Capsizing Happens on the River and in Life

Lessons from a Few Seconds Under Water

Thomas DeVere Wolsey

Royalty-Free Photo: Man wearing gray helmet kayaking on flowing stream | PickPik.

Water rushed above my head and polished stones flew by me at astonishing speed. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the water rushed under my head. It is hard to say what was over and what was under. After all, I was upside down in a kayak on the Snake River in Wyoming or maybe we had crossed into Idaho. Either way, the current was swift but not violent, and I was upside down, trapped in a kayak in the water.

I convinced three friends to join me in a beginner’s whitewater adventure with a guide. It was the late 1990s, so the guide’s name has disappeared in the swirls of my memory. Let’s just call him Jack, from Jackson Hole. It’s too bad I can’t remember his name because he knew his stuff. He started by showing us the equipment and basic moves all on the safe, dry tarmac of the river company’s parking lot.

Courtesy of Snake River — Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

Waves and Rolls

He made a point of telling us how standing waves on the river worked differently than ocean waves. It was an important distinction. In the ocean, the wave is moving forward but the…