I first started boating in '74 or '75 in an open boat. Seamed my first kayak (Phoenix Ocoee) on my back deck when I was a Junior in High School in the Summer of '79. Taught myself to roll in a day in the lake behind my parent's house using Jay Evans/Robert Anderson's classic book. Guess I had a good visualization of what I needed to do before I got started. For a few years boated when I could and progressed to Section III, the Nanty, and a couple of scary runs on the Ocoee. Man the Ocoee was VERY different back then. In the late 80's I started guiding for Southeastern Expeditions. I trained on the Chattooga and Ocoee the first spring and wound up settling on the Ocoee. Of course my boating dramatically impoved that first season because I was boating on the Ocoee ... a lot! I also had a couple of excellent role models that were guides and pushed me. By then I was in a Dancer and also picked up the Extra Jet. Never got very good at squirting ... but did enjoy it when I took it out. After I got into medical school it became very difficult to boat and very easy to cycle. Also there was a high water season on the Chattooga... maybe it was '89 .... where we got deep into July and it still was running clear over 2 ft. Got in a run at 4 ft on Section IV, and my buddy and I were sitting in an eddy above the puppy chute about to run it and he looked at me and said do you ever stop and think what would happen if we screwed up just a little bit on one of these runs .... that really hit home. My parents were investing a fortune in my medical education and I was scaring them to death every weekend. I was about to get married and was also acquiring a large amount of educational debt. I just kept wanting to do harder and harder stuff and was really starting to think about it. My buddy and I ended up getting more into mtn biking and racing and the boating just slipped away. In 98 I climbed back into the Dancer once when I lived in Syracuse to do Fish Creek with an old friend. That was a blast I thought... but I was in residency, didn't know any other boaters in the area and just never got a chance to go again there. I moved to KY to do a Sports Medicine fellowhip at UK. One of the first things I heard was that one of the Ortho fellows died on a local creek a year or two earlier. Boone Creek ... not a particularly difficult run, mostly class II at levels it's usually boated, but at high water I hear the push and strainers can get really ugly. Wasn't enouraging news to me to get back into boating around there ... but I was thinking about it. In 2007, I started dating someone that enouraged me to get back into it. I did... also introducing my daughter (when she just turned 9). I loved the new designs over my Dancer and settled on a Jackson Fun for my first new generation boat. Once again I've found myself drawn to difficult water... but learning when to say when. The modern creeker is so confidence inspiring compared to my old Dancer!
While I do like to playboat ... if a steep creek is running, it's always my preference. In the past year I've learned the joys of Russell Fork Gorge at ELF (to me more fun and less stressful than fall release), creeks in the Cumberland Plateau area, and the Smokies. Haven't made it to the Watuaga yet ... but hopefully soon.