{"id":27836,"date":"2022-10-05T10:00:53","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T17:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=27836"},"modified":"2023-08-24T12:13:17","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T19:13:17","slug":"musings-on-loss-pain-and-why-we-paddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2022\/10\/05\/musings-on-loss-pain-and-why-we-paddle\/","title":{"rendered":"Musings on Loss, Pain and Why We Paddle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was careful with my footsteps on wet roots and rocks as J.T. and I hiked cautiously up the trail along the White Salmon River. It had been raining, as is often in the Pacific Northwest. Years spent paddling this river and others around Washington during college flooded my memories. I hadn\u2019t paddled with J.T. for over a year, but after being his boating partner for five or six years and having run this stretch together many times, it felt easy, comfortable, and nostalgic to put on for a lap just the two of us.\u00a0Although the Pacific Northwest was no longer home, it felt like it as I put back on the White Salmon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rather than putting on just above Maytag as we usually did, we hiked up to seal launch into the river below BZ Falls. The day before, a group of us had gathered there to spread Adam Mayo\u2019s ashes in the river. Adam was a mentor I\u2019d met early on in my paddling career and one of my closest friends. He\u2019d passed away on the Jalacingo River in Mexico four months prior.<\/p>\n

I had received the news as I boarded a plane to meet him in Ecuador for a winter paddling trip. It turned my world upside down. The months following his passing were landmarked by attending his memorial, caring for his partner, and processing my own grief. But as we gathered on a rainy April afternoon to spread his ashes and paddle downstream with them, it felt like just maybe I\u2019d be able to find some peace.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d never done the BZ falls seal launch so J.T. coached me in exactly where to put my boat and when to lean forward. I slid off the rocks and dropped twelve, maybe fifteen, feet to green water and caught an eddy just under where we\u2019d spread Adam\u2019s ashes. We splashed some water to the sky as a final goodbye to Adam and paddled downstream toward Husum Falls.<\/p>\n