The Dangers of Solo Rafting

[If my mom is reading this, nothing like this ever happened.]

On my second day of rafting, the Weyahok joined the Alatna. I became skeptical of descriptions of the Alatna as Class I-II. There appeared to be boiling rapids everywhere, with standing wave trains whose crests were level with my head. Sometimes the rapids would run right alongside a bank of sweepers-- bent or fallen trees that lean out into the water and can snag boaters passing under.

Late in the morning I ran into some shallows. As I had learned the day before, I "planked" to coast out of them. With little water to run in, paddling did nothing and I had no way to steer the boat and emerged into  a set of rapids rushing straight into an Alder sweeper.

I reflexively put up my hand to push the branches away as they aimed for my face. The action slowed me against the sweeper, but my raft continued on. I felt the boat turning over and quickly pulled my legs out to avoid getting rolled under. I released the branch which then gave me a quick punch to the lip before snapping away.

I was in the water. In an instant, I pictured my raft drifting on ahead, righting itself once free of my weight.  It might beach itself at the next bend, or the one after. Or it might continue on without me for some time, finally getting snagged miles away. It might drift into one of the many small braids that break off the main river-- I'd have to search every one. Or it could get trapped dangerously out of reach once I found it, perhaps against a steep cliff wall behind deep, swirling rapids. I'd already passed several such points.

I quickly grabbed hold of my backpack's loops, tightly secured to the raft.

The water was only thigh deep, but forceful. Even this shallow, it was too strong to stand in unaided. It is dangerous to put your foot down in the river when overturned-- it is easy for it to get pinned under a rock as you struggle against the current. But I was focused on just one thing: getting my raft to the shore. The raft gave me buoyancy and I was able to flop out of the strong current with brief exertion of brute force. I javelinned the paddle to shore before putting both hands on my pack and heaving the raft to dry ground.

I was, naturally, soaked from chest to toe. Adrenaline and blood were pumping and I didn't feel cold. It was another warm day so hypothermia wasn't a danger once out of the icy water. But I was shaken by the experience. I would be careful of such obstacles in the future, but couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't be separated from the raft by other means. Without the raft I'd be sorely inconvenienced (and owe the lender $1000), but without my gear attached to the raft I'd be in dire straights. No food, no dry clothes, no sleeping bag or tent, and no satellite phone.

Tying myself to the raft was out of the question, that would be asking to drown. Instead, I decided to tie my paddle to the raft's bow line by a length of paracord wound around the paddle a few times. If I fell out of the raft, I could hold onto the paddle and keep the raft from getting away. Even if I lost the paddle it would be sure to snag on something soon.

General boating safety would frown on such a solution because I could potentially get snagged by the line. But  given the choice between potentially getting snagged by the line and losing everything I needed to stay alive, I went with the former.