THE FATAL FLAW

“Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else’s.” --- Billy Wilder

I'm that guy who likes to bring on camera on every outing on the water. After working as a photojournalist most of life it just seemed natural for me to tote along with a camera and document my time on the river or lake. When I first started paddling, I would pick out my favorite image for my paddling journals. When social media blew up, I jumped on board and shared pictures with my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages. For me, it's been a fun and easy way to look back on my experiences on the water. But along with was that, came that underlining worry that was always out there circling my kayak like a shark or crocodile.

Current Adventures 50+ Kayaking Class

Anybody and everybody who knows anything about photography knows that cameras and water just don't mix. These days most DSLRs can handle a few drops of rain, but a torrential downpour or an accidental drop into the lake can turn that once expensive piece of Japanese electronics and mechanization into one soggy piece of junk.

In the advent of outdoor adventure photography, Timothy O'Sullivan one of the better Civil War photographers went west after the war to document US government explorations expeditions of Isthmus of Darien (Panama) and the Grand Canyon. Using large-format cameras, glass plates, and wagon loads of darkroom equipment and chemicals, O’Sullivan hauled them up and over mountains, across deserts, through jungles, and down rapids while producing a classic and memorable volume work that are sill uninfluential to this day.

Conditions were brutal, as O’Sullivan faced extreme heat and bitter cold, dense jungle and dangerous swift rivers. In today's Panama, on an expedition in search of a canal route, he encountered dismal photographic conditions due to heavy rain. While disaster struck on an 1871 voyage down the Grand Canyon when O'Sullivan lost all the three hundred negatives glass plates he made when several of the expedition's boats capsized in the Colorado River.

Lake Natoma

In a quote attributed to him, O'Sullivan said, "Place and people are made familiar to us by means of the camera in the hands of skillful operators, who, vying with each other in the excellence of their productions, avail themselves of every opportunity to visit interesting points, and to take care to lose no good chance to scour the country in search of new fields for photographic labor."

Since the invention of the camera, scouring of the earth in search of those interesting points and majestic places has been a labor for photographers everywhere. As Ansel Adams said, "“A good photograph is knowing where to stand.”

Clean up paddle on Lake Natoma with Bayside Adventure Sports

And for that reason alone, I have strived throughout my photographic career to make my great pictures by putting my camera into interesting as well as usual places. During my TV and newspaper days, I followed the mantra of legendary photographer Bob Capa who said, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough."

When I got into paddling, my camera always came along in a gallon-size plastic bag. Those were in the days before I knew what dry bags were. I can remember on my first canoe trips carefully taking the camera and lens out the plastic bag, shooting a few pictures from the bow and carefully stowing it back into the bag and then into my backpack in the hull of the boat.

Lake Natoma with Bayside Adventure Sports

Thank goodness technology sped along and gave me a rugged and affordable waterproof camera that shoots both pictures and video but could also survive all kinds of tough and watery environments that I could dish out for it. Compact enough without ditching quality, it fit perfectly under my PFD making it easy to pull out and photograph others with me on my adventures, while simple enough to use to position it in a tree or on a rock to recorded my outing while alone.

In a recent report published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care found that 259 people died between 2011 and 2017 while stepping in front of the camera in an often dangerous destination. To achieve that dramatic shots, in most of these incidents shot these selfie-risk takers defy their personal safety to get that photo, that is until that would-be photographer slips and tumbles down over the cliff into a ravine or body water. Drowning, falling from a moving vehicle or high location was found to be the most common cause in leading to their deaths.

"It’s easy to write off these tragedies as catastrophically bad judgment," wrote Kathryn Miles in Outside Magazine Online, "Armchair internet commentators have had a field day with each reported death. For every lament of young lives, lost...you’ll find an equal number of comments about how the two were “surprisingly stupid,” “coddled,” “careless,” or “self-obsessed."

While I don't condone the high-risk selfies culture in any way and my heart goes out all these young victims families. Nevertheless, in a way I can see what they were hoping to achieve by putting themselves and their cameras in a distinctive and different position and away from the so-called standard shot despite the threat of peril.

A bobcat along the shore of Lake Natoma

Last month, to avoid that conventional and traditional and somewhat standard over the bow shot, I haphazardly station my camera on that slippery slope of peril and paid for it. Now I've done this many times before in other places and have had great results. I would put the camera with a float strap on a flat rock and set the timer to shoot a picture every few seconds or more and would paddle out into the water making a few passes in front of the lens.

