Greetings, outdoorspeople!
- Weekend forecast: Saturday; high 74, evening showers/ Sunday; high 75, partly cloudy
- Recommended adventure: Support local makers next Tuesday, Nov. 10, when outdoor clothing company Trekka will host a launch party for its newest piece of cutting-edge gear: a fire-resistant puffy jacket. The celebration will take place at Hutton & Smith Brewing Company’s outdoor pavilion. In the meantime, check out the company’s promo video.
- Most interesting thing we’ve learned about nature this week: When threatened, the salamander has the ability to drop its tail. This is known as self-amputation or caudal autonomy. After the tail disconnects, it continues to wriggle, thus distracting the predator while the salamander escapes. Though a neat trick, a salamander’s tail can take up to two seasons to regrow, which means two seasons without this defense.
On a recent September evening, a solo kayaker paddled over the 15-foot Kanawha Falls in West Virginia and disappeared.
Not long after, his boat was found floating near the bottom of the drop, causing police and firefighters to launch a search. Around 10 p.m., with no trace of the paddler, they decided to call off their efforts until morning.
The team couldn’t have known about the cave located behind the falls, obscured that night by high water – or that the kayaker was inside it, alive but hypothermic and trapped by the current.
Paddlers knew about the cave, though.
At the landing, the main flow pushes into the cliff wall, carving out the rock. Those familiar with the run knew it was a hazard.
So when one West Virginia kayaker saw on social media that the search had been suspended, his instinct told him to go check the cave. He called two buddies, loaded his truck with boats, ropes and headlamps and started the drive.
Over the next couple of hours, more paddlers began to arrive as news of the renewed rescue mission spread. And at midnight, a group of 10 helped rope the missing kayaker out of the cave through a crack at the top of the falls.
In our fall issue, we explore the close-knit communities found in extreme sports. Below, paddlers, climbers, mountain bikers and ultra-runners share stories about the unconditional camaraderie they’ve found in the outdoors.
“We as a community are like an unruly, sometimes smelly, extended family,” Lynn Barlow, skier and kayaker, writes in “A Culture of Compassion.” “We help each other because we’ve all been there. We’ve all been cold, or scared, or hurt, and had a friend or stranger’s kindness make all of the difference.”
Nature can be unforgiving, but human nature, at its best, is merciful.
We hope that all of our stories, which we’ll be sharing throughout the month in this newsletter, will inspire you to care more – for both the natural world and for each other.
– Sunny Montgomery, smontgomery@timesfreepress.com