Humility or humbleness is a quality of being courteously respectful of others. It is the opposite of aggressiveness, arrogance, boastfulness, and vanity. Rather than, “Me first,” humility allows us to say, “No, you first, my friend.” Humility is the quality that lets us go more than halfway to meet the needs and demands of others.
A sign of maturity which has taken me 42 years to address, accept, and begin to apply. My aggression will never go away. However, it will be controlled through fighting a predetermined and accepting opponent, by leading young men into battle, and by constantly reevaluating my behavior towards others.
You decide how this relates to the following trip report. If no insight is attained then please do our community a favor and never paddle anything harder than class IV and even then insure there are patient and understanding adults on the trip.
The Skagit drainage in the Northern Cascades.
The Skagit and Sauk Rivers have 12 beautiful runs within an hour and a half of each other. As a new head football coach, I had been rebuilding our program all summer (not paddling) and had just 7 days before I had to be back. This turned out to be a good choice. Things came up and our numbers soon dwindled. I trusted my paddling friends so with very little research we decided to give Granite Creek a go.
254 feet per mile. Paul chases us down an easier section.
While the information we had was vague, it was understood that the most demanding section was the first 2.2 miles. Toby was on the first ORT crew and we have been through alot together. We rafted the Aire Puma through the following drop without scouting.
Paul is an amazing elementary school teacher who now has a wonderful one year old boy. He looks at lines differently now.
The guidebook said no regarding rafts. Not uncommon to fire it off anyhow these days. Rafting has blown the ceiling off of perspectives the past 5 years in the Northwest. I kept telling Toby this felt like a first descent.
One of the few times I had a chance to shoot Paul. Eddies were few and not always raft friendly.
We were aware that a V+ drop sometimes containing wood was coming up. Our R2 made a branch grabbing eddy at the lip. There was wood in room river left. This one goes in a bigger boat. The Honda Civic could only fit a Puma in the trunk. Next time I’m taking a truck and a Super Duper Puma. The V+ link:
The portage was rigorous. You cannot see this drop from the road.
- III+ boogie water. The crew was beat, stayed with the boats, and trusted my information.
- While we soloed this drop concern with what was around the corner existed.
No safety and wood. FORCED portage.
Following the last portage we ran a few more trashy class IVs without much grace. We fought for the eddy above the next major horizon line once again making it without any margin for error. This was the twisting 14 footer into a ramp which slammed into a wall we saw from the road and had previously thought it to be the V+. Or maybe it’s a class V, or maybe there are 2 V+ drops, or maybe were actually in Canada, eh? Toby exasperated “I’m beat”. Furrowed brow I turned away without responding to scout the drop pondering running it solo. Then the concept of humility set in. Why? What do I have to prove? Make it without safety and be a…”hero”? Not make it and succumb Toby to a life threatening rescue situation or an existence filled with grief if I don’t? “Hey bro, let’s go find Paul and finish this in the morning”. It has taken a lifetime of learning the lessons of anger and aggression to mutter those words. Well, Toby got called into work the next day and our itinerary soon took us to the Sauk.
Glory shines in the Sauk River!
- I then got stuck in Seattle.
- The flyin fish place, now back to whitewater.
God bless the soul of Allen Satcher.
