Archive for March, 2006

dressed up like a million dollar trooper
trying hard to look like Gary Cooper
Super Duper – Berlin

Happy Saturday. Dress well! – d

If you didn’t care what happened to me,
And I didn’t care for you,
We would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain.
Wondering which of the buggars to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing. – waters

I was thinking about clouds. All you need to do is check out Fh2o’s blog regularly and you will will too. When I was a kid I was way too pre-occupied to think about clouds. You can tell children to look at clouds, but in reality what child has imagined a elephant in the clouds since the dawn of the computer age? I really didn’t take much notice of the sky either as a kid. It was years later when I realized even a short glimpse of the clouds out the window, or in a parking lot, was a great escape from the man made menusha I felt I was drowning in every day. Some days I still hate bringing my gaze down. When you look below the horizon line these days, all you see are Wal-mart bags and burger wrappers tangled around old beer bottles slowly migrating like origami mammoths to the south-east until they are stopped by a crumbling, grey concrete cliff. Even the skies are filling with the oppressive rectangular screams of hucksters and vendors. True fame is a 40 foot version of yourself along a roadside, faded and peeling like a giant, two dimensional, rotting zombie. Who wants that?? Luckily we can still see beyond them. Escape is in the floating ice bergs carried on a current of (at least visibly) pristine air. I like looking up.Sometimes I think of clouds as explorers, aliens, travelers, taking low orbit and scanning our earth below. Hardly original I know. Maybe the thoughts were placed there by some Sesame Street character while it’s human counterpart waved her arms frantically from behind a paper mache wall. Sesame street seemed to find value in clouds. Still, I would love to see what the clouds see as they ride over every imaginable terrain to arrive here in the middle of nowhere. Did the clouds over my head today pass over a lone blue whale just a few days ago? Sure, I know that in reality clouds dissipate and reform constantly, but if I’m going to anthropomorphize clouds I can certainly hold them together for a few days. Besides, they only hang over my head a short time so it’s only for a tiny moment that they need conform to my imagination.

Yeah, clouds are sort of a strange, hippie, subject. Ok. But here’s a little secret. A person with really good obsahhyouervation youn would know when I’m stressed, board, tired or maybe just sick of talking to some bullet head. They’d catch my eyes flitting to the sky, or reaching for a window, seeking a moment of calm in the clutter, an anchor, or maybe just escape from the noise.

I was feeling insecure
You might not love me any more
I was shivering inside
I was shivering inside
I didn’t mean to hurt you
I’m sorry that I mad you cry
I didn’t want to hurt you
I’m just a jealous guy – j. lennon

Ok, so I’m not ashamed to say it. . I was getting a bit jealous. In fact, verging on envy. Last year was pretty tough. I’d get emails from friends telling me how far and how fast they were coming along in there pool sessions while I stared out at the frozen tundra in every direction. Man, I was jealous. I was falling behind.

I was pretty determined not to let another winter go by like that. Now to be fair, I enjoy winter padding. It’s just the rescue/rolling practice that tends to get cut short by almost solid water. All that winter “he-who-shall-be-un-named” would let me know he mastered his norsaq roll, then hand roll, then this roll, then that roll. . and I’d just watch the snow out my window. It was all very depressing.

This year I was lucky in that I have two pools to choose from. We’ve been able to go play 2 nights a week for awhile now. This means I can put in about 6 hours of practice time on and in the water. Which by the way is a bare minimum if you’re a no-talent slob like me and want to get better. Last night was certainly the pay off.

We took both our little white water boat and the Acuta to the pool. We left the Acuta on the truck for the moment and worked with the ww boat. Mary had a chance to work on her rolls with her new Beale paddle for the first time. Now that she has the extended paddle roll and a somewhat solid normal sweep roll, she decided to concentrate on polishing her ep roll. There are a couple ways I use to work on polishing or “cleaning up” my ep roll. The first is to roll in reverse. You start from your finish position and reverse the roll until you are back up-side-down and in your set up. Then come back up again, then repeat. (just like shampoo, wash, rinse, repeat). Doing this I try to maintain a constant smooth speed and motion. I’ve found by reversing the roll I get a better view of my body motions and correct arms, hands, or whatever that are out of place. The other is to work on slowing your roll down as far as you can and still be successful. The caveat here is that you don’t want to change the roll to recover. I’ve seen people working on this and suddenly gaining a hip-snap to recover instead of concentration on one smooth motion. Some of us are lucky enough to have a solid balance brace which allows them to roll into a dead stop, before recovering onto the deck. *#$^&#@!!!!!! In the end Mary was finally getting that inner hand down, which brought the paddle back up near the surface and her roll began to look very clean and graceful.

