Just Like The Chinese Dog Leg

I learned to be a river guide on the Stanislaus River that flows west out of the Sierra Nevada Range in California. The section we would run has been under water since the late 70’s unfortunately. It was an excellent section to raft as it was considered an intermediate river with forgiving rapids. Meaning mistakes would rarely damage equipment and generally not present life-threatening situations.

One of my favorite rapids was called The Chinese Dog Leg. In the middle of this rapid the river became boulder choked and divert the water to the left. So the run would start on the right hand side of the river and then you would work your way back to the left at a 90 degree angle to the river channel. Once you were past the boulders, you had to make a hard pull back to the right towards the center of the river or you would run into the left hand bank of the river.

If you can picture a Letter “S” laid out in front of you and you approach it from the bottom of the “S” and work your way to the top. That’s the direction this rapid would take.

As you worked your way from right to left, it was important to bring the right side oar into the boat because the chute was so narrow or the oar could hit the rocks that were on each side of the channel. Hitting the rocks could really mess up the run, let alone risk breaking an oar.

A few years later we were rafting the Klamath River in northern California. None of us had run the river before and we had a basic idea about what to expect. My dad and I were rowing, as well as a friend of my dad’s named Lynn who had never run the Stanislaus, but had some experience on a few other rivers.

On the last day of the trip my dad was in the lead, I was in the second boat, and Lynn was third. I was holding back my distance a bit from my dad because Lynn was a ways behind me. As I came around a sharp corner I came on a rapid that was full of rocks and I couldn’t see my dad anywhere. There was no time to stop and scout or do anything but search for the right channel to run.

My first thought was that there was nowhere to go. Then it occurred to me that this rapid looked very much like the Chinese Dog Leg that I had run so many times before on the Stanislaus.

So I set up the same way and ran it in similar fashion and had a nice run. By the time I was coming through the end of the rapid I noticed my dad had pulled over and tied up so I did the same. I tied my boat up as quickly as I could and ran up the river bank as fast as I could to give some hand signal directions to Lynn.

As he was approaching the rapid I could see him looking right at me, but he didn’t seem to understand what I was trying to tell him. I found out later from Lynn that it was because about 8 other passengers on the trip followed me and started waving and yelling as well. He couldn’t tell I was even there until it was too late. (That’s another lesson for a later blog.)

Lynn did not have a good run through that rapid. He never experienced anything like Chinese Dog Leg before and ended up crashing the boat into the boulders that blocked the middle of the river and tipping the boat way up on its side. Fortunately the boat didn’t flip, but everyone was thrown out of the boat and we all had to act quickly to launch a rescue of people and the equipment.

The name of the rapid is Little Blossom. Named after a technical, boulder choked rapid on the Rouge River named Blossom Bar. I have multiple lessons learned from Blossom Bar as well. But we’ll save the Blossom Bar lessons for a later post as well.

Check out the following link for some nice photos of Little Blossom: http://cacreeks.com/klamath3.htm

There are a number of lessons we can learn from this experience. Perhaps you can think of a few of your own. The main lesson I want to share from Little Blossom is that sometimes we want to shelter others from learning by experience, though at times they can be difficult to face. It’s not that we should want to put someone in harm’s way, but we should allow people to try. And that should include the opportunity to fail.

I think we send the wrong message when every participant in youth sports gets a trophy. In life there really are winners and losers. There really are people who break the rules and cheat and still win the game. There are many, many times when there is not one right answer. Life is filled with “multiple guess” experiences and we just have to make our choices based our best information and get on with it.

Can you imagine if you went to sign up for a sports team and the coach told you that the team will only play the games that have a guarantee of a win or the team will refuse to play? What’s the point?! There really is very little room for improvement or challenge with that kind of attitude.

If we shelter others from challenging experiences, they may never get a chance to run a “Chinese Dog Leg” a few times where the consequences are not as serious. But the lessons from the experience and the mistakes made could be excellent in helping them prepare for the times when the stakes are a lot higher.

I like the acronym that is used for “fear.” I’m not referring to the more common “false evidence appearing real,” although that is a great one. I’m talking about “fail early and responsibly.”

So make the decision to allow yourself and others to take some risks and have the opportunity to learn and maybe even fail. It’ll probably pay off in more critical situations later in life.


© DTE Consulting 2012 “Helping You Do The Extraordinary!”