Hospital Rock
Brandon Nelson

     I knew what we were in for days ago, when we first started heading south on the Spring Kayak Surfari 2000.  Yeah, we'd spent the weekend running two of the steepest creeks in Lars' book- but the gradients of Brush and Dry Meadow creeks are deceiving:  they're friendly, fun runs, super-channelized and with too little water to really get off line.  Worth the drive to Kernville?  Of course... they're classics, and the whole place is kayaking la-la land.
     What I'm saying, though, is that the deep seeded nervousness I'd been feeling for the past few days... the ever present "butterflies" that'd   been hosting an air-show in my gut were the result of a run a couple of hours back north.  A run I knew was engraved on our agenda:  Hospital Rock on the middle Kawhea.
     I might've felt a little less anxious if I hadn't done the run a couple times last year.  Maybe if I didn't know that it was host to some of the most continuous, chunkiest and all around sickest rapids I've ever found myself paddling.   Maybe if my paddling partner was the conservative sort-  the kind of guy who might opt to, say, do a hike instead if the air was a bit chilly.  But none of those were the case.  I knew damn well that it was just a countdown til I'd be walking down to the put-in, geared up, boat and paddle in hand, and in the company of Barry... a guaranteed class five junky from the first rapid.
     What I failed to anticipate, though, was that classic Sierra Nevada springtime wild card:  the ironically and (im)perfectly timed timed arrival of a late season winter storm.  Dumping rain, snow level just above our heads, a low ceiling that shuts out all the surrounding vistas and creates a "tunnel" of gnarliness down which to focus.  Aesthetically, an amazing experience for the visual senses.  But on this particular day and run, it was like Ma Nature giving you a big fat wedgie.  You're still going paddling, but the ante just got upped.
      I've had a certain theory about such days since around the time Jimmy Doo used to send us down Chamberlain Falls in March, at high water, in bucket boats, with guys like Beetle, twice in a day.  Here it is:  physiologically, being cold causes your core to rob your limbs of most of their blood, right?  Your skin's full of goose bumps, you shiver and chatter your teeth, tunnel vision creeps in until your only thought is to  get warm and dry.  Coincidentally, this is exactly the same reaction the body takes to being scared, or let's say petrified.  So your system, logical and efficient, does the "smart" thing, so it thinks, and kills two birds with one stone.  Simply put, then, to help avoid being petrified, stay warm and dry.
      All this stuff mattered.  These are the theories and conditions that lead to an easy decision when you're only on day three of a nine day surfari.  When you've got a pop-top bus full of warm, dry clothes, hot tea, a stack of kayak magazines, a guitar and a book of songs.  When your gear is soaked and cold from the day before, the rain is getting harder and more steady, and tomorrow's forecast calls for clearing and warming.
      But....well.....  that's class five.  You get in an auto-pilot mode, no one offers up the option of waiting out the storm, and the next thing you know you're in your boat.
      In Kernville I'd bumped into my friend Rick Smith on Brush Creek.  Rick and I did our first ever run together on Hospital Rock a year before, and he was stoked to join us.  Rick's a super solid, twenty year boater with a mind for safety, (despite a habit for such stunts as a mid winter, high water run of Bald Rock Canyon with a fella called "Pookie Bear", neither of whom had seen the run, and on which "Pookie" somehow survived a swim down Atom Bomb Falls... but that's another story).
      The three of us, at any rate, made a good team.  I figured that going into the adventure, but it was clear by about the sixth rapid, (all of which required scouting), that by switching leads, running the occasional safety, and flat out-loud cheering for each other's runs, that we were poised to live out this day of chunk.
      Hospital Rock at 800 cfs is undoubtedly one of the top runs in the Sierra.  It just does - not - let - up!  I could probably count the number of rapids we didn't scout on one hand - and probably should've peeked at those, too.  Its got explosive slide drops, one move waterfall boofs, boulder choked 100 yard long hole-strewn froth alleys.  Its got a handful of hairy ferries, two manmade dams both runnable, a boxed-in multi rapid gorge, the occasional tree in the river, more than a couple hair-curling sieves, and all-around enough chunk to satisfy downright anybody!  (except maybe Tao).
      Surprisingly clean runs marked our day.  Most of it, anyway.  In the heart of the gorge is a fifteen foot split falls - both lines of which get run.  The left pushes hard left, is narrow, and you want to charge pointed right, (a tough move which I watched Thomas Baumann not quite make last year.  not pretty...).  Its hole is worth avoiding, to my shy eyes.  The right is also a tricky entrance, but if you can stay pointed just down stream, ferrying across  the left-flowing current, you boof out into an eddy and breath easy.
     I scouted and sent three boaters over the right side.  (By this point we'd joined forces with two Steamboat, CO paddlers Jared and Max).  Their runs were frightful looking at best - especially when Rick nailed the line perfectly but still swam out with a blown spray skirt.  I hastily walked it with Max.
      Most epic, though, came a few drops later at a tight, messy rapid which, incidentally, I'd waded into on Rick and I's first run to pull him out of some grabby boulders.  The line was to stay stable and upright through a hole at the top, out of a boiling and boxed in froth pit full of barely covered horn rocks, (the ones that Rick wedged in to), and line up for a kayak-wide 40 foot slot that sends you home free.
      It was one where everyone watched from the scout rock as we ran it one by one.  Barry, Jared and I  had run it o.k., and Max was up.   Apparently, as I couldn't see the very top, Max had melted the entry hole and came out unstable.  He flipped upstream into the current and rolled up against the boulder backing the froth pit.  Never fully regaining control, he floated on a right brace to just above the must-make slot.... and bridged.  At that point, an orange pourover was all we could see.  Within seconds his head craned up above the surface and we knew he was breathing.  Jared was out of his boat and scrambling up to him.  Rick was already there.  Unsure of the situation, Barry got out and scrambled up, too.  I stayed to corral their boats and wait for Max to come butt-sliding down the slot.  He never had to.  When Jared had secured a rope for him, he blew his skirt and climbed out.  The only thing that washed down was a pogie, which we found in an eddy later.   Despite the scary situation, Max kept his head and finished the run in style.
    At take-out cheers went up in celebration of a safe and epic day of classic chunk.  In the still-pouring rain we walked into one of those magical gifts of the paddling life-style:  An RV door swung open and inside sat Jared Noceti, Alex Nicks, Beth Rypins and Barry Tessman.  They immediately handed us piping hot bowls of pasta and vegetables, along with warm smiles, handshakes and hugs.
      Natuarally, the next day dawned warm and clear.