Voice of the Rivers 2008

May 18. Scott Brown. My opinion of what an expedition is changed today. The word I used to associate with perfectly mustached groups of British men in pith helmets or arctic coats, going places no human had gone before, made me wonder if Voice of the Rivers was anything more than a really long trip. The things we saw today made me realize that an expedition is the stories of each day, not the synopsis of the whole trip.

 

This morning, the group began at Mile Creek campground on Lake Keowee. We woke at six, packed up camp, and were paddling by about nine. We had about three miles to finish on Lake Keowee that day, of a planned fourteen, and soon reached the boat access ramp near the Oconee nuclear station. There we met up with James and the van. We loaded the boats onto the trailer and headed down the road for our tour of the dam’s interpretive center, Duke Power’s “World of Energy”. The museum gave us a look at how power is generated in this area, the history of the Keowee dam and the Oconee nuclear station, and how the dam has impacted the environment around it.

            Because of restrictions preventing us from paddling the boats on the water directly below the dam, the closest place we could find was down a fishermen’s path beside the SC 183 bridge. When we stopped the van, we unloaded the boats and realized what a hike we really had. It took us 45 minutes to carry, drag, and push our 12 fully loaded kayaks down a trail of slash and poison ivy to the riverbank.

            The section of the Keowee River below the dam had to be one of the most amazing landscapes in South Carolina. Ever minute we spent in that shallow, clear, stony river spoke of some bizarre hybrid between the lush blue and turquoise springs of Florida, and the cold rivers and streams filled with rainbows of worn rounded stones found near our Brevard home. Glad to finally have some small current at our backs, we paddled for nearly 3 hours without the slightest sound of an engine to signify civilization.

As we reached the beginning of Lake Hartwell, we found the wind. Or perhaps it was that headwind that found us.

            Our kayaks are 17 feet long, and less than two feet wide. Their stiletto design allows the boat to glide forward through the water almost effortlessly, even in the time between strokes of the paddle. That said, when wind and current are factored in, these boats are also capable of performing like school buses trying to fight their way up a snow-covered hill. When we met gusts that we could only guess topped out at 30 mph, there were times that we had to work hard just to keep from moving backwards.

            At the first dock we saw, Clyde lagged behind, intently reading his map. We stopped and waited, confused by the delay until he called Ken over to assist him. When Ken returned laughing, we were all puzzled. Then Clyde returned and told the group that he thought he had seen a “Blue Moomba,” a rare local species that we could only assume was a close relative to the snipe. We continued paddling until a man walked out on his dock to greet us. Clyde called for a rest stop and this very welcoming stranger invited us up to his house. As the last people figured out that this man was a friend of the college and knew who we were, we all saw the surprise that had caused Clyde and Ken to act so strangely earlier. “Blue Moomba,” was the name of the ski boat, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Stone, the parents of Ben Stone, a graduate of Brevard College’s WLEE department, just  a week earlier. Ward and Cathy Stone had prepared a surprise consisting of soda, brownies, and banana splits to celebrate our journey. As the group reveled in what already seemed like foreign delicacies, I learned that the Stones had completed their magazine-cover river-house only six years earlier, and that their now only six-acre lot was a part of 600 acres owned by his grandfather. When the dam was built, the Stones had retained about 400 of those acres, much of which Ward Stone had developed himself.

            As we lounged on the Stone’s newly completed outdoor patio, Graham offered us one of the most memorable faces of the trip as he tipped his ceramic bowl of ice cream off of the arm of the chair, and watched it break on the ground. It looked as though his dog had just left a “present” on the shoes of Mr. and Mrs. Stone’s shoes and there was nothing he could do to stop it. In the end, the generosity of the Stones was proven boundless as they assured Graham that it was all right.

            As Clyde checked the weather report and his watch, we returned to the boats and offered our heartfelt thanks to the Stones for all they had done, and we resumed our journey down the river.

            As the water widened and we entered Lake Hartwell, the rain started. Those who had quick access to their fancy, blue, monogrammed rain jackets, did so quickly. When the rain didn’t let up, the rest of the Smurf armada quickly followed suit. Everyone was excited to see some light rain in which we could test out our matching Mountain Hardware rain jackets. At that moment, a scene from Forest Gump played out. We experienced every type of rain there is in under an hour. When we pulled in to shore, we cursed the lightning that was keeping us from paddling those last five miles between us and dinner. The truth of the matter was that we were scheduled to present about our trip to a troop of boy scouts on the YMCA beach at Clemson where we were camping, and we were already over an hour behind (although none of us was willing to attribute that to our break for ice cream).

            It was as if the weather itself had picked its favorite sports team. As soon as the big orange letters CLEMSON became visible in the stands of the Death Valley stadium, the sun broke through the clouds in beams and warmed our soaked bodies until we all crawled into bed. John Wargo, John Greene, and Brian Randall led our presentation to the scouts, while the rest of the group made camp and prepared dinner. With the boats unloaded and a bowl full of gourmet Mac-N-Cheese, our contented little navy drifted off to sleep. And then the rain started.

            When I think about how much days like today can change what we believe about a place, a group, or the nature of people, the excitement I feel about what the next 16 days will contain is overwhelming. Days like this are what turn a long trip into an expedition.