As I paddled away, I could only watch in horror as the camera slipped off its perch into the water. Float strap stayed above the surface for only a moment, but the attached carabiner weighed it down. Who knows, I might have made things worst as reached out with my paddle in an effort to scoop it up. It sank even more.

In the clear water of the American River, I could, now only watch helplessly from my kayak as the camera, float strap and carabiner made a spinning slow-motion dive into the dark deep of the river. My heart sank as I watched the camera faded out of sight while relearning an old lesson that I always knew. Cameras sink.

Lake Natoma

Moving Day at Lake Jenkinson

Here is a look at some of my favorite images from this year so far. 

We are always looking for guest bloggers to share the stories and pictures of their adventure. Keep up with Outside Adventure to the Max on our Facebook page and Instagram.

Lake Clementine

Lake Natoma

Full Moon Paddle with Current Adventures

Snowshoeing in the Sierra

Lower American River

Bayside Adventure Sports on Lake Jenkinson at Sly Park

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SPRING RUSH

Waterfalls are exciting because they have power, they have rainbows, they have songs, and they have boldness and craziness! ---Mehmet Murat ildan

Paddling up the narrow creek that feeds Lake Jenkinson at Sly Park Recreation Area, this past weekend, we heard the sound like a rush wind coming through the trees. As we approached the small wooden footbridge over the water that clamor had turned into a rumble. Beaching our kayaks and walking along a short trail that reverberation steadily became louder and louder as we follow the path along the stream. Following the roar, we turn the corner and were rewarded with a crescendo of thunderous of white noise. Sly Park Falls are gushing again.

Area waterfalls, like the one at Sly Park, are flowing with spectacular majesty this spring. This year's extra wet winter and spring have increased water levels and river flows across Northern California providing awe-inspiring beautiful views of these cascades.

Located at the far east end of the lake, this bubbling man-made waterfall is always a popular destination for those visiting the park by either hike or paddle. Flowing from a pipe, the falls are only about 33-feet high as they drop into a translucent pool of water. It's just a brief stop before the water rushes on down to the lake.

The pool beckoned the folks in my group from Bayside Adventure Sports to dip their toes and maybe even wade. But at this time of year, the water temperatures proved to be just a little bit chilly for most of us. We have to settle for the fresh and rejuvenating coat of cool mist spraying up from moss covered rocks. Science tells us that waterfalls like this one can really help you relax with all the negative ion-rich oxygen in the air to breathe. We don't need to know how it works, we just welcome the calming effect taking over. Maybe that's why we found it so hard to return to our kayaks and to the lake. There is no need to rush now.

What to go...Sly Park Paddle Rentals will be open on weekends 9 AM to 5 PM throughout the summer. Slip away on to the lake by renting a single or tandem kayak, canoe or standup paddleboards and spend the day fishing, finding a swimming beach or taking a sentimental trek around the bend to Sly Park Falls.
Start your Reservations by Clicking HERE

Rescue Rush

Courtesy of Jacksonville Police Dept.

There has been a spring rush of first responders in Ohio, Michigan, North Dakota, Missouri and in San Francisco Bay have rescuing boaters after capsizing their boats this year.
According to NBC Bay Area TV, a pair of kayakers, in the bay incident, called 911 in the and told authorities that their kayak tipped over, leaving them floating in the water with the help of their life jackets but still in need of being rescued. Roughly two hours a CHP helicopter spotted the kayakers bobbing in the water. The helicopter crew alerted first responders in the water of the kayakers' location, leading to a successful rescue.
But in Jacksonville, it was kayaker Jeffrey Rancour who is credited to pulling the pilot of a downed seaplane to safety after it flipped into the water near the Arlington area during a sudden storm.
"He was out of the water on his plane already and we just paddled back to shore," Rancour told First Coast News Television, "Yeah, I’m glad that I was there.”

Spring Break
Paddle along European waterways for free all while helping the environment. GreenKayak, a Denmark-based nonprofit allows people to kayak for free if they pick up trash and clean up the rivers and lakes in the cities of Hamburg, Bergen, Dublin, and Copenhagen. Paddlers can use a two-person sit-on kayaks free of charge, in exchange for collecting waste on the surface of the water.

