Wend Magazine Volume 1, Issue 1 / www.wendmagazine.com
Words: Melissa Bearns / www.melissabearns.com
Photos: Mike Bitton / www.bittonphoto.com

That moment had come: the moment when I had to either commit and go or walk away. The longer I looked out at the towering waves, the longer I listened to the howl and roar of the river, the longer I swam around in the calmer water where, even there, the currents were strong enough to push and shove me like a leaf, the more time I had to convince myself that this was a bad idea. On a rational level, I was pretty sure that going down this stretch of the North Santiam River and over a waterfall with nothing more than a glorified piece of Styrofoam to keep me afloat would all work out just fine.

But I’m a kayaker, and the last thing you want to do while kayaking is get out of your boat and swim. It’s something you do when you have no other options—a last-ditch, lifesaving, desperate action. But swimming down the river—a dangerous, flood-stage river at that—was exactly what I was about to do. One part of my brain said, It’ll be fun, really. The other part argued, Are you an idiot? The river’s insane today. This is really dangerous and you have no idea what you’re getting into.

The waves, normally small, smooth and green, looked more like ocean waves as they grew, crested and then crashed down on themselves with a pounding crack that was so loud I could hear them over the din of the whitewater. I felt a little queasy, not from the rolling, rocking water, but from the butterflies in my stomach. With my face inches above the water, I couldn’t see anything except what was right in front of me. I couldn’t see the safest line down the river. I couldn’t see over the waves. All I could see were tiny details I never notice from 2 feet up in my kayak, like the way the mud was swirling around in the water or how the raindrops from the nonstop, torrential downpour danced around on the surface.

“Trust me,” my guide, the Ice Man, had said over the phone. “Going down a rapid on a riverboard will be much better than swimming a rapid.” Sure. I was supposed to trust some guy named Ice Man? Some 20-something-year-old guy who was clearly an adrenaline junkie and who hadn’t even taken a whitewater-rescue class?