guiding

I think I've mentioned before that for many years I marked the passing of time from one river trip to the next, one holiday to the next.

I've posted several river stories, trip reports really that I wrote for friends and family, but I don't think they have actually conveyed the joy, serenity, intensity, the beauty of actually being on the water that makes all that work worth it. Paddling a canoe is like a dance with the river. Reading the river, finding the channel, maneuvering around obstacles, twisting and turning in a complex rapid, drifting with the current surrounded by wilderness untouched by man's hand, chasing the blue heron downstream until it turns and flies over you, the smells of the desert and of the river, camping on a stretch of sand on the river's edge under a night sky brilliant with stars unseen in cities...it's a language of sight and heart.

Guiding gave me the opportunity to have that experience on a regular basis and all I had to do was show up with my personal gear. The work of taking the responsibility for a group of mostly inexperienced campers and boaters on a three day wilderness canoe camping trip was a trade off for being able to go, being paid to go, on a trip that someone else planned, outfitted and paid for. We always got help from some of the guests, you know, there are always those who want to pitch in and be more of a part of it. I was, I did. I was entranced from the beginning.

My first time on a river trip on the Rio Grande through Boquillas Canyon in Big Bend National Park in far west Texas, 33 miles from put-in to take-out, I went as a paying guest. It was 1991 and I was running away from home and I talked a girlfriend of mine into going with me. It was so diametrically opposed to the misery my life had become at that point that I was drawn back again and again. That first year I did two river trips, Boquillas Canyon and the Pecos River, a five day trip through the Trans-Pecos region of Texas. The next year I could not go on any trips because we were so busy trying to finish our last big job before everything imploded, but in 1993 I started out the year as a helper and ended it as a guide. Through the years I did other rivers and other canyons but Boquillas Canyon on the Rio Grande in Big Bend and the Pecos in west Texas and Buffalo Bayou in Houston became my mainstays.

I quit guiding for a lot of reasons and around the same time all my river buddies moved or got jobs that didn't allow for the time off. The shared gear (no one had everything) for private trips scattered. It's been awhile, years, since I have been on a river. I have a 16' canoe in my backyard in Houston. I'm hoping that, with this move, with the Colorado River running through town, town as in Wharton, we will at least do some day trips.

I have a series of vignettes that I will post now and then that I hope will convey the joy (and not the work) of being on the river.

Just a general note...the sketches that accompany these vignettes do not illustrate that particular moment or even reflect that particular river. I rarely had time to sit and do a sketch even though I brought my sketchbook and colored pencils with me nearly every time and even when I did sit down to draw, I rarely had the time to finish a sketch before I had some chore to do so most of them are just quick studies and are unfinished.

river vignette 1 - on the Pecos

Downriver the sky is getting darker and looks very much like rain. It clouds over and becomes apparent that the storm is moving our way. It starts raining, like a heavy sprinkle. The wind is gusting. We start to hear thunder and see lightning. We’re in a shallow portion of the river now. We are having to drag our boats through a nearly dry spot and it is taking four of us on each boat to do it efficiently. Camp is about a mile distant. The edge of the storm is passing over us and now it is hailing on us. Small at first and then grape sized. Lightning is shooting down to the top of the canyon walls on both sides of us and the thunder comes faster than makes me comfortable. It is very powerful. I’m in the middle of a lightning storm standing knee deep in a super conducting medium holding an aluminum lighting rod, my paddle, with no cover available. This is stupid, this is dangerous, but what choice do we have except to continue on to our camp. There is no shelter to either side of us. I decided it was not my time to meet my maker and put it out of my mind. We finally get in water deep enough to paddle and make our way to camp. The hail has stopped but it is still raining lightly.