Marsh Creek
Located in the low ground south southwest of Gettysburg Battlefield, Marsh Creek is a marathon's distance long. Marsh joins Rock Creek at the Pennsylvania/Maryland border to form the Monocacy River, which eventually empties into the Potomac River. It has a 4-mile stretch of whitewater, Class II-III at normal runnable levels. The land on both sides of Marsh is relatively low lying and adorned with farms and river homes. Chances to run Marsh are rare, but a great deal of rain fell during early May. A Marsh Creek paddling opportunity presented itself to Pennsylvania and DMV paddlers, and we among others took advantage.
Initial Happenings
In the morning of May 15, Marsh churned at a level about 5 times its minimum and was rising. (The Bridgeport gauge said about 2,000 cfs, but it is downstream and picks up other streams as well.) Nine of us dropped our boats and gear at the put-in beside the Cunningham Road bridge and set shuttle. At water's edge, I observed drowning saplings and submerged rocks and other vegetation amid the swirling muddy water. The river appeared higher than my last paddle.
Shuttle done around noon and nine boats a-floating, we paddled leisurely down the creek. Nothing challenged us. We all knew that the most difficult part lay ahead. I added spice by catching eddies and dodging saplings. The usual human detritus of plastics lay baldly wrapped around saplings and trees, tattered and straining downstream, like flags after a heavy downpour.
We slowly approached the low-head dam we normally run over. Scouting showed an almost creek-wide log 10 yards beyond the dam's drop. Prudently we portaged past the downed wood. Marsh Creek split into three braided paths from our portage re-entry. We chose our route cautiously, but all three routes had plenty of water, another clear sign the creek was high.
The water flowed more rapidly below the dam, and the pathways presented more challenges. Still, barely Class II. When Mark announced that we approached the more challenging section of the river, I looked forward to the change and the rapids. I remembered previously enjoying the challenges (for the most part) during the last trips.
What I didn't expect was a barrier of rock, logs, trees, and living and dead saplings and trees blocking almost the entire 100-foot width of the dammed-up creek. What I didn't know is that the creek beyond was now nearly 7 times its minimum and still rising. A Class II-III stream was now a Class IV.
There was a possible opening far river left, where light filtered among saplings. All paddlers pulled river right into a large eddy. We looked for answers from Mark and directions around the flood-created dam. The endpoint of river right was dark and unreadable. Mark said he would go far river left to scout. Bruce followed behind most of the way. Mark eddied out above the opening. The rest of us huddled, chatting desultorily, and awaited his report.
The Fun Begins
Mark radiated alarm as he paddled back to our group from his scout. I'd never seen the normally phlegmatic man look that way, and, unexpectedly, felt scared. "There's big water ahead," is what I remember him saying. Combining his face with the "big water's" invisibility inculcated a horror flick's sense of anticipatory fear in me. I glanced again river right to where I supposed the jammed-up-river ended. "Maybe I should carry past the rock and wood-strewn wall on river right?" I thought. Oh, how I wish I had consummated that idea. Confidence in my kayaking skills and implacable idiocy, however, directed me to follow Mark and Bruce river left toward the unseen opening instead. I slowly traversed the no-longer-a-mild and more-like-a-river Marsh Creek and poised briefly above the opening to scout. I saw a watered bushwhack through normally dry vegetation ahead.
I watched Bruce swoop into the narrow slot between rocks, strainers, and saplings. Focusing only on ensuring the branches did not ensnare me, I plunged through the opening. I popped out of the slot facing a world of white chaos. My eyes spotted green water off to my right. I powered over there, hoping for the proverbial green tongue to follow downriver. I did not consider eddies or anything else, just that green among a sea of white.
I arrived in the green and noticed something was off. This wasn't a tongue to follow down the river; instead, it was a bubbling teardrop-shaped pool of green water, like and unlike an eddy. I'd never encountered this type of feature before nor have I since. I could not figure out what to do next. While I was trying to discern my situation, my boat moved slowly forward, and the water fell more sharply on either side of me. Unlike a classic pour-over with a bare rock in the middle and water pillowing around, saplings grew within the holes formed on either side. There was no "safe" way out of this. I decided to power over the lip anyway. I gained scant momentum. Caught by the rock, I teetered at the top and resigned myself to going down. I slipped sideways down the feature's right side, then upside down into the hole five feet below. My high brace was no match for the aerated water.
Being Underwater
My comfort in water, earned during my youth spent competitive swimming and diving, snorkeling, scuba diving, body surfing, and water skiing, can be counterproductive. I'm not as concerned as I should be with going over and under. Consequently, I am all too familiar with kayaking with my upper body submerged, the second most dangerous position for a kayaker. The first is swimming.
Always, always, time shifts for me when submerged below a kayak. This is the opposite of falling asleep under anesthesia, where you believe no time has passed, and when you are awakened by the nurse, your heart has four extra vessels attached to it and seven hours have passed in the "real world."
Unlike anesthesia, seconds underwater feel like minutes. And the body moves slowly as time perception speeds up. You seek the one critical point of reference, the warbly brightness beginning somewhere below the water-air boundary. Creek water is not even remotely close to swimming pool clarity, especially on a cloudy day in roiling water. Marsh Creek immersion that day was like being submerged in a spoon-spun root beer float, pewter-colored foam swirling as wood and other debris swiped at me.
