In the late 1960's US, whitewater kayaks were about as common as drive-through liquor stores in Utah. Chuck and I had discovered the nimble water striders separately, and shared many of the idiosyncrasies of the self-taught-especially manic obsession and wild speculation, coupled with excessive caution and reckless abandon. Neither one of us had mastered the Eskimo roll on our own. Someone-in my case, an English Outward Bound instructor-had to work the moves out for us in a pool.
By the spring of 1970, I'd built one Czech-designed slalom model from scratch, but had totaled two German kayaks in the rapids of Grand Canyon. I was frustrated and ready for a new approach. I'd become so risk averse that I focused on skirting rapids instead of running them. When unavoidable, my only recourse was to "Major Powell" through, wind-milling hard and straight, and hoping to God to break through to the other side.
That's when I met Chuck Carpenter.
Chuck's getting-to-know-you routine consisted of a couple of six packs of cheap, warm beer-a ruse, no doubt, to inveigle his new mark to buy cold ones-followed by an outrageously intrusive interrogation. Meanwhile, he himself remained cheerfully inscrutable, displaying an endearingly dry sense of humor tinged with cynicism. In conversation, he favored anecdotes and avoided expository tirades, never arguing or attempting to convince anyone of his point of view. Instead, he'd push his agenda through loaded questions, or aggressive bull-headed silence. Never one to disclose his premises, he nonetheless held on to them tenaciously-like a terrier with a bone.
In 1976 a series of Pacific storm fronts invaded Arizona and for the following four years laid siege to its watersheds. The Verde,a stream whose normal flow averaged 600 cubic feet per second (CFS), soon ballooned into a 25,000 CFS out-of-control, channel-shifting, trailer park-threatening, cottonwood-uprooting anaconda. As soon as he found out, Chuck showed up at my door with his kayak and Socratic dialogued me into running it.
On the banks of the Beasley Flats put-in, our adrenaline-fueled banter was only slightly tempered by introductions, hand-shakes, and the business at hand: assembling the raft, packing gear, and girding for combat. Chuck and I paddled Lettman Mark-series fiberglass slalom kayaks imported from Germany. We wore Bell multi-purpose helmets and kapok Mae West life jackets over half-inch-thick, full-body wet suits so constricting, every maneuver was like mixing concrete with a hoe