Then came my chance to work with the Norsaq. Ok kids, you know I don’t have an ice cubes chance in hell of rolling with it. But I had just seen a video that someone posted on QajaqUSA of his Norsaq roll. What I noticed was that he shoved his arms up out of the water like the “lady of the lake”, then brought them down in a big “THWACK” on the surface, while at the same time he hipsnapped. Now, that was not the way I’d seen it done. Not very graceful at all really. But being that I can’t fail any worse I was keen to try it. Funny. It took about 5 tries before I got the “THWACK” and the hipsnap to come together, but when it did. I was up!!! The second try which is HERE on video, I didn’t really use the big bang. My brain was telling me that was too much work now that the body mechanics made sense. Ok, so after being extraordinarily pleased with myself I got back to working in earnest and rolled off a few more with the Norsaq. Soon it stuck me that this was not all that hard. I couldn’t imagine the extra few inches of the Norsaq made that much difference. So I tossed it into the water and watched it float past Mary who was spotting near by and I dropped over. A couple seconds later I was sitting up contemplating my new hand roll. Amazing! I could not believe it. I repeated the hand roll a couple times and was feeling if nothing else, shocked.

Ok so now the magic is going. You don’t know how long it will last. So off we went out into the parking lot in our swimming gear. Steam rolled off our soaked bodies as we unstrapped the Anas Acuta and slid it off the Jeep. Soon we were again in the water. Mary spotted me at the nose while I began the process all over again. Drum roll?? Total and utter failure. . . (at first anyway). I just could not “THWACK” the Acuta back up. I couldn’t get my back up on the deck quickly enough this way. My mind went back to those more graceful rolls I’d seen. I thought about the angel roll. It’s something like that. I tried a couple set ups, but now I was back to not knowing where all my parts went. I would go under and get confused. OK, I had to re-think this. I remembered seeing the video clip of Mark Schoon rolling with the stick. I’d been just editing it the day before. I thought about how I saw him set up with his right hand crossed under and behind his left. Then his left hand reached far forward along the side of the boat. I tried to make my body do what I remembered from the clip. Then over I went. . .

I sat there for a second. Stunned. When I got my voice back I asked Mary. .”Did you see that?”, “No”, She said. “What’d ya do?” she asked with a smile. “I rolled”, I said. Mary looked and was giggling a bit now, “I know you rolled”, but how??”. I thought for a second and said, “I don’t know”. I explained how I was mimicking what I saw Mark do and then when I went over I just came back up. I really didn’t know what I did under the water. “Do it again.” she said. And I did. Of course, after some time I realized this is just a modification of the angel roll. I just have to be a little more committed. I rolled 4 or 5 times and was starting to get tired. But that was my 3rd “new” roll of the day. More than enough for anyone. After playing around again with some forward sweep rolls we called it a day. I went home, drank 3 beers (which if you know me is a shock!), and watched an episode of “Keeping Up Appearances” before I went to bed. I thought, “That Lydia Hawksworth, I’ll show her!!”

Your words like ice fall on the ground
Breaking the silence without a sound
Oh familiar strangers with nothing to say
Searching in the darkness
Fading out of sight…
Stone cold… rainbow

“A mere 15,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, most of northern North America lay under the grip of colossal ice sheets. The effects of the advancing and retreating glaciers can be seen in the headlands of Cape Cod, the Finger Lakes of New York, and the hills of Michigan, but nowhere is the glacier’s mark upon the land more impressive than in Wisconsin. Indeed, the State has lent its name to the most recent series of glacial advances and retreats, the Wisconsin Glaciation lasting from about 100,000 to 10,000 years ago.” – NPS [Read More]And of course among those impressive Wisconsin glacial icons, Devil’s Lake State Park is the star. 500 foot cliffs adorned with unique rock formations rise on 3 sides of the kidney shaped lake. These wooded “bluffs” (as they are called here) are solid cores of long gone mountains, later they stood as Islands in a shallow sea. Then during the last glaciation they were striped bare again. Interestingly they remained pretty much barren except for a few sparse trees until the early 1900’s when forests suddenly took over the hills. To my knowledge the oldest tree in the park has been dated around 500 years and stands on the southern side of the east bluff. But I’m getting ahead of myself. . .

As that last glacier retreated about 10,000 years ago, it left alluvial dams at both ends of the Devil’s Lake gorge which are easily seen from the air. The glacier also dropped tons of stone randomly across the land for a few miles in all directions. Of course over the last couple hundred years humans have done a good job picking up all the stones, (humans are very good at picking up stones) yet a walk in one of the many un-cleared forests can sometimes suggest walking on mars after a massive terraforming operation. It’s obvious these forests have sprouted from what once must have looked very much like mars or the moon for that matter. Littered among the trees you will find everything from small bowling ball sized rocks to big auto-sized boulders scattered everywhere on the forest floor.

I imagine the lake and these old time worn mountains don’t notice the coming and going of the seasons these days. The retreat of a little snow and a few inches of ice must mean very little in a geologic scale. Yet on the other hand, in our little moment of time we are pretty excited to see a bit of open water along the the south east shore of Devil’s Lake. Yesterday as the sun began to fall and a cold wind funned through from the north, we stood on the sandy beach and threw rocks. We tossed every stone we could find at the offending ice still just a few yards from shore, and told it in no uncertain terms that is was time to go! “Get out ice!”, ” Get off my lake!!” I’m sure from a distance it would seem like a half-witted exorcism, and in some ways it probably is. Some old guy in a plaid hat with snap on muffs was probably offended that we; 1. have offspring and, 2. teach them such things.

