South Fork of the American River

I had been a group counselor at a juvenile boys’ rehabilitation for substance abuse in the Rincon Valley in Santa Rosa California known as R-House for about ten months when I volunteered for a summer excursion that included a white water rafting tour down the American River.  

I must admit I was quite apprehensive about making my first white water rafting trip with a group of teenage adolescents who had been court ordered to R-House due to their criminal offenses that included substance abuse.  The program at the facility was rigid and structured based on the twelve step program.  The program included group processing meetings as well as taking them into the community for Alcohol Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings. 

When I first started with R-House, I had just been discharged from a thirteen career in the United States Air Force and had no clue about rehabilitation and substance recovery.  I had no experience with gangs either since most of the boys placed there were gang-bangers either thirteen (from southern California) or fourteen (from northern California).  Some of our process groups had boys who would have tried to kill each other if they had met on the streets.  After a few incidents, I became fully aware of the potential for violence we faced every day.  

When I got to know some of the boys, I was also aware of the environmental influences that put them in our program.  There were boys whose parents were incarcerated for a variety of felony crimes that included murder.  Each of the counselors were assigned a certain number of residents.  One of my resident’s fathers died of an overdose and I was tasked with breaking the news to him.  He was a very likable thirteen year old who had been born with cognitive disabilities due to his mother’s alcohol use during her pregnancy.  When I hear the Pearl Jam song “Alive,” it reminds me of him and our tearful conversation about losing a father he would never get to know. 

The morning of the long weekend we would spend in El Dorado County on the American River, we climbed onto a blue bus and left the grounds of R-House.  The boys cheered as we left the grounds.

I was not all that sure about joining in their jubilation.  I was just hoping I would survive this new and exciting adventure. 

June 20, 1993:  We arrived at the base camp at around 10 in the morning with our gear and equipment.  There were thirty eight residents of R-House and five counselors of which I was one of them.  The counselors would act as chaperons keeping order in the rafts and ensuring the guide's directions were followed to avoid any potential problems on our two day excursion.  

Every year the administration paid for this white water rafting trip down the South Fork of the American River past Sutter’s Mill where gold was discovered in 1849.  The river was indeed historic, but my concerns were about the trip we were getting ready to take with four tour guides who would teach us all how to navigate the rapids of this historic river. 

We had arrived at the base camp around 10 as told and we would set up tents since we would spend our first night under the stars.  The tents were large enough to sleep five to a tent without any crimping or cramming, but many of the adventurous boys decided they did not need to sleep in a tent when the weather was warm and the stars filled the velvet sky.  Many of them had spent their entire lives in small city neighborhoods.  Their neighborhoods were the only part of the world most of them had ever seen.  

Five sleepy guides appeared as we waited on the base camp on the south shore. They introduced themselves, cracking jokes about themselves.  Two of the guides began to show us how to steer the rubber rafts through the rapids and eddies by sitting in the boats on the dry ground and demonstrating how to move the wooden paddles through the water.

There were five rafts that would have eight boys in each along with the guide and a chaperone.  The rafts were standard river rafts with a single rubber sheet that served as the bottom while the sides where the boys would sit and paddle the raft had been filled with air like a beach volleyball.  

Walking over to one of the boats the guides had put along the shore, I kicked the side with my foot to assure myself that these vessels were not flimsy. The rubber was almost as firm as my car tires, so I began to feel a little more assured about this trip.

I still had some reservations when I first saw the river current.  Green water was churned into white foam as the water cascaded over the rocks that stuck out of the river.  There were a lot of them and I began to feel a little more nebulous about this big adventure, but I dare not show any trepidation about this to the boys.  I knew many of them were chatting on the bus about some of their fears about this trip.  One more kick and I was able to tell myself that everything would be fine. 

“Remember, do not panic.” One of them stressed, but panic is what I was feeling as I looked out into the rough water a few feet from where we were standing.  I could feel the cold coming off the water as it surged on by.  Panic?  I had never dared do anything like this, because in every picture or video I had seen, I saw an entire boatload of passengers enter the river in a violent manner and become swept away by the pull of the relentless current.  I listened closely to the guides as they went over the safety precautions hoping I could stay in the rubber raft I would be assigned to.  