Courtesy of GreenKayak

The project began in Denmark in April 2017, where, with the help of a thousand kayak volunteers, three tons of trash was collected from Copenhagen harbor that year (11 tons to date). The goal was to expand to other cities and waterways.
Tobias Weber-Andersen, GreenKayak founder and CEO, told USA Today, "In Denmark, people hang out on canals and eat pizza and unfortunately see trash floating by,” “You can’t take your shirt off and jump in, but you can get in a GreenKayak and make an impact.”

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THE TRASH PADDLE SCAVENGER HUNT

Environmental pollution is not only humanity’s treason to humanity but also a treason to all other living creatures on earth! --- Mehmet Murat ildan


"Over there," called out one of my fellow paddlers, Mark, "Up there. Do you see them? You might have to get out the boat."

I turned my Necky tandem kayak around and paddled up alongside him. He was pointing at three glass beer bottles that had been aimlessly tossed into some blackberry bushes along the lakeshore. They were out of reach and tangled in a web of thorns. They would be difficult to retrieve.

I beached my kayak and waded into chilly ankle deep water and climbed onto the embankment to look into the underbrush to see the glass bottles. The first one I could reach and I carefully pulled it through the vines of thorns and tossed over my shoulder into the water for Mark to retrieve. The second took a little more work as I used my paddle to bat closer to me and the edge of the bank. The third was even further out of reach. I stretched in the brush with my paddle and similar to a hockey player trying to get a hold of the puck as I used it to force the bottle out of the thorny bushes to the edge of the bank. After rolling toward me, I grabbed like it was a treasure and carried it to my kayak with a trash bag the cockpit.

"Who would bring glass bottles to the lake?" questioned Mark's wife Cathy as she paddled up to join us, ""You would think they would know better."

"You would think they would no better than just tossing alongside the lake too," I growled as I got back in my kayak.

I have paddle along the lakeshore of Lake Natoma many times before. This is my neighborhood lake. The popular narrow 5-mile lake, located near Sacramento, sits on the western end of the California State Parks' Folsom SRA. Open year-round the lake garners a crowd on weekends during the warm springs days into the summer months. This day was no exception

Being my neighborhood lake, usually, when I paddle it, I pick up trash along the way. Over the years, I've made a good the habit of steering toward a floating plastic bottle or fishing a beer can or plastic bag out of a tree. As a steward of any lake or river, I feel it's my obligation to pick up and pack out litter along the waterways I travel.

To celebrate Earth Day, I hosted a clean up on the lake with Bayside Adventure Sports, an active Sacramento based outdoors church group. To make it fun, I turned it into a scavenger hunt by giving the participants a list of the biggest trash culprits most commonly found during river and lake cleanups.

Cigarette Butts  Can you believe they only weigh one gram or less but they account for 30% of all litter in the United States. In recent cleanup at Lake Tahoe volunteers removed 750 pounds of trash and over 6,000 cigarette butts, according to the League to Save Lake Tahoe.

Plastic Bottles and Bottle Caps  As of 2015, around 9% of all the plastic waste ever generated had been recycled, while 12% was incinerated and 79% was sitting in a landfill or the natural environment, according to research published in Science Advances. The bad news doesn't stop there. As reported in Mother Nature Network, our earth's oceans receive roughly 8 million metric tons of plastic waste every year, washing there from its shore and carried there by inland littered rivers.

Food Packaging  The NRCM reports that plastic foam food containers are among the top 10 most commonly littered items in the US. In efforts to curb this the state of Maine has become the first state to officially banned from using food containers made of Styrofoam. According to CNN, this law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2021, prohibiting restaurants, caterers, coffee shops and grocery stores from using the to-go foam containers because they cannot be recycled in Maine.

Plastic Bags  The good news. So far only 2 states California and Hawaii have banned plastic bags. The bad news. But they are still being commonly used across the United States. According to ReuseThisBag.com, the average bag you pick up at the store has a lifespan of about 12 minutes. When discarded, they clog sewage and storm drains, entangle and kill an estimated 100,000 marine mammals every year, and degenerate into toxic microplastics that fester in our oceans and landfills for up to 1,000 years.

Aluminum Cans  According to American Rivers, almost 100 billion aluminum cans are used in the U.S. annually, and only about half of these cans are recycled. The rest goes into landfills or into the environment. Beverage containers account for 50% of roadside litter (though this statistic includes plastic containers), and much of that is washed into our waterways.

