Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Matt Zeleznick and the power of denial

This last Monday, our friend Matt Zeleznick made his return to the Upper Yough for the summer. The level was a beefy 2.5' but Matt, having had a bad day on the river at that level in the previous year, would have surely been concerned had he known about this day's water volume. At the put in, the crowd (and by this I mean every boater there) decided to all say that the level was 2.2', a level that Matt was more familiar with.

While myself and another individual distracted Matt with conversation about work in order to draw him to the opposite side of the river, the word was passed and every boater on the Upper Yough quickly began referring to the great 2.2' level we were going to paddle today. In the end, the fable worked and Matt had a fantastic day on the river. After letting him in on the deception, he sent the following email:

Wanted to say thank you to everyone for keeping me in the dark about the level yesterday. Made for a fun run (at 2.2) with a lot less anxiety than if I had known what the level actually was. Anyways thinking back on it there are a lot of funny instance that should have clued me in. Hopefully you enjoy these...

- While in Friendsville Carl proclaims that we are looking at something along the lines of 2.5... Should have been a big clue
An unusally small crowd at Sang Run with a lot of experienced boaters and a seemingly high ratio of rafts to hard boats... but hey it's a monday.

- Jason and Bryan sprint in the flat water at the put-in to catch up to me to ask about work. Was a little odd to see such urgency from them on such an obscure subject. Really interesting how the conversation ended so abruptly after the sang run bridge.

-The hole at the bottom gap seems a lot stouter than I remember it.

-Bernstein pulls into the eddy before bastard proclaiming "It is pushy today" to which Jason tells him "You haven't been out here at 2.2 in a while."... Yes there was definite emphasis on 2.2.

-Seeing Bryan take an interesting line at mushroom cloud and hearing that most days there's a boof on that line.

-Above triple drop Matt tells me to remember to hit the boof at the pyramid rock to slow down in the boil... very helpful had the pyramid rock not been underwater.

-No one boofs national

-Great boof to the right side of Tommy's - to self: "why don't we run that more often?"

-"You really want to hit your boof at meat cleaver today - that hole is big."

-Kurt informing me that I should paddle fast and hard through some boogy water before powerful popper because of the level today.

-By the way I haven't heard anything inapropriate from Kurt since we got to the meat of the run.


Great job Matt!!!