Have you ever found yourself in a place or predicament of sorts and wondered…”Self! What in the Wide-wide World of Sports is a-goin’ on with your good senses?!” Well, I have. On countless occasions.
But his particular occasion was on the Rockcastle River. Set deep in the lush, humid, Kudzu infested hills of, Rockcastle County, Kentucky. One of those places so beautiful and peaceful, a fella could stay there for days and days and days. Until the Banjo music starts playing too close for comfort, that is. When that happens, one must take to the River. And even then……all bets are off.
The phone rang very early in the a.m., and my friend Towley said “You ready for this?”. To which I responded, in my best John Wayne voice, “Let’s saddle up, Pilgrim.” And off we went. South. The wind whistling over the boats anchored, hopefully securely, to the tops of the automobiles and no Idea what was in store for us.
The Rockcastle River is a Kentucky State protected river
A false sense of Calm
so access to a put in is few and far between. My copy of “A Canoe and Kayaking Guide to Kentucky“, says that if one so desires, to shorten the trip, one has access via “the old Howard Place”. This put-in allows quick access to the class III, VI, and sometimes V rapids that we had no business being on. We wanted no part of that though. We wanted the Long, 20 mile trip. What fools we were. It would have been better to take our beatings early and be gone. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. But no. We had to paddle, after putting in at the Rockcastle Adventure Canoe Livery, the eight miles of slack, sometimes (but very seldom) Class I chutes. Fools, I tell you brothers and sister. Fools.
I have to take pause here to mention the fine People at
No banjo music at all, oddly enough
Rockcastle Adventure Canoe Livery. Nice folks. And informative. John, the owner, took us in the “shed” and gave us a look via an old USGS map, of what we had to look forward to. John grinned as we took in the Canoe outside that had been twisted around a tree down stream where we would find ourselves in a few short hours. “We found that’un there just last week,” he remarked. Awesome.
We said our goodbyes to John, donned our helmets (you will need helmets. steak tastes so much better when you don’t have to pulse it in a Blender first) dressed in our PFDs (this equipment, too, is a must. unless you can hold your breath a very, very long time) and shot out into the calm, olive waters.
The rest, well, was just Highballs with the Devil.
This is the part when you get Wet
Note: This river is foul tempered, friends and neighbors. Do not make the mistake of being ill-prepared here. Please, please, pretty-please wear a helmet and a proper PFD (personal flotation device). After the first “wet exit”, you’ll thank me. Also, there are many blind turns along the way. Scouting is advisable. And portaging is always acceptable.
All photos by Charles A. Downs III
