I'm such a fraud

OK, so according to the title of my blogedy...I should be "doing something that scares me." The thing is, lately I've been doing the exact opposite...I'm a total chickenshit when it comes to paddling. I'm not doing it - like flatout not even bringing my gear when we go on trips.



We went up to The Forks, ME this past weekend. Yes, that's right - there's a town in Maine named after a utensil. We went up to Maine with the purpose of paddling...We were going to rent this thing called a Shredder, a Shredder is a two person raft-type thingy...and Adam was going to guide us down the river with me being his co-pilot. Well, as usual we decided to rent the Shredder from our paddling club at the last minute and it was unavailable. So it was either paddle our boats or not paddle.



The plan was to run the Dead river (yeeeeaaaah, it's called the DEAD river) on Sunday. It's a pretty full-on run, depending on the cfs going through it. Adam has run it at 7,000 cfs - about as full-on as it gets...I *think* at this level it is a class IV+ run, I can't say for sure though right now because the american whitewater site is down and I can't check. Well, on Sunday it was running at 1,300 cfs - I'm told this is a class 2+ level, and it's 13 miles...That's a full 7 hour day in your boat and the rapids are continuous...Not gonna do it. Didn't even bring my boat.



So we got up to Maine late on Saturday evening, set up camp and went to sleep. We woke up Sunday and headed into the lodge area to grab some grub. We ended up meeting some new friends at breakfast, and the plans changed. Since I was not going to paddle on Sunday, Adam wasn't too stoked about doing the Dead at the low level (yawn). The folks we met were a couple and the dude wanted to run the Kennebec which was a much more fun run. His girlfriend wasn't feeling like paddling either so, the boys paddled and the girls did some hiking.



While we were hiking we got to talking about paddling. Most women (don't want to generalize and say ALL) have a different view of paddling than the guys. It was really good to talk to a fellow woman paddler...And you know what? It inspired me to get back in my boat. It did the same for her.



There's a fine line between having a healthy respect for the power of the river and being too afraid of it. I'm going to work harder at finding that balance. Because the thing is, as scary as it is out there sometimes, there's no better way to explore the great outdoors. Rivers take you so many places that you just can't see otherwise.



We're going to head out tomorrow evening to the Errol rapids and mess around all day on the 4th. The Errol rapids are a short 1/4 mile set of rapids with a nice pool at the end. Little consequences and great for just getting comfy in my boat, flipping over, working on my roll, etc.



I'm determined to conquer my fear, ya'll...and to have a little fun while I'm doing it!



Anyone want to join us? It's beautiful country up there...Come on, you know you wanna. Come with!