And Items That Just Don't Belong  The executive director of Columbia, Missouri based non-profit that focuses on keeping the river clean is never that surprised by what they find in the water during cleanups. In a TV interview, Missouri River Relief's Steve Schnar said, "Anything that floats from our lives, and that's everything from plastic bottles, to styrofoam, to tires, refrigerators, and surprising things, anything that floats."
I can only agree. Believe or not I once found a picnic table that had been tossed into the lake. So my list included those surprising things clothing, construction supplies, fishing gear and just about anything else.

When we paddled back to the access, our garbage bags included all of the above. Most notable to our addition were three car tires that we recovered from the other side of the lake which I strenuously had to tow back.
We were amazed as well as disheartened by the amount of trash we found in and around Lake Natoma. Cleanups like ours are critical to ensuring that lake and rivers remain as beautiful places for us all to enjoy, yet they are only part of the solution. Ultimately if we want to protect our lakes, rivers, and waterways we need to create an awareness to others to reduce the amount of trash being littered into our environment. We should make Earth Day every day by encouraging everyone to pack out their trash and dispose of it properly.

Act Now! Make the River Cleanup Pledge  Outside Adventure to the Max and American Rivers is asking for you to take action and clean up and protect the rivers in our own backyards. We need your pledge. The premise is simple. Every year, National River Cleanup® volunteers pull tons of trash out of our rivers, but by picking up trash you see around you every day, you can prevent it from getting into the rivers in the first place.

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"PINK MOON" PORTFOLIO

The moon, like a flower In heaven's high bower, With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night. --- William Blake

The first thing the folks paddling with me noticed last week was the shining full moon wasn't pink. Its silvery-white complexion arose over the tree-lined the shores of Lake Natoma much like it always does. Like an overpowering searchlight, its bright beam illuminated the lake and created a silhouetted outline of the shore with an ethereal light. Looking down into the black water a single shimmering mirrored image of its reflection danced on the water alongside our kayaks.

"How come it's not pink?' asked one of my fellow paddlers in an almost a disappointed fashion. She was expecting to see the moon with a bit more of a rosy glow.

"Calling this full moon "Pink" is kind of a misnomer," I said quietly, "The "Pink Moon" is just a nickname for April's full moon passed down from the Native Americans and the early settlers in days before calendars. January's is the "Wolf Moon" because it's when the wolves howl, March's is the "Worm Moon" because earthworm casts reappear from the frozen ground. It's called the "Pink Moon" due to the pinkish moss and wild phlox that flourish in the spring."

Of course in the moonlight's peaceful enchantment transfixed me and the other boaters. Illuminated by sunlight, this bright disk for centuries has had a power over us earthlings. If it can control the tides of the sea, rending one speechless under its luster would seem effortless. As contemporary Turkish playwright, novelist and thinker Mehmet Murat Ildan wrote, "Under the beautiful moonlight, there remains no ugly reality; even muds turn into the diamonds!"

By this time of the evening, we already had been out on the water for an hour. The sun had already tried to steal the show by creating a blazing sunset before slipping behind the horizon of high bluffs. Not to be outdone, the creatures of the lake from fuzzy baby geese to the powerful eagle circling overhead with a fish dangling from its talon, only added to the spectacular evening display.

In the stillness of the breathless evening, my senses seemed to be rekindled while gliding silently along the peaceful waters of the lake. All around me, I hear the gentle sound of the lapping of the water against the bow of my fellow paddlers while the brightness of the moon caused my eyes to intensify. The shore appeared clear yet bluish illuminance. Bright enough to see the faces and bodies of my fellow paddlers that usually hid in silhouette. It was one of the first moonlit paddles I can recall where we didn't even turn on our glow stick, Luci lights or headlamps because of the moon glow was so bright.

Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory in Rome, told NBC News MACH he was unfamiliar North American terms for naming the full moons but he applauded their use.
"I think it’s great that people personalize it so," he wrote in an email. "I just wish more people actually looked up and paid attention to the moon, just to be aware of the universe around them and to get their noses out of their cellphones."

Speaking for all the paddlers I was with last week we can only agree. And where best to observe this full moon phenomenon? We can think of no better place than from a kayak. Get your paddles ready, the next full moon will be May 18. That one is nicknamed the "Full Flower" Moon.