So in the next few days we will for the first time this season, launch out into our little lake. Of course we will be restricted to the somewhat narrow leads that are just opening up in the ice. I am excited to get out and have a ceremonial spring “ice roll”. This year Mary wants to join in my ritual. Yes, I’ve warned her. Sure I find it fun, but I’m a bit of a sadist. I’ve grown to take joy in the nice “ice-pic-in-the-head” sensation you get when you come back up. But it’s not for everyone. . .

Further Reading:

- Devil’s Lake State Park
- Frozen – Article about paddling in Icy Water
- Symptoms of hypothermia

- Effects of hypothermia Table

They call it stormy monday, yes but tuesday’s just as bad.
They call it stormy monday, yes but tuesday’s just as bad.
Wednesday’s even worse; thursday’s awful sad.The eagle flies on friday, saturday I go out to play.
The eagle flies on friday, but saturday I go out to play.
Sunday I go to church where I kneel down and pray.

And I say, “lord have mercy, lord have mercy on me.
Lord have mercy, lord have mercy on me.
Just trying to find my baby, won’t you please send her on back to me.” t-bone walker

Yep, it’s Monday again. Everyone who’s been enjoying the coastbusters symposium, I hear about 160 in all, are now on their way home. No wait, since OUR Monday comes much later than their Monday, I guess they’ve been home for awhile now. Wow, that is sad!!!You know how that first week after a symposium goes. Instructors put their kayaks away, and veg on the couch while watching their DVD versions of Magnum P.I. While symposium students on the other hand, just leave their boats on the car and head out to their local lake Monday night!

I got a note from Justine C who it seems was lucky enough to spend three days exploring the Marlboro sounds with Paul Caffyn. For those of you who don’t know him by name, just think of Paul as the guy who has circumnavigated everything by sea kayak. If Al Gore invented the internet, then Paul certainly can claim to have invented the “modern” sea kayak expedition. Of course Karma again seeks balance, so 3 days paddling with Paul Caffyn apparently costs a long overnight layover in Changi International. Poor Justine!!

BTW, I got permission from Carpe Diem Kayaking to post some clips of Mark Schoon’s rolling demo in Madison. So that’s something to look forward to this week. Mark Schoon is co-owner of Carpe Diem along with Mel Rice, he is a BCU Coach Level 4 (Sea), BCU A1* Assessor, BCU Canoe Safety Test Assessor, ACA Advanced Open Water Coastal Kayak Instructor with the Traditional Paddling endorsement, and a Registered Maine Guide (Sea Kayaking). Which for the rest of us means, “he’s pretty good at this stuff”.

Yesterday I saw a Crocus blooming!! Spring!!!!!!!!!!!

The Baraboo River flows approximately 100 miles from its headwaters near Hillsboro, WI to its confluence with the Wisconsin River south of Portage. Its watershed encompasses 650 square miles, or about 415,000 acres. Through its course, the Baraboo drops over 150 feet in elevation. However, forty-five feet of that gradient occurs in a four to five mile stretch of the river through the City of Baraboo. This concentration of relatively steep gradient was recognized by early white settlers for its potential to generate mechanical power and became known as the “Baraboo Rapids.” In 1837 settlers began displacing Native American inhabitants and soon thereafter constructed the first of five dams on the river. From the mid- to late nineteenth century the dams were the life and economic engine that drove the local economy, powering grist, lumber, and other essential milling enterprises. – wdnrWhich in the end meant that within just a few mile section the Baraboo was damned in 3 different places. And this is where our little town grew. You can probably imagine the battle when the Department of Natural Resources decided to have them all removed. The last of the old dams came down in 2001. Certainly the big, wide, carp-filled river we all knew is gone. But on the other hand the recovery of wildlife and diversity of fish species has progressed at an amazing pace. For paddlers we now have nearly 100 miles of open river. The Baraboo is now a quiet mostly shallow river with moments of class II conditions just to keep paddlers from going totally asleep. Frankly, in these last few drier years, you do have to take a white water boat to get any kind of enjoyment out of the rapids. Anything bigger just runs right through them without noticing or ends up stuck on a rock. One can only hope for rain.

I spent most of yesterday practicing boat control, jumping from eddy to eddy across the river and back again. Then within moments I’d be sliding back down the big sleepy section watching the birds above and the snow melt along shore. Then I’d focus again as the next little drop approached and try to choose a line that wouldn’t strand me on some little mound of gravel in the middle of the river. At one point, which is certainly the biggest drop in the river, I totally over shot my goal and spent a couple minutes crab-walking my boat until it floated freely again. In times of higher water this little section could throw up some nice rooster tails but now the river funnels into nothing more than a speedily little escalator that sends you right into that stupid sandbar if you’re not careful. From there the river is pretty quiet for the next few miles as you travel past the Ringling Circus Museum, through residential areas, and out into farmland to the final take out along highway 113. Amazingly, this is only the second time I’ve every paddled our little river. I drive by it all the time and could if I chose, paddle it almost daily. But that familiarity, and of course the lack of water, certainly breed contempt. But it’s not a bad little river either. I guess I’ll have to do it more often.