Life and near-death: A first Colorado Christmas
I thought I was dead.
But aside from the untimely end of my kayaking run down "The Numbers" stretch on Dec. 27, my Christmas week was wonderful, and one that won't be forgotten - by me or the others involved.
As my girlfriend and I settle in to life in Colorado, it's nice to have connections.
So when Uncle John called me a couple of days before Christmas with an invitation, Shari and I decided we couldn't refuse.
John lives in Denver, but has a friend who lives in the mountains outside of Salida.
So we spent the afternoon of Christmas day winding through the canyon, my eyes watching the Arkansas as much as the road.
The evening at M.A.'s house in the hills was pleasant, and not without its small-world wonders.
John and M.A. began telling me of a kayaker they knew in Salida, and that I should get in touch with him. When they said his first name was Tom, I asked if the last name was Palka.
It was.
Tom and I had already met online as I look to find friends to paddle with. So Tom was called, and soon enough showed up at M.A.'s.
I had already resigned myself to waiting until spring to go kayaking, but when Tom asked if I wanted to run The Numbers, I was in.
Keep in mind that, on Christmas, the high temperature was in the mid-50s where I live in Colorado Springs. That's what I had in mind for paddling, though I knew the water would be cold.
When I showed up at Tom's house Saturday, the air temperature was in the 20s. When we arrived on the side of the road where we had decided to put on the river, it was colder.
And while I knew there would be some ice in the river, I was not prepared for what I would find.
As Tom and I suited up, with John taking pictures and fellow kayakers racing by in their cars, too smart to paddle on a day like this but shouting encouragement through rolled-down windows, I should have made a decision.
With fingers too cold to cinch my gear tight without help, I thought about bailing out.
I should have said "I can't do this today."
That would have been the smart thing - the responsible decision.
But I'm not always responsible in my kayak . For me it's an adrenaline sport, and I would never encourage anybody to do the things I do.
And there are many on the rivers far more daring, and more skilled, than me.
At the same time, I have no desire to die in my boat or out of it, and I figured if I could stay warm enough, I could certainly handle The Numbers - flowing at 170 cubic-feet-per-second.
As Tom and I slid away from the snow-covered shore, there were important things I didn't know.
I didn't know, for example, that there would be thick ice choking even the main channels of the river. (I had thought it would be off to the side, in the eddies where the current is calm.) I really wasn't afraid of the ice.
More importantly, I didn't know what was happening to me.
The intense cold - a windy 20-some degrees in the air with water temperatures in the low 30s, had simply slowed me down.
My mind wasn't working as quickly as it should have been.
My hips and my knees, which control the edges of my boat with minute movements, weren't as quick as normal. And my paddle strokes were a half-second late and only half as strong as they needed to be.
But off we went, with Tom rightly in the lead.
When we slid through the first part of the first rapid successfully, I felt more confident. But I should have been worried.
Thick ice had choked the stream down to only a few feet of open, rushing water. There was no room for a mistake.
We didn't make any, but it was a straight line and there was no reason for pride.
The next drop, and the last for us that day, was a different story.
It's a blind entry to that rapid, which isn't even the true start of The Numbers.
The top of a huge boulder is visible from above, but the water around it is not.
Tom and I knew we'd have to round the bend in the heart of the current, heading for the boulder, and then see which way we needed to go from there.
As we dropped in, there seemed to be open water to either side of the rock. Tom darted right, with quick, true strokes taking him across the current and clear of the boulder.
At first, all I saw was the ice. A very thick sheet jutted straight out from the rock in the middle of the river.
The whitewater pile from the river ramming the rock had simply frozen, putting a thick ice skirt all around the boulder. Ice also lined the banks, making the lines terribly tight.
Tom had gone right and was fine, hanging out in a small eddy near the boulder. I would go that way, too.
But my slight hesitation was costly. I started paddling too late, and would have needed great speed to get clear of the ice.
On this bitter-cold day, I didn't have that speed, and I knew it soon.
As I rushed straight toward the ice, I saw the current was racing right under it. The proper thing to do would have been to lean into the ice, bracing off of it, keeping my upstream edge above the water, and I would have floated around.
But my numbed mind did the intuitive; I leaned away from the approaching danger.
The current caught my edge, of course, and window-shaded me. I was instantly flipped and carried, upside-down in my boat, right under the thick ice and slammed against the boulder.
I thought, very simply, that I was dead - under the ice, against a boulder in the current - I'm dead.
And I wondered if the stories I had heard - about drowning being a nice way to go - were true.
But instinct and adrenaline were at work as well.
I instantly snapped the deck off my boat and wiggled free - figuring that being pinned was death, so any movement I could achieve was good.
I kicked at the rock and swam with my arms, and to my great good fortune, the current swept me around the rock. Had the rock been undercut, I would likely still be under it.
But I slipped by and already had one arm out from under the ice as I was washed downstream.
That was enough for Tom, who had instantly jumped out of his boat and waded and swam in chest-deep, icy water, toward me when he saw me go under the ice.
He grabbed my arm and pulled, and soon my head was above water and we both dragged ourselves, each other, boats and gear to shore.
The climb out, up the snowy canyon slope dragging ice-encrusted boats, was anticlimactic, if not easy.
The fact that I didn't get hypothermia or frostbite while Tom hitch-hiked down to find John and bring the truck back is a testament to the gear I was wearing and the hearty genes my parents gave me.
The fact that I am still alive is just plain luck - or maybe, a Christmas miracle, for those who like to take that view.
But calm as Colorado outdoors folks tend to be - there was little fuss made over my incident.
We warmed up with hot chocolate and coffee, and found ourselves sharing dinner in the mountains with a German culinary teacher and stories from long ago.
Mike Griffin is a sports and news reporter for The View, as well as an outdoors columnist. He hopes to never bring you another tale of near-death, and will have ideas for much safer adventures in the future. He expressly recommends nobody go paddle The Numbers right now.
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