What to go...Check with your outfitter or local state park to see if they offer any moonlit paddle nights. Across the country, many of them provide guided sunset and full moon paddling sessions and with all the gear for a reasonable price. In Northern California's Current Adventures has been taking paddlers of all skill levels on their popular moonlit kayaking excursion on Lake Natoma near Sacramento.

If you want to go contact:
Current Adventures Kayak School and Trips 
PHONE: 530-333-9115 or Toll-Free: 888-452-9254
FAX: 530-333-1291
USPS: Current Adventures, P.O. Box 828, Lotus, CA 95651
info@currentadventures.com
owner Dan Crandall dan@kayaking.com

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EARTH DAY 2019

NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon

This Monday, April 22, marks Earth Day’s 49th birthday. The annual holiday has come a long way since its inception in 1970. According to the Earth Day Network that first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Paving the way for many groundbreaking environmental laws soon followed such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act.

Twenty years later, Earth Day is like a name global celebration, mobilizing 200 million people in more than 190 countries and lifting environmental issues onto the world stage. Communities big and small have stretched the celebration into seven days’ worth of eco-focused activities such as river clean ups and tree plantings.

“For millions of people," said Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network on their website, "Cleanups foster a sense of practical pride in their local environment while serving as an entry point and a springboard for many people—young and old—to become environmentally engaged and delve deeper into what is happening to our world, its nature, and its environment,”

Earlier this month, Rogers was excited to help kick off India’s River Ganges Initiative 2019, a landmark citizen-led cleanup of the iconic river. The River Ganges is being launched by the Earth Day Network as part of worldwide effort to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

According to a 2014 article in the Syndey Morning Herald, experts estimate that more than 3000 million liters of untreated sewage from these towns along the Ganges is pumped into the river every day. By the time it reaches Varanasi, whose untreated sewage (or most of it) is also pumped into the waters, it becomes a sewer and the sixth most polluted river in the world.

Photo courtesy of New Delhices

The initiative, which got underway last week ago as part of Earth Day 2019, will begin on Vaisakhi—the Hindu New Year for many in India —high in the Himalayan mountains at Devaprayag where two glacier-fed streams meet to form India’s most famous and sacred river. The first phase will evolve over the next 15 months to encompass 100 cities and towns close to the Ganges—known as the Ganga in India– as it meanders to the famous Sunderbans Delta.

“The project on the Ganges will serve as a lightning rod for many more countries and communities to get involved worldwide," Roger said, "As we transition into Earth Day 2020, we will mark the anniversary with a myriad of events including what we are calling the Great Global Cleanup—so watch this space”.

Closer to home. American Rivers a national advocacy group dedicated to the preservation of rivers released their 2019 report of America’s Most Endangered Rivers. It spotlighted how climate change is impacting our rivers and water resources. New Mexico’s drought ravished Gila River, named the #1 Most Endangered River in the country.

American River President and CEO Bob Irvin hopes this report will raise awareness of how our nation's rivers are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, pollution, and other threats.

“Climate change is striking rivers and water supplies first and hardest,” said  Irvin, in a statement. “America’s Most Endangered Rivers is a call to action. We must speak up and take action because climate change will profoundly impact every river and community in our country."

For the whole list click here: AmericanRivers.org/EndangeredRivers2019

Happy Earth Day 2019

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OVER THE BOW: LAKE NATOMA

The world of life, of spontaneity, the world of dawn and sunset and starlight, the world of soil and sunshine, of meadow and woodland, of hickory and oak and maple and hemlock and pineland forests, of wildlife dwelling around us, of the river and its wellbeing--all of this [is] the integral community in which we live. --- Thomas Berry

I often tell people paddling with me that after we push off onto the water of Lake Natoma we will be experiencing a different world even though we are in the heart of a densely populated urban area. Kayaking through the sloughs never ceases to amaze them of how they can escape into a backyard of nature just minutes from the buzz of city traffic.

The narrow and popular 5-mile lake, part of the California State Parks' Folsom SRA located just east of Sacramento is a haven for wildlife viewing. On just about any day, paddlers can get a close-up view of black-tailed deer, river otters, egrets, herons, hawks, pelicans, beavers and pond turtles. A convocation of eagles just in the past couple of years has taken to nesting on the lake's high banks offering a treat to anyone just to see them soar.

