“CORY!!!” I screamed, in a panic, convinced I was drowning. Certain I would not get any more air and soon loose my strength, then slip over the edge of a six foot water fall and slam my fragile skull against a myriad of rocks in tumultuous current below. The longer I remained a mass damming up the flow to the falls, the higher the water level rose around me. My body landed in the middle of the water’s route and I braced myself with both arms and legs up against the rough rocks on either side of the chute. Fear surged through me from the intense force it required for me to hold my position. Until now, I jutted my chin up to push above the surface long enough to breathe; now fatigued, and strained terribly just to remain in place. Water rushed at the back of my head, filled my ears, gurgled about my cheeks and now covered my mouth most of the time.
The rope around my waste yanked at my body with persistent jolts. The rope kept my tethered-to-me, inner tube within the force of the current at the bottom of the falls. The relentless pull at my waist threatened to tumble my torso head first down the falls as soon as my ability to resist the flow gave way. The inner tube had been my life saving device; something to keep me from drowning if I got too tired to swim or stay afloat on my own in the cold water. I had tied it to me so I would not lose it – so I could retrieve it if I fell off so I could enjoy floating down the flooded creek. How did I see not see the dangers of tying it to me? Now, ready to lose it; I wanted to cut it free yet I knew there would be no untying a wet knot under force with cold stiff fingers of hands that needed both hands to remain pressed against rocks on either side of me to hold my position. I had no strength to move in any direction. My hands hurt from the pressure on rough rocks.
When we first drifted into this area, the rocks and the drop off on the other side of the boulders, were not visible through the trees, yet we could hear wild gushing falls ahead and we sensed too much danger to continue floating in our tubes.
“That sounds really loud!” I yelled to Cory ahead of me.
“You’re right – I don’t like the sound of that either!”
Cory, paddled toward the edge and stood up. We both felt confident we could get out safely before there any risk of danger. Yet the weight of my jacket and the sweater I wore underneath it, along with my stiff jeans and heavy boots full of water, made it difficult to maneuver quickly. Our wet winter clothes were heavy, compromising our strength, and we were dangerously chilled. Unlike rafting down a river in the heat of summer in a bathing suit, (this happened long before Gortex or high tech lightweight cold water clothing), we wore cotton and wool winter wear, clothing we knew might weigh us down a little – yet we had no idea how heavy nor dangerous the bulky weight would be. We just did not consider our clothes would inhibit our athletic swim-team conditioned bodies as much as it did once we were cold and soaked. I won ribbons at swim meets, and had taken water safety courses – and even learned to swim towing another person, yet I had no experience in fierce cold water fully dressed. We thought we were being smart to bundle up to stay warm. We also thought it would only be our backsides poking through the inner tubes and our hands and feet dangling in the water that got wet. This water unlike the translucent rivers we rafted in that revealed the rocks under the surface, and showed the depth and where you can stand; this fast storm torrent clouded with silt; hid the depth.
My movements were awkward; I slid off my tube at the last minute and it sprung up into the air and got caught in the flow of fast water. I tried to stand and instead dipped under. Though I touched the bottom briefly, the depth was above my head. Whooops! Not a place to stand to get out! In a flash my tube was taken over the falls. The insistent current and the rope around my waste pulled me to follow; the sudden force of the strong current funneling to the falls threatened to pull me down as well. I put my feet and hands in front of me and caught the big boulders on either side.
Cory had managed to get off to the side about six feet away in an eddy where the current was not tumultuous nor deep. Her inner tube was still tied to her and floating near by. She was springing out of the water reaching for things on the steep bank, grasping at foliage; stems, branches – inch wide trunks of saplings that uprooted out of soft dark soil at the slightest tug; the bank of the creek was steep, the dirt was saturated and nothing held strong. Her glances at me were wrought with concern, mine were full of urgency. She looked for something secure and stable.
I need to be rescued or I will die. This is dangerous! I thought. I outweigh her, if she reaches for me, my weight and the force of the water on me and my tube will pull her down! My strength won’t last much longer!
“I can’t hold on!” I yelled in a panic. We were in area away from the road and houses, help from others was unlikely.
We had not realized all the potential dangers of floating the flooded creek in the winter after a few weeks of heavy storms. At the time our idea seemed fun, not crazy. We Grew up in families that spent a lot of time outdoors even if the weather was not clear; were not afraid of getting cold; we would be ready for a nice hot shower once home after a twenty minute float. The serenity of the water where we put in let us believe we would have a blissful float down our childhood creek at an easy pace until we got close to home, where we could simply get out and walk a few blocks home – invigorated from a new adventure.
Desperate to get out of the creek before I got so injured I would die, I noticed a canopy of branches above me – yet they were much too far away for Cory or I to reach. I could feel the force of the water behind me surpassing the strength of my legs bent forward in front of me like a frog; my feet braced on the boulders that framed the funnel of water that flowed forcefully ahead of me.
