By now at least one of you is thinking, “What a moron, that guy deserves to die for running solo!” But wait. First, I’d rather run solo than wait forever for a group to come together. In fact, I rather like solitude. Second, if I was with another boat, we would still have just as much trouble, maybe twice as much. Third … I quickly saved the situation. Running over the gravel bar, I got below the boat, waited for it to come along, waded back into the river, swam out, towed in, unflipped, pulled out the spare paddle, and went downriver in search of my only lost items, the primary paddle and my drag bag of beer, which had been lashed across my other goods but not securely enough.

The beer was nicely caught in some flood debris and recovered within minutes. Not far below, the paddle was stuck against a couple of rushes in mid-stream. I picked it up, stowed the spare, cracked a beer, and when on, colder, wiser, but 100% intact.

I soon stopped for a snack and to inspect the inventory. A York Box is not truly dry, nor are most dry bags. Some gear and food was a bit damp, so I spread out for an hour on a sunny gravel bar to dry, then pushed on till late afternoon and camp after reviewing my in-water de-flip strategy and making some modifications.

By now I had only made 15 miles in a day and a quarter due to the rapids, scouting, portaging, flipping, sleeping in, and so on. Wednesday I moved much faster and harder, covering 20 miles in spite of scouting often and lining twice. Below Fossil Creek things get a lot easier as the flow built, especially below East Verde. Here the flood debris from the previous storms was up to 20 feet above river level, and even in the eddies trees had been laid down – pointing upstream in the back current!

Jim Slingluff’s Verde River Recreation Guide suggests that below Childs, it’s all pretty easy. He does mention a rapid called Nasty Little Dogleg. The FS guide calls it a III. Slingluff’s narrative goes “The rapid, though not difficult by whitewater standards, can be visually intimidating to beginners.”