It's no secret that kayaks are an amazing way to view wildlife in their natural habitat. Recently, paddling through the lake's sloughs across from the Negro Bar access it was easy to imagine I was on safari. The early spring season guaranteed me quiet solitude through the trails of slough channels and ponds. I moved along in stealth-like silent around each bend and cranny. Down low just inches off the water if I would see anything it would be almost eye to eye.

"Don’t just look for animals on the water," wrote photographer and paddler Galen Leeds in his blog in 2011, "Look on the immediate shore, but also a little distance onto land. Some of my best wildlife images of raccoons, deer, bobcat, elk, and coyotes all came about while I was kayaking. They don’t necessarily watch the water for dangers and might not notice you if you stay quiet and fairly still. If they do notice you, you are such a different creature from the person that is walking and stomping around, that they generally aren’t as frightened, and can be more curious as to what you may be."

It was late in the afternoon. The warm sunlight had just broken through a thin layer of clouds as I paddled through the narrow ponds and dredge pilings of the lake. I rounded a bend into a large lagoon surrounded by tall horsetail, blackberry bushes with a lone grassy rise overlooking the water when I saw the top of its head and ears. I couldn't believe my luck. It was a bobcat.

Bobcats are one of the four native wildcats to North America. About twice the size of the average house cat, they can be distinguished based on its long legs, large paws and a distinctive black-tipped tail that appears to be “bobbed” or cut off. A stealthy and solitary crepuscular hunter, they primarily prey on rabbits, birds, small game and rodents during dawn and dusk hours.

Although bobcats prefer to inhabit environments with a dense vegetative cover or steep rocky terrain, they are highly adaptable to both wild and urban landscapes. Due to the ever-expanding human population and the destruction of their habitat, their numbers are steadily decreasing each year as reported by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

I pulled my camera out of my PFD while I silently glided closer to where the cat is sitting. It was partially hidden by the knoll and I couldn’t get a clear shot. Quietly and slowly I paddled one stroke. The momentum of the stroke pushed me carefully toward the animal.

As I moved ever closer, the sunbathing wildcat awoke from its solar nap and sat up in a proud posture focusing its attention on me and my moving kayak. Its distinguished jowl-like ruffs on its cheeks and black spotted coat glistened in the sunlight, while its large ears with slight tufts of hair at the tips stood upright giving the wildcat a magnificent regal appearance. Its eyes were gleaming without blinking as it stared back at me with such a powerful look as if the creature was looking deep into my soul.

My 12th paddle day of the year must be my lucky day. You can read about last year's Paddle Day 12 encounter with a bobcat at Lake Clementine in Outside Adventure to the Max.

In Native American mythology, the bobcat is an important character in many of their legends. Rarely seen, these cats took on a mystical quality and possessing great spiritual energy. Because of their elusiveness bobcat alongside the coyote, in their stories are symbolized as the fog and the wind. Mysterious creatures difficult to both see and catch.

I held my breath and my body tighten with pumping adrenaline as gazed upon the big cat through my viewfinder and over my camera willing the moment to last a bit longer. But I was getting too close, the bobcat whole body was now attuned to my presence. As I'm stalking it, it soon was stalking me with its body is low to the ground and hind legs coiled and ready to pounce.

The faceoff ended as quickly as it began. The big cats' predatory gaze at me and my orange kayak faded as it decides, I'm more of a potential threat than I am prey. It quickly vanishes into the safety of the underbrush, while I turn my kayak around and paddle away happily in absolute gratitude for experiencing this lasting wilderness effect in my own backyard.

Over the Bow is a feature from Outside Adventure to the Max, telling the story behind the image. If you have a great picture with a great story, we would love to see it. Submit it to us at nickayak@gmail.com

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SLOUGH MAGIC

We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. – Henry David Thoreau

"Stay back," she whispered, "I want to take a picture." My wife Debbie likes all creatures great and small. It's like being married to a fairy tale princess the way all animals are drawn to her and her to them. Often while kayaking, she used her quiet voice reassuring the ducks, geese, and deer that they are safe and they need not be afraid while she passes by, while at the time warning me to give them a little more space as I draw near in my boat.

She paddles quietly ahead through the narrow section of water, while I stay back quietly watching. She inches forward, barely using her paddle and hoping not to scare off the duck sitting transfixed on a log coming out of the water. It doesn't move.

