Thinking like Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson probably never went whitewater rafting in his lifetime but he definitely felt a strong affinity to the natural world and wrote eloquently about what he saw and experienced.   A central theme to his philosophy on nature can be summed up by his remark that "In the woods we return to reason and faith." By this he meant that as long as there is wilderness there will always be for our edification a pure example of life, sanity, and balance, as well as a place where all people can go to gain a deeper sense of their spiritual kinship with the rest of creation.
Emerson also meant that within the pureness of nature there exists a sanctuary from the conventions of society. Nature is real. There are no agendas there, only freedom and deliberate action. Society is a convention, an artifice designed by people to ensure a degree of conformity among the masses. Throughout our lives we experience much conflict and unhappiness as a result of trying to satisfy the designs and the whims of society. We are set up to feel guilty, inadequate and even cazy when we don't mesh.
Only by comparing the two do we discover the shallowness of society and the transience of its demands. We see that our modern culture tends to alienate us from nature and our natural, authentic selves--pulling us its way when we are naturally inclined towards another. Without the natural world the illusions of society would become hopelessly real and binding for all of us. Without nature and her wild places there would be no refuge for the real. Freedom and authenticity would be lost and living would lose its appeal. As Christopher Camuto cautions in his book Another Country, "A world uninteresting to wolves will one day be uninteresting to human beings."

Losing Frank

I finally fixed him . After four years of breaking up periodic fights between my dog Frank and would-be challengers I gave in and had him neutered. Whether this will help remains to be seen. You see, Frank is a loving, yet at times behaviorally challenged, red-nose Pitt bull terrier with a little east Tennessee redneck thrown in for good measure. I rescued him at six months old from an unscrupulous breeder who, as the story goes, was going to shoot him just because he had broken free from his chains and chewed up an entire 40 pound bag of dog food. Fate placed the puppy with me and the rest of the story is one misadventure after another.

As it turned out,  Frank eventually developed into a pretty good whitewater rafting dog.  Being on the river seemed to mellow his mood.  He even got to where liked to ride in the front with his paws gripping the big tubes of the raft.  His first multiple day trip started out as a six day 120 mile rowing expedition down the French Broad River, the main basin for western North Carolina. The trip was uneventful and the river flat for the first three days. Frank settled comfortably into the front of my oar rig and seemed to enjoy watching me do all the work. The weather was mild for January with no rain to speak of. On the third day we (my buddy Simon Asbury accompanied me in his cataraft) stopped to camp just outside of Asheville, NC below the first low head dam, our first of three mandatory portages. Portaging required disassembling our rigs and then carrying the pieces, our gear, and finally the rafts up a steep bank to a set of train tracks and then down about fifty yards to our elected campsite. Needless to say we were soon consumed by this task to the point that we all but forgot about the possibility of a train bearing down on us, which is exactly what was happening around the bend. This wouldn't have been a problem if only we could have heard it coming but any and all sound from the train had been drowned out by the deafening roar of the giant spillway. Luckily Simon spotted the singular, bright headlamp of our fast approaching assailant as it rounded the corner. He yelled to me in time to get off the tracks but where was Frank? I looked north and then south in a panic only to see him laid across the tracks napping about 20 yards away. He was utterly clueless. I yelled as I ran towards him. It was like a scene out of a Lassie movie except I was saving the dog instead of the dog saving me. Frank finally jumped up only to see me yelling and running at him like he had done something wrong. I could see confusion in his eyes as I lunged towards him. He deftly dodged my clumsy effort and that's the last I saw of him before the train was upon us. It was all I could do to roll off the tracks and pin myself against the bank until it had passed.

We searched that whole evening for Frank but turned up nothing, not even a hair. I wondered if he had been hit and carried off by the train or was just traumatized and hiding in the woods above the tracks. We made camp and the rain finally came--a cold depressing rain that matched my mood. We searched until noon the next day but still no sign of Frank. What else could we do but shove off and finish our trip? We still had three days of rapids ahead of us with the class IV gorge section looming. I was positive I had seen the last of Frank but I couldn't let that distract me. The river was running high, the weather was turning windy and colder and I had to focus on the rapids. A flip in these conditions could get brutal.

Our run through the gorge and on in to Hot Springs, NC proved bitter sweet. I had guided this section several times previously in a paddle raft but this would be my first time facing major whitewater in an oar rig. From the start I realized the high water had changed the rapids along with their usual lines. Normally exposed rocks were now munching holes and boat pounding waves erupted everywhere. The nice thing about whitewater is that once you're in the rapids you don't have room in your mind for fear. Navigation becomes your sole mission. My confidence swelled with each successful move and by the time we reached Kayaker's Ledge I felt elated. We punched through it's huge hole with stomach in throat and set our sights on Frank Bells, the last class IV between us and the town of Hot Springs. Frank Bells is a long continuous stretch of whitewater where the river drops 30 feet in a distance of 30 feet. There isn't a straight line through any of it until the bottom and then you have to run a very deep hole. Undaunted we plunged forward in our rigs reading and running as best we could. Half way through the rapids I found myself staring straight into a boat stopping hole. Simon was following my line as I made a last second cut and started ferrying my butt off to get around this raft flipper. We both made the move and then squared up and plowed through the bottom hole whooping and hollering in triumph.

After spending a frigid night stealth camping at the empty NOC outpost in Hot Springs we headed out on the sixth and last day of our journey. We had a 15 mile row to Del Rio, TN which would have been cake if not for the fierce and constant headwind. The wind was so strong it would blow our rigs upriver if we took even the smallest break from rowing. The towering rock cliffs and the numerous gentle ledge drops made this section the most scenic of the entire trip and distracted us a bit from the drudgery. My thoughts turned to Frank and his whereabouts three days after his disappearance. I couldn't wait to get home so I could start looking for him.

After a full day of cursing the wind and rowing hard we finally made it to our take out at the infamous Babarosa Saloon in Del Rio. There was no fanfare for us, only a few regulars catching an early buzz. The next day I drove back to Asheville thinking that if Frank was still alive he might be at the animal shelter there. As the attendant led me into the back to see the new arrivals all the dogs started barking at once, vying for my attention-all except for one. And there he sat silent and patient in his cage, a big brown pit bull waiting for his owner to reclaim him.