The next second, split into many supernatural fragments – to this day they do not fall into possible events, yet it happened. My lovely friend Cory is lovely, she has a tall willowy frame; and moves with the beauty and allure of a graceful ballerina: her arms and upper body are wispy. I discovered that day she is much stronger and more daring than she appears. I did not think she had the strength, much less the reach, nor inclination to risk her life trying to rescue me. Yet something about the urgency in my voice when I screamed her name triggered her; she suddenly sprang up and grabbed a branch from an over hanging tree that seemed to be about fifteen feet away last I checked and as it flexed downward she grabbed my arm which I do not remember taking out of the water nor reaching toward her at all. She air lifted me and my inner tube which had to squeeze between rocks as it came back up through the intense current of the falls. Cory did this with the miraculous strength of a comic book superhero: she saved my life. At the time, I weighed a hundred and ten, add to that the twenty five pounds of wet clothes and the resistance of my tube in the falls, I figure she must have lifted about a hundred and fifty pounds straight up and out of the water with one arm and carried me like a crane to safety. Then she plopped me down to land on my feet in the eddy, where I coughed and stumbled while I scrambled over the hidden rocks in the eddy and desperately clambered up the loose mud embankment dragging my inner tube behind me to the top edge of the ravine where I sat to catch my breath.
“Wow, that was close!” I said, pointing at the rapids further downstream that I could see more clearly from this vantage point, “I am sooo glad I am not in that!”
“Yeah, me too” she said with relief as she glanced downstream and then sat down next to me shoving her tube to the side. We sat for a while in a daze.
Unable to stop shaking, “I’m freezing,” I said.
“Me too”
“We should keep moving.”
We slowly got up and walked along the top of creek’s edge carrying our inner tubes still tied to us as we climbing through bushes and over tree roots around the massive oaks and bay trees that lined the back yard fences along the top edge of the ravine. Everything was covered with wet leaves; it was slippery and required strength and ingenuity for us to climb like monkeys to remain on land. Perhaps it was our fear of falling in unprepared, or the burden of our heavy clothes made us wonder whether the trip back would be easier and warmer in the water. The cold must have seriously impaired our thinking at the time, as it definitely sounds crazy now to imagine we were not done with that water; we actually looked for another place to get back in so we could finish our tubing journey and not walk the mile home.
From what we knew of the creek, we thought that we just survived the worst area as if it had been the only danger. We figured since we got through it, we were past the hard part – the rest of the way would be much easier.
“Wanna get in here?” I asked hoping she’d say no.
“Nah, let’s look for a better place.” Our bodies just kept walking and climbing over any, and all obstacles so we would not have to get back in the water to get home.
After a while I sheepishly said,
“I don’t wanna to get back in” trying to not sound too chicken.
“Me neither” Cory said with great relief that I wouldn’t be encouraging her to join me.
I was eighteen, Cory was sixteen, we were seeing our creek anew and it was full of dangers. The creek we knew well was only a few inches to a foot deep in the areas we thoroughly explored each summer as young children. I mused on how different it felt; in all our time at the creek or bike riding the valley it runs through, I had never seen the rapids in the creek.
“I don’t remember ever seeing those rocks.” I said as if I were talking to myself.
“Nor the falls they created!” she chimed in.
The huge boulders in our tiny creek were not worn smooth like the those in the Yuba River or American River, east of Sacramento Valley, where we often rafted or tubed in the middle of hot summers. The granite in rivers was worn smooth and slippery, and gentle to slide along. The huge rocks in our creek had been dynamite blasted into sharp edged shapes that were not worn at all. They were placed by a crane to hold back erosion in a creek that was rarely this full.
“I thought the creek was flat” I said. In my memory the creek only had a gentle meandering grade with no water falls. The part of the creek we knew well, was a trickling little stream at the bottom of a deep ravine; a place where we took off our worn out keds and bobby socks on hot days to wade in water to caught minnows, crawdads and pollywogs – when we could stand getting algae strung through our toes. We had never really explored much of the creek in winter when the water level was this high.
“Wow, look over there” she said, pointing to the water splashing just a few feet from overflowing a steep banked corner, rushing with a force that looked out for no one.
As we clambered in our drippy cold clothes along the top edge we saw piles of sticks branches, uprooted trees and gobs of leaves, torn clothing and debris caught in areas the current put it, and some of it was higher than the present water level. We saw a rusty shopping cart on its side that caught dismembered dolls, plastic kids toys, assorted garbage – things that floated out of back yards. Branches and large chopped logs quickly floated by indicating the speed of the swift current, showing us how easily the water took large buoyant items under the surface or slammed them into the sides at the tight corners. We saw a hairless calf in a basket of roots near the top edge; where all the dirt under the tree had been stripped away and what was left was a huge net that caught what ever floated into it, and there it remained, partly submerged. The eerie tangled limbs of the calf in unnatural positions were so white it spooked us.
“Is that a person?” In shock, feeling the chill of death surge through us, we stopped and sadly stared at until it we understood what it was.
“Remember those boys?” I said, thinking about the twelve and thirteen year old boys who had drowned in this very creek only two weeks before – they too got caught in a net of vertical steel bars, a grate at the end of a storm pipe under the freeway. It was a pipe we had played in when we were very young. We barely fit between those bars one summer when there was no water in the ten foot diameter drainage pipe. Under the force of the flood waters, they got pinned against the bars and could not pass through them.
“I thought they were too young and stupid and just did not know how to swim.” I said.
“I know,” she said white as a ghost, “that could have been us.”
It was a scary day. I was tired and dreaming about that shower and a cup of hot cocoa.
We walked the rest of the way home in silence.