"You're alright.'' she says assures the waterfowl as she brings her camera phone to her eyes, "You're alright." It is the same for me. Everything is perfect.

"The shore is an ancient world, for as long as there has been an earth and sea there has been this place of the meeting of land and water," wrote Rachel Carson environmental activist who alerted the world to the impact of fertilizers and pesticides in the environment, best know for her book the Silent Spring, it is easy to picture her out gathering water samples in the old wooden canoe as she illustrates her passion for waterways when she said, "Yet it is a world that keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time that I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings."

Like for Carson, these waters are my sanctuary. I don't get much time to reflect, except out here.  These are quiet waters of tranquility that have been filtered through my life. On a fast-moving river or the ocean, I'm looking for eddy lines, currents, and tides, but in the calm of the backwater, I do some of my best thinking out there as I float along. These are the places that inspired Thoreau, Emerson, and Muir. Sometimes, I conjure up deep thoughts about God and the universe but mostly inner thoughts are simple ones as I paddle around the marsh. How are my children doing? Could I have handled that better at work? Should I buy another kayak?

"There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature," observed, Carson,  "The assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter. The lasting pleasures of contact with the natural world are not reserved for scientists but are available to anyone who will place himself under the influence of earth, sea, and sky and their amazing life."

I lose track of the time, I lose track of Debbie. She has gone out of sight into another cove. The water on Lake Natoma's depth is always fluctuating. Today, we caught it at a high level offering more slough coves to explore. The water imbibes a feeling of magic. It takes on an art form of textured richness that no photograph could convey.  The sky and pond flow in a collision of reflection. Time seems to slow and stand as still as the glassy water surface. In the sunlight, turtles lounge on rotting tree branches, while fish make sudden boils below my bow and the waterfowl stand like statues. Across the bow comes the fragrance spring flowers intertwined with the earthy scent of the lake's aquatic garden. Before long I find Debbie again in the watery maze. Our bows break the stillness of the water sending small ripples carrying dancing flecks of light back toward the shore and ahead of us the lake glistens.

"When I would recreate myself, " penned writer Henry David Thoreau "I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and the most interminable, and to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter the swamp as a sacred place–a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow of nature."

This article was originally published in Outside Adventure to the Max April 8, 2016

Sierra Snowpack at 162 percent

California received some good news on Tuesday for the state's water supply: The Sierra Nevada snowpack is well above normal, at 162 percent of average. That's good news for the California water supply. The snowpack will provide about 30 percent of the state's water supply.
“The snowpack is nice and cold. It's a little different than 2017, where it was warmer winter … and [the snowpack] melted quicker,” California Department of Water Resources' Chris Orrock told Capitol Public Radio.
The abundant snow also shows a strong indication of a promising whitewater rafting and kayaking season on area rivers this spring and early summer. It could last even longer as hydrologists say snow could stick around at high elevations into late July or August.

Whitewater Summer 

It's not just California rivers that will be offering a long, exciting and historic whitewater this summer.
The Idaho Outfitters & Guide Association announced that snowpack levels were above-average in basins that feed many of Idaho's whitewater rafting rivers.
"It just looks tremendous," Barker River Expeditions owner Jon Barker said in a prepared statement to the Boise Weekly. Barker's company leads river trips in southwest Idaho and four- to six-day canyoneering trips in the Owyhee Plateau. "We're really excited about this year."
While in Maine, still buried in up to 11-feet of snow, Jeremy Hargreaves, founder of Northeast Whitewater in Shirley Mills, Maine is anticipating an amazing season on three Maine wild rivers this year.
“Early season we are absolutely going to get some big water,” he told the Boston Herald“ But it is the long term we are really excited about. We should have really good water well into October this year.”

150 Anniversary of John Westley Powell's Trip Down the Grand Canyon 

In 1869 John Wesley Powell set out to explore the Grand Canyon region. Now, 150 years later you can make your own history as you journey down the Colorado River.

To celebrate the anniversary of Powell’s historic expedition, OARS, which specializes in whitewater rafting and other outdoor tours will retrace portion of 1869 expedition from the launch point at Flaming Gorge to take-out on Lake Powell with plenty of Class III and IV whitewater rafting.

Departures are June 5 and 17, Sept. 9 and 15. For info:bit.ly/powellanniversarytrip

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