What Lies Beneath Part One
A dichotomy between the beauty of the surface and hidden forces below only becomes evident from the middle of the river, not the shore.
It’s 7 in the morning. I’ve come to the river for my second day kayaking on moving water. Emphasize the word moving–as in flowing. Downstream. Not a lover of being in water, I couldn’t stay in a bathtub after pulling the plug until I was about 18.
This is a part of the river I know intimately but always as an observer, always from the shore, never from the water. Since moving to a house on the real bluff of the river in 1984, I was here almost every day for 27 years, biking, jogging, walking and contemplating.
Ten years ago, I wanted to learn more about this river, from the water not the shore, as an essay for the Sacramento Bee as part of my Op-Ed series “California Sketches.” I asked my experienced river paddler friend, Tom Biglione, to help, listening to him while I took notes, pictures and sketched. We got in his canoe at Sailor Bar. He handed me a paddle and turning in surprise I said, “You don’t expect me to paddle, do you?”
From that 2011 essay: A river is a living organism, with objectives, memory and behavior. It seeks to balance energy, volume and gradient with the kinds of sediments it carries by regulating width and depth. From the west side of the Sierra, three main channels of the American feed 1,888 square miles of watershed into Folsom Lake. From the east the river responds to the Sierra, from the west it responds to the levels of the sea, and in between–man.
The paddler looks ahead, reading the language of the river. On the surface, ominous raised pillow shapes indicate vertical currents below, while eddies threaten the unwary. Haystacks of angry water indicate hard, shallow objects. He looks for a funnel shape on the surface and heads for the safest passage, a smoother “V” in the rapids.
2021: Ten years later, Tom’s still giving me rides as I take pictures and notes, trying to understand what makes the forces that influence this river, and thus the river’s influences upon those who rely upon and compete for its resources.
Tom has offered to give us a paddling lesson. He’s in his canoe; I’m got my second-hand kayak not intended for moving water and my friend is in an even more unsuitable inflatable.
We paddle upstream and pull over just downstream from turbulent water. He points to the smooth surface of an eddy on the other side and instructs us on how to “ferry” across. Something about the angle of the kayak related to something else which I don’t understand but I follow, do what he says and it feels surprisingly easy. Too easy.
From 2011 again: “The World According to Garp,” the definitive novel of the eighties, refers to the undertoad, a metaphor for what lies beneath. In the wondrous river that defines Sacramento, a dichotomy between the beauty of the surface and hidden forces below, only becomes evident from the middle of the river, not the shore. Beautiful, complicated, powerful and deadly, it’s like the undertoad. Understanding its forces isn’t comforting.
We turn downstream and float effortlessly. Past a expert fishermen casting for chad. Past where we put in, and off to river right. River right is always on the right when heading downstream. Now we’re in a magical place of peace and islands. I’m speechless. Floating quietly into a lagoon, silence is broken only by two hawks calling from one tree to another.
It’s time to return to our cars upstream. I’ve been on the water for two and a half hours. I’m tired and hungry. I paddle to catch up so I can hear the instructions, see the sinuous line that shows the safest way. I can’t paddle fast enough.
Leaving my safe place against the shore, I enter into what feels like a raging flood. It’s not a flood. As far as flows, it’s a one on a scale of five. The power under my boat surprises me. Alarmed by the tremendous force of the current through the bottom of my boat, I’m pushed sideways and downstream.
I’m paddling as hard as I can and I’m not going anywhere but away from where I need to be.
I look upstream. I look downstream. I think I’m going to be carried away. I feel helpless and a bit of a failure. The only option I have is determination.
Coming soon: What Lies Beneath Part Two. I ask Chuck Watson, geologist, hydrologist and expert paddler, to explain to me what I did wrong as I attempt to understand the physics of water. He describes how easy it is to flip at the eddyline. I ask, “What’s an eddyline?” And now I’m really scared.