Wearing cargo shorts and a loose fitting t-shirt and water boots. On top of my head, I proudly wore my U-2 cap I was given when I went to Panama in 1990 at Det 4. It was from there, we flew the famous U-2 spy plane. 

I stepped into the shallow water as our crew consisting of eight boys from R-House, the guide and me pushed the raft into the water. My legs went numb as we waded into the river. 

The guide was the first one in the raft followed by the eight boys, each at their own speed and I was the last one to get in, making sure everyone was seated on the rubber floor of the boat.  

“Now we will avoid the rocks and eddies.” The guide spoke out over the roar of the water washing over the rocks.  

I could feel my heart accelerate as I put my paddle into the water and began moving it the way I had just learned.  Some of the boys were notorious for not paying attention or following directions and they weren’t about to start now.  Knowing this made me even more tenuous as we began to move downriver. The guide called the cadence, “Stroke, stroke, stroke.” 

Six of the eight did as they were instructed, but there were two, always two, who did as they pleased and slightly disrupted the movement of the raft. 

“You two.” The guide called, “Let’s get with the program!”

Suddenly the two who decided to goof off were in stride with the instructions as we found ourselves in an eddy.

An eddy is a place in the river that resembles a mini-whirlpool and the guide directed the boat right into the eddy.  The front of the boat became submerged.  Water filled the boat and my eyes went wide as I watched two of the boys sink with the boat.

“Now you know why we must stay clear of these eddies.” He pushed his paddle hard and we escaped a certain disaster.  The water shoshed in the bottom of the boat soaking my butt in the water.  It was so cold that my teeth began to chatter, but as I looked downriver, the green water turned white as it bashed against the rocks ahead of our raft.  

We were the last boat in our group of five and we were six hours away from our destination, Folsom Lake where the South Fork of the American River came to an end. It would be a long day I feared.

Despite the appearance of the tumultuous  river, with the guide’s help and encouragement, navigating through it turned out easier than I first thought.  We did lose one of the boys.  A kid from one of the Klamath tribes up north, he barely weighed sixty pounds.  His egress from the raft occurred when we hit a rock and he wound up sitting, paddle still in hand, on the rock we had collided with appearing like some out of whack cartoon.  The guide had us reverse our course until two boys were able to reach out and bring the boy overboard back into the raft.  The rescued boy, still sitting holding the paddle as if he had become a statue. 

We stopped at one point on the river for a lunch break.  After an hour of what seemed to be smooth sailing, I began to relax a bit as it seemed we were getting the hang of this white water rafting thing.  Some of the boys were laughing and joking as they finished their lunches.

At 1 pm or Thirteen hundred hours we launched the rafts from the landing where we ate our lunch.  Immediately, I felt the strength of the current pick up, but I was no longer a white water rafting rookie.  I had spent over four hours on the water and had been soaked through to prove it.  The sun had dried out my clothing as I ate lunch, so as the temperature rose in the late afternoon, I felt the comfort of being warm and dry.  

In just a few minutes, one of the rafts ahead of us began to roll with the current over the rocks that stuck up over the water.  I could hear the guide shouting commands, but the boys were in panic mode. Their paddles battled furiously, but it seemed the boat was on the verge of capsizing.  Our guide stood up on the bow as much as he could in case he would have to fish some of the boys out of the treacherous waters. 

The rush of the current began to pick up.  I could feel the surge of that water rush by our raft.  Just as our guide prepared for a water rescue, the boys managed to get the boat righted and all seemed safe at least for the moment. 

Suddenly one of the boys fell from his seat on the side where he had been paddling.

“Everyone keep an eye out for the kid in the water.” Our guide commanded.

I looked and noticed he was several yards ahead of our boat and the current had caught him.  Trapped by the current, the boy was nothing more than a pinball being tossed from rock to rock.  

The third boat guide managed to fish the boy out of the river and all was well again.

“Good work, Eric.” Our guide called out with a wave.  Eric returned the wave as he sat down once again in his raft. 

