour, so I imagined it was going to take him nearly 2 hours to float it. It was 3pm, but I imagine it would have been another 45 minutes before we could launch his boat too. I debated and finally decided to go solo. He thought is was going to take me about 2.5 hours. In a sea kayak? Try an hour if I steam and an hour and a half if I take it casually. Anyway my buddy agreed to meet me 7 miles down river in 1.5 hours. So I put in at Palisades "River Bend Park" and planned to take out a "Corn Lake State Park".

This gave me time to go casually. I have to say that despite my desire for companionship, I was really enjoying myself. There wasn't anyone else on the river and despite a couple larger rapids and some sweepers, it was an easy go. As I went along, I thought of the early kayak adventurer Herbert Rittlinger. I don't think he ever paddled in the States, but he always paddled rivers in folding kayaks similar to the one I was in and often completely alone. It really wasn't a half bad trip.

I knew I'd be going right past my mom's farm, but I didn't know what it looked like from the river. I was about 30 minutes into my trip when I remember there were powerlines that crossed my mom's place which helped me spot it right away as I floated past. I could just see the top of mom's home. The bank there is a bit overgrown, -part the reason it hadn't occured to me to launch from there. I might explore it some other time.

The most notable thing about the whole trip was more the head wind, which slowed my trip a bit. My kayak kept wanting to wind cock. It was hard to tell if this was the handling characteristic from such a strong following current, but I'd never experienced such a heavy lee helm at sea, except when facing wind, which made me feel it was probably 90% of that factor. The other most notable thing was the barn swallows swooping in droves over the river. It just made the trip that much more enjoyable.

The trip was soon over and I met my friend at "Corn Lake". I think he was hoping to avoid paying the park entrance fee. Just as I was landing, some other guys came up as if to launch, being followed by the Park Rangers. Apparently they had tried to avoid the entry fee themselves. The rangers asked us for our park pass and then graciously offered to sell us one. Apparently the other guys had no intention of paying a park entry fee and bolted. The park rangers gave chase, leaving us to try to pay the park entry fee on our own. I dutifully waited for a short while, but also couldn't find a pen. In the end, we left without paying, but not because of intent, but for lack of a pen or a ranger to provide a pen.