Solo Whitewater Boating

Let me start by saying that you should never boat alone. Even going with just one other boat is potentially dangerous.

While it's not something I commonly do, I have kayaked alone quite a few times. Most of my solo trips have been on a class II+ run near my home. For this run, I can go to my house and ride my bicycle back up to get my vehicle at the put-in. I did once have some trouble when I dropped my paddle and couldn't get back to it for a while. I learned on that trip that it's worth taking a spare paddle even on an easy trip you know well.

My longest solo run was on a long stretch of water in Northern California, on the Trinity River. This one was quite an adventure. I was traveling alone, and I couldn't find anyone else in the area who was running the river that day, so I decided to solo IK a stretch of class II (with a couple of easy class III rapids) that I had run a few times before with friends. I began by leaving my gear with the campground host. I then drove 25 miles to the takeout and started hitch-hiking. I wore my wetsuit in hopes that the people driving by would realize that I was boating and know I only wanted a short ride. I had a couple of offers from rafting companies, but they weren't going far enough upstream. The one thing I didn't want to do was to get 10 miles up the road and have to walk 15 miles back to the campground. I figured that if nobody picked me up after a couple of hours, I would drive upstream a few miles and try again. Luckily, within 30 minutes I caught a ride back to the campground. I carried my gear down to the river and was on my way. The water level was medium-low, so I figured I needed to paddle a little. At the same time, I didn't want to get off the river too early, as it was very hot at the campground. As it was, the trip only took me about 6 hours, which was 2 hours less than I had hoped.

My hardest solo run was not an intentional solo run. I was running a fast and continuous class III run with some friends and I decided to put in below where they did (I didn't like the look of one rapid). When they got to where I was, they didn't see me, but I didn't know this. I still had 5 minutes of preparation, so when I got into the river, I was surprised to find that they were gone. For 3 miles, they thought I was downstream of them, so they had no reason to slow down. Luckily, they pulled over at a bridge to look for me and I was able to catch up. That was one of the most exhilarating situations I've been in. I knew that if I screwed up, I might have to chase my boat down the river, so I had to really be on my game.