A few years ago, I helped Bob and Theresa guide a Japanese film crew down the Alsek river to Dry Bay, at the beginning of a record high water year.
We paddled the upper section in howling headwinds all the way to Lowell Lake. Below Lowell Lake, we had a full day of fun whitewater, despite the cold grey weather, and we were all getting tired when we pulled out to scout the last rapid of the day: Lava North. At that water level, it was a massively huge rolling, boiling mass of churning water folding over itself, with the main tongue flowing between a schoolbus-eating hole on river right and a strong diagonal into a hole on river left.
Bob, knowing the river so well, quickly glanced at the rapid and decided on his usual line down the middle, threading the needle between the gnarly stuff. I was pretty intimidated by the high water and Theresa and I lingered for a while longer to scout the rapid. We finally agreed on a chicken line hugging the left shore, hopefully avoiding most of the chaotic and intimidating currents in the middle.
We jogged back up to Bob just as he was getting back to the boats, and explained our plan. In solidarity, Bob agreed to take the same line as us, hugging the left shore. He pushed off, with a few clients and several GoPros set up on the boat to catch every angle of the exciting ride. Theresa and I pushed off right behind him, ducky style for safety.
Watching Bob go down ahead of us, we quickly noticed he had to paddle really hard to stay left while the powerful current funnelled toward the middle of the river. As he started to skirt the powerful diagonal wave, we watched in shock as the front few feet of his 18’ raft, piled high with gear and cameras, just barely clipped the edge of it. The whole boat was immediately sucked into the hole and flipped instantly.
Theresa and I had no choice but to follow suit, although I felt like we were headed towards certain doom after seeing what just happened to Bob. However, with our shorter boat, we managed to back ferry hard and hug the shore to just barely miss the powerful hydraulics. As soon as we were past the crux, we immediately began to paddle hard downriver, taking turns at the oars every few minutes, to try to catch up to the swimming Japanese film director who was rapidly being swept downstream, hypothermic and in shock. As we passed Bob, he had somehow miraculously already managed to get back on top of the upside-down raft and wrangle it into an eddy without a paddle.
By the time we caught up with the drifting swimmer and hiked back up to Bob, he was working away at repeatedly diving under the raft in the freezing cold silty water to untie gear and pull it out. “Well, I screwed that one up” he told us, with a little smirk on his face. I marvelled at his efficiency and the fact that his fingers were still functional in the glacial water, even after an hour and then two hours mostly submerged. And even more so, I was amazed by his good humour in the situation.
I learned yet another super valuable lesson from Bob that day: Just when I thought he really f***ed up, he rose above and not only did he do a stellar self-rescue in difficult conditions, but he did it in the most humble and unassuming way, immediately owning up to his mistake. Around the campfire that night, once we finally warmed up all our fingers and toes, I couldn’t help but think about how not only is Bob an incredibly skilled paddler, but he is also one of the most humble and inspiring people I’ve ever met. A true legend.
When’s Bob’s around, everything works out ok. Life is good!
