A Rant

There is a possibility of thunderstorms and while it looks like most of the weather will pass by to the north, paddling in a wide open salt marsh is less than prudent, for sure.

I put in at Indian Well State Park.  The gate attendant hands me a 1/2 sheet of paper with a list of things I cannot do.  No alcohol or weed, no boom boxes, no bouncy castles.  I tell him that I am just launching my canoe and I don't need the flyer, but he says I have to take it.

I head out into the river and swing wide around the park shoreline.  It is apparently a very popular park and looks like it will reach the 350 car maximum even on this gray day.  It takes 10 minutes of paddling to get upstream of the park where I can return to the west shore and paddle up against the forest. The air is murky with humidity that doesn't have enough gumption to form raindrops.

After Boy Scouts, my outdoor life continued by taking up mountain climbing.  At that time it was a somewhat self taught skill, until you were good enough that a more experienced climber might take interest in you. It is no more like that unless one takes a luddite approach and avoids the climbing gyms and speed climbing B.S. and referring to the activity as a "sport".  I haven't climbed in many years, but on occasion when it comes up in conversation and I find someone who has done some climbing, I am overwhelmingly likely to find that the person has never climbed outdoors.  I find this profoundly weird and best to just let the topic drift away. Climbing was about a connection to wildness, and climbing in a gym is... gymnastics.  

What brought this on was my irritation with what passes for periodicals.  In my climbing days, I could pick up at least four different monthly magazines about climbing.  I would probably have met more of my goals if I had ignored some of them, but they did keep one in touch with new developments and how people were pushing the limits... and how often some of those people died.  At this same time were similar backpacking, kayaking and canoeing magazines that performed similar tasks.

I am now a fairly avid canoeist logging something like 80 or 90 days a year on an average.  The magazines are replaced with a few web publications that spew a fair amount of product placement barf...it's cheap to pump that shit out when you don't actually have to print it on paper. I have no doubt that most of what is most interesting remains undocumented.  

So, besides this blog, which I have written for 16 years, I watch a few online chat groups.  Mostly, I am interested in catching a tip on a paddling location or repair methods. Unfortunately, what I more often find are debris postings - gripes about roof racks, dweeby questions about electronic gadgets - or "what kind of gun do you carry to protect yourself from wolves and bears?" (yeah, that last one is real).  I finally addressed that last one by asking the person, "why are you afraid of wolves and bears?"   Several other people followed me on that one and the gun topic thing disappeared.  To be fair, it is a legitimate question for traveling in the very far north, but it is a dumbshit question unless you are traveling in Alaska or the sub-Arctic.  But that is the internet - a place where everyone can say something that should have been cut by an editor.

As I paddle upriver, I spot a Great Blue Heron standing at rest on the shore.  As I near, I realize that there are twenty two Mallards sitting on the shoreline right under the Heron.  

I continue up to the rapids, which is flowing easy today.  There is a guy fishing at the top of the fast water, so I turn back early and let him continue undisturbed.