For the next hour we were surrounded by the walls of a canyon populated with Ponderosa Pine canvassed by azure blue skies about with soft cotton clouds.  Hawks glided effortlessly over the steep terrain of the canyon walls.  A gentle breeze blew down the river as we began to feel our rhythm once again. If someone had taken a picture, it would be a picture of the perfect peace.

For the next hour we cruised in the serene surroundings, our paddles moved in complete synchronization to the pulse of the current.  

“We are coming up on Death Rock.” Our guide informed us. “We need to make sure we are paddling together. Nice smooth strokes, got it?” 

Everyone nodded.

I could see the steady decline of the river.  There was white water washing over the rocks, but this was nothing we had not encountered before.  

Our first bounce on a rock jolted me a bit since I thought we had cleared it.  We hit another rock jolting me from my spot on the raft wall.  The next couple made me feel like a pinball as we hit more rocks.

“Alright crew, we need to paddle in a synchronized pattern.  Death Rock is dead ahead.” He pointed to a rock that towered out of the river.  I noticed a couple of the boys were tired and did not really put their paddles in the water. I encouraged them since it seemed we were on a direct course to Death Rock.  

As if Death Rock was a magnet, our boat was pulled under its gravitational pull.  

“Paddle!” The guide ordered.

The large shadow of the rock loomed over us.

“RO---” was all I heard him say.

The boat hit the rock dead on.  The result was our boat turned perpendicular to the water.  The boy sitting across from me was as big as I was and also weighted about the same.  Gravity was not forgiving as he landed on top of me with a great force pushing me into the current of the river. The current was much stronger than I was, so there was no way I could fight it.  Before I fully realized what had happened, my body was sucked into the brown current.  Wearing my lifejacket did not help as the current now totally ruled me.  I was completely at the mercy of the river’s current. My wild ride had just begun.  

As I rode the brown current, I could not see the sun, so I had no idea what was up and what was down.  I was keenly aware my lungs began to sting for oxygen which was nowhere to be found and since I was not in control, I began to fear that I might drown.

The further I went with the current, the more my lungs were craving sweet oxygen.

The water got even darker changing hues from a light brown to a darker shade which said that I was being pulled farther away from the surface of the water where I would find something besides water to breath.  I did not have gills and therefore I was totally at the mercy of the river. 

I began to get angry, because all I could see were the headlines of my demise in the Sacramento Bee “Counselor Drowns in boating accident on the South Fork of the American River.”

What was the justice in that?  How could this be a fair assessment of my life and death?  How could God let this happen to me? 

Water, water everywhere and bit to breathe. What cruelty.  What an irony.  Who could God let me die like this?

A voice.  I could hear a voice over the roar of the rapids overhead, “Do not be afraid, it is not your time.” 

I could not hold my breath any longer.  I would have to face my fate and breath in the water and drown. Here I go.  I can not take it any longer.

Just as I had succumbed to my fate, sunlight and oxygen.  I took a deep satisfying breath.  I was alive. 

One of the boats was fishing my hat from the water.

“Hey, here he is.” I felt a hand take a hold of my life vest as I was pulled into the boat. “All of the others were rescued by the guide.  You were the only one who got away.” 

“Lucky me.” I began to cough the river water back to where it came.

In the time it took me to rid the water out of my airways, the boat paddled into Folsom Lake. Our first day's journey was complete.  The tour bus took us back to our day camp where I slept like the dead. 

The next morning we had a real cowboy breakfast before getting on the bus and driving up to where the American River started in the mountains.  I got in the boat, feeling terror as we pushed away from the shore, but this trip seemed tamed to the day before as we passed historical Sutter’s Mill and managed to zig-zag through the toughest part of the course.  It was a piece of cake.  They took our photograph which they would try to sell us a copy at the end of the trip.

I was just happy to have survived.  I have never had any doubts that it was my deceased father who had talked to me, but I want to keep that whole thing on the down-low, if you don’t mind.  Ten years later I would go snorkeling out at Catalina Island in the dark. Who knows maybe one day I will sign on the Space X, but I rather doubt I will ever take that big adventure any time soon.