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Before I set out on the Missouri, a friend who grew up paddling out west warned me to tie my boat  down even if I just needed to take a step away to relieve myself. A boat carried away by an ocean tide may drift off slowly, but a river will not give you the luxury of turning your back on an unsecured kayak.
Rivers aren’t subjected to tides, but a number of factors can change the level of the water. During my Missouri River trip, I camped on the shore of Lake Oahe, a 230-mile-long reservoir in the Badlands of North Dakota. I had pitched my tent about 100 yards from shore. When I crawled into my sleeping bag, the lake was flat. By midnight, lightning flashed across the sky and whitecaps rolled across the lake and around my tent. Bobbing in the chop was my loyal kayak secured to a downed tree; the rope was pulled as taut as a leash restraining a rabid dog. If I hadn’t tied it to the tree, it would have been long gone by the time I peeked out of my tent.
Rainfall is the other big variable to consider when you’re camping along a riverbank. One night I set up my tent on a small empty island smack dab in the middle of the Missouri. After an all-night rain, I emerged to find precious little dry real estate. In addition, if you’re on the water when the heavens open up, beware that the run-off can dislodge tree trunks, branches and other debris that can cause an impasse at a tight bend, in front of a sand bar or around a lock.
 Even with navigable rivers, it’s important to know how to read the water and learn how to negotiate the bends in the river. If you’ve done some whitewater boating, you’ll know what to look for, though the telltale signs may be subtler. If you’re new to river paddling, you’ll soon learn that, on serpentine sections, the fastest water runs along the outside of the bend. The banks there are often steep as the river cuts into the land. The water on the inside of the bends moves slowly, often depositing sediment and creating gently sloped sandbars. On the straighter sections of the river, the quickest line is in the center, or in the deepest section of the river. If you’re heading downriver and you see white riffles—this generally means rocks—look for the downstream (or upside down) V in the water and shoot for the middle. “Go with the flow” and you’ll make good time downstream. If you’re paddling upstream, you’ll hug the inside on the tight turns and run the bank that sports the slower water.
There are a few things that will mess up your flow: downed trees, rocks, logjams, shopping carts, wrecked cars and beaver dams, to name a few. The key to safe river paddling—to be painfully obvious—is to avoid obstructions. The best way to do that is to anticipate hazards and make your move well upstream of them.
Let’s look at the most common hazards you’re likely to encounter along the way: Overhanging branches, if they’re not too low, are generally innocuous. On a narrow river, I often have to cruise under the highest part of the branch; on a wider river, it’s easy to avoid them completely. The key here is to make sure you don’t pass too close under a dangling branch and get snagged. If the branch is low, lean forward, not back. You’ll be better off if you take a scrape on the back of the head than on your face.
Estimating the clearance accurately may be tricky, so give yourself a healthy margin for error. Paddling on the Susquehanna in central New York last spring, I ducked under a branch. I didn’t duck low enough, evidently, because it hooked the shoulder strap of my PFD and plucked me out of the boat. The bad news is that it was March and the frigid water took my breath away. The good news is that my paddling partner that day has only to think back to that hilarious moment when he’s feeling blue and cheers up instantly.
As rivers erode their banks, they often undercut trees. The trees will fall into the river but stay rooted to the bank. They become what whitewater boaters call sweepers or strainers. They’re downed trees that create a picket-fence barrier of branches that allows water through but won’t let your boat pass.
If you can’t avoid a strainer completely, paddle as far from the trunk as possible to get away from the larger, stiffer branches. If the current pushes you against the strainer or any obstruction, lean downstream toward the obstacle and try to hold on long enough to quickly assess the situation and get yourself out of harm’s way. Leaning upstream away from the obstacle is likely to lead to a capsize and may trap you underwater. |
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