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Outside Magazine, July 2005

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The Hard Way
The Calculus of Risk
Modern adventure is safer than you think—once you know the difference between legitimate danger and irrational fear

By Mark Jenkins


	(Illustration by Guy Billout)

WE COULD HEAR THE THUNDERING ROAR of the falls before we could see them. The apprehension spawned little leaping frogs in my gut. The falls were beckoning, and the massive White Nile—plowing along at an unbelievable 45,000 cubic feet per second—was obliging, gliding us irrevocably forward. Jane Dicey, our guide, knew our minds were haplessly entrained by the cannonade and was shouting instructions.

"Paddle hard. Right over the edge."

This Class V wave train was called Total Gunga—total madness. We were aiming for a notorious hole called the G-Spot, a hydraulic so massive it could fling our raft and its eight paddlers into the African sky as easily as a kid flips a nickel into the air.

"When I say 'Drop,'" Jane yelled, "grab the line and crouch on the floor of the raft."

I was in the bow of the boat, leaning forward, paddling with all my strength. Jane, a 35-year-old South

I was out of air, and my lungs were in flames. I had been so calm, but now I was panicking full-throttle. I thought i was a goner.

African who'd guided all over the world, was in the stern. She was leaning sideways, her thick blond ponytail flying out from beneath her helmet, her bronze arms steering the boat. Jane was one of those women born to be a guide: sangfroid formed into feminine flesh. The more chaos, the calmer she became.

She caught my eye and flashed a wide, here-we-go! grin.

Shooting off the falls, the bow was suspended over the drop. I snapped two futile strokes, catching only air; then we were nosediving into a cataclysm of whitewater. Jane must have yelled for us to drop, but I was too caught up in the battle. I was stabbing my paddle into the back of the beast when a ten-foot wave walloped me out of the boat and sucked me under.

Suddenly I was tumbling like a doll in a hurricane, the flashing dark water pummeling my body. I held my breath and wasn't too scared. At one point I resurfaced and had enough sense to catch a quick breath before the river dragged me back under.

In river-guide parlance, I was being "Maytagged," spun as if I were inside an enormous, violent washing machine.

"Don't fight the river," Jane had told us earlier. "There's absolutely nothing you can do to help yourself. Be passive—thrashing will only use up oxygen. Stay calm, curl up in a ball so that you're not twisted into a pretzel. Eventually you'll resurface."

Recalling her advice, I stopped struggling and tried to conserve my energy. I let myself be pulled and pushed like flotsam. It seemed to be working, but I couldn't hold my breath forever. My lungs were in flames. The poison of fear was dripping into my mind.

At that instant I surfaced, gulping and coughing, snatched half a breath, and was dragged way back under. My helmeted head smacked something, then I was slammed against a wall of rock and dragged along its surface. Jane had said that the Nile was comparatively safe, because the water was so big the boulders were far beneath the surface. Christ, I thought, I must be 20 feet underwater!

I was out of air, and my lungs were spasming. I had been so calm before, but now I was doing exactly what you're not supposed to do: panicking full-throttle, my head thrown up toward the faded emerald light, my arms clawing desperately toward it, my legs writhing against the down-pulling current. I would breathe water like a fish, which no longer seemed like such a bad option. At least I wouldn't be in agony anymore, and I wouldn't be terrified.

Then I burst through to the surface, gagging and flailing my arms. Jane merrily waved back from the raft. A minute, at most, had passed.

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Outside columnist MARK JENKINS's latest book is The Hard Way.

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