Trying to roll
Downriver travel out of the non-retentive hole into which I fell quickly began. Ignited by fear, I executed a frantic roll. The paddle blade met mostly foam but allowed me a single breath on my inaugural attempt. My paddle hit a rock on its next sweep and spun me, sans breath. On my third attempt, my body spread upside down along a large, submerged rock. Held briefly, the rushing water's force on the buoyant kayak dragged me up and over the rock. My body, still submerged, acted as a sea anchor, trailing behind the kayak. I dumped into, and quickly out of, the foam pile beyond the rock. I was able to breathe again on the fourth roll, but I raised my head too soon, and back under I went. Two or three more attempts were thwarted by either rocks, debris, my raised head, the bottom, or a combination of two or more impediments.
And then I rolled up cleanly but facing upriver, disoriented and tiring. Cognition impaired, I failed to take advantage of the brief respite. I dropped backwards over the lip of a rock or ledge and landed, mostly on my back, in the hole behind the feature and returned underwater. I endeavored two more rolls, but with adrenaline draining, lethargy encroaching, and minutes immersed in 68-degree water, I pulled the sprayskirt.
Fear
Fear is our least useful companion. Fear binds and constricts. Fear overlays fog atop rigid thoughts and limbs. When fearful in a kayak, my legs go stiff and press hard on footrests, causing me to lose much needed contact with my thigh braces. I fight fear, for redirected fear can be useful, but I'm not good at that. I pray and think positively, albeit inconsistently.
The swim
My head popped up, kayak adjacent. Across its top, I stared into Mark's face six feet away. He'd seen the bottom of my green RPM Max heading downriver and persistently followed, a difficult traverse as rocks and turbulence abounded. He reached me just as I pulled. He'd had thoughts of a bow or stern rescue. However, in that brief glance, we both understood instantly that no matter how close we were, there was nothing we could do. I held onto my kayak and we separated. Mark needed to survive the creek's chaos with vigilant paddling. My body, free of any control, rushed away with the current. Mark worriedly watched one of his friends disappear in the heavy flow. To hear Mark describe it:
"What I recall is that I got to you right before you bailed and tried to offer a bow. But given the turbulence and submerged rocks the chances of success at that point were slim. Once you were out of the boat and swimming, I had the notion of you grabbing my stern and towing you to river right, but again, the turbulence, rocks, and heavy flow dictated against that. So, off you went. We quickly lost track of you …."
I tried to hold onto my kayak, its buoyancy a safe haven, but that comfort expired quickly. When a large, submerged rock impeded my body, the kayak, pushed implacably by the water skimming over the same rock, broke from my grip. My green boat vanished downriver. I counted it as lost from my quiver forever, briefly mourned, but not a concern. On this day, without a boat to hold onto and no rescue in sight, drowning became real.
I really have no inkling of how far or by what route I traveled below my kayak. Out of the kayak, it wasn't much clearer. I rode a winding conveyor belt of turbulent water by rocks, down drops and past stark green survivors growing out of wood-strewn gray rocks. I had no control, really. Water bubbled around my face, too high for my liking. My hips and upper body impacted rocks, muted by the pillowing water. Sometimes moving quickly and other times briefly bobbing in holes and eddylines, I just kept going, blurred in mind and vision by all that rode past. I clawed at rocks, hoping for purchase and gaining none.
Surreality is not usually part of floating swiftly downriver while posing as large human flotsam among foam. However, at mid-point or so of the swim, I discovered my brand-new water bottle moving toward me. I picked it up, my brain and body in slow motion. “Well, at least I have this,” I thought mildly. We briefly traveled together until I realized fending off rocks and keeping afloat were more important than a water bottle. I let go of the bottle as gently as I had acquired it.
In swiftwater rescue classes, we are told to "lay back and raise your legs," to fend off rocks and other obstacles, and protect the head. Imagine sitting in a Barcalounger, feet raised, bonbons abounding on a table beside you, and you get the idea. That works fine when buoyancy is strong. But for Marsh Creek that day? Bullshit. If I'd done that in this water, I'd would have drowned as foam lacks buoyancy. Simply said, raised legs in foam submerge the head and its attendant breathing apparatus.
I never got caught by logs or crevices or sieves or undercuts or strainers--all the fun stuff that ensnares a body in the water. I am deeply grateful for that. More importantly, I never panicked. If I'd thrashed, I would have gone and stayed below. This time, water awareness and comfort did keep me alive. The thought of drowning resonated quietly, however, throughout the swim.
Without any effort from me, I was gently pushed into a slowly swirling pool of water and rocks. I swam and slid into another pool beside a steep bank on river right. I stood. The swim was over.
I cry now as I write this. I suppose it's because I'd been so very afraid and then saved. I've seen this behavior in real life and in movie characters shortly after the impactful event. Triggering my emotional release required writing, "The swim was over," six months afterwards. Always was a bit slow, you know.
Aftermath
Others joined me at the pool. Not sure I remember everyone or the timing. Cold and brain foggy, I remained standing in the water until Gary, a gentle man, kindly suggested I would be better served on the bank and out of the water. Spurred, I scrambled out of the river and up the bank wanting nothing more than to get away from the river and be home. Gary, Sergey, and Virginia came with.
Forty feet up the bank, we encountered a small clearing of flattened vegetation. I spied construction debris on my right, and beyond, a path. A few strides past the construction debris, we spied a house up ahead. With very little trepidation, I knocked on the door. I wanted warmth and back to my car and home. Not much else occupied my mind.
Emily, a kind and energetic woman, greeted us. She'd seen my kind before—washed up boaters—and needed no urging to open her heart and larder for a cup of tea and snacks for us. Virginia, Gary, and Sergey were there with me. Virginia, like me, wanted off the river. Sergey, whom I barely knew at that point, stayed with me while I warmed up. I recently asked him about this, and he said, "You looked really out of it."
News came from the river that my boat was found beside the bank, slightly upriver from where I landed. The boat didn't arrive there unassisted. These are Larry and Mark's stories: