We had originally planned nothing more ambitious than a weekend camping trip near Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. The intention was simply to explore the area, hike a little, and perhaps scout future trips. Instead, through a familiar combination of curiosity, poor judgment, and misplaced confidence, the weekend gradually escalated into caves, whitewater, and several situations that in retrospect could easily have gone much worse than they did.
The trouble began after I missed our exit on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. After leaving the highway at the next interchange we unfolded a map across the hood of the car and discovered that with only a minor detour we could visit Mount Davis, the highest point in Pennsylvania. Several wrong turns later we eventually arrived at a summit so visually unremarkable that we nearly drove past it entirely. Had it not been for the signs marking the location, there would have been little indication that we had reached the highest ground in the state.
Somewhere along the back roads afterward we passed a large cave entrance directly beside the road. Naturally we stopped. The entrance disappeared straight into the hillside before being blocked by a heavy steel gate, and after examining it for a few minutes we convinced ourselves it must have been part of an abandoned mining operation.
By late afternoon we finally arrived in Ohiopyle. The town was crowded with rafters, kayakers, cyclists, hikers, and the general atmosphere of organized outdoor recreation. The Youghiogheny River moved fast and brown beneath the bridges while rafting outfitters lined the streets advertising trips through the Lower Yough.
We drove on to the campground and managed to secure the last available campsite along with a mild lecture about making reservations next time. After setting up camp we decided to visit Laurel Caverns, which Ricky vaguely remembered from years earlier. Our original plan had been simply to gather information for a future trip, but after learning that part of the cave could be explored independently, we rented helmets, grabbed our flashlights, and headed underground.
At first the cave seemed straightforward enough. Laurel Caverns contains numerous intersecting passages and breakdown sections that appear deceptively similar underground, but we were convinced we understood the map perfectly. Before long we were crawling through narrow passages, squeezing through breakdowns, and confidently making a series of increasingly poor navigational decisions.
I was having a great time. Ricky was considerably less enthusiastic.
The farther we wandered from the entrance the narrower and wetter the passages became. In places we crawled belly-down through shallow streams beneath ceilings barely high enough to lift our heads. At one point I led us down a steep side passage believing it would reconnect with the main route, only to discover we had emerged somewhere entirely different than expected. We retraced our route repeatedly, searching for passages that seemed obvious on the map but impossible to locate underground.
After several hours of this I was becoming increasingly thirsty and frustrated, mostly because I had no interest whatsoever in requiring an organized rescue inside a commercial cave. Ricky had progressed well beyond frustration by that point. Every time I suggested another possible route he stared at me silently with the expression of someone reconsidering several important life decisions simultaneously.
Eventually, through persistence and blind luck in roughly equal measure, we located the narrow connecting passage we had somehow overlooked multiple times earlier. Moments later we emerged back into the main entrance chamber dirty, exhausted, and considerably more relieved than either of us cared to admit.
Back at the visitor center we returned our helmets, cleaned ourselves up as best we could, and drove back toward camp. On the way we stopped at several rafting outfitters to collect brochures. Most offered guided raft trips on the Lower Youghiogheny River, but I quickly became interested in the kayaks. Ricky had previously run the river in rafts and understood exactly what the rapids were capable of. I, on the other hand, possessed just enough canoeing experience to dramatically overestimate my competence.
Somehow I convinced him this was a good idea.
That evening at camp Ricky described the river in steadily increasing detail while we cooked dinner and attempted to wash the remaining cave mud from ourselves. By the time he finished explaining the larger rapids, hydraulics, undercuts, and recovery procedures, he had nearly convinced me we were about to die.
Unfortunately, I already had prior experience with the power of moving water. Years earlier my brother-in-law and I had nearly been killed on a canoe trip after rounding a bend directly into a river-wide logjam. The current caught the canoe broadside and pinned us against the logs hard enough to punch holes completely through the fiberglass hull. My brother-in-law was nearly swept underneath before managing to grab hold of the jam itself. Somehow we escaped with little more than a destroyed canoe and a very clear understanding that rivers do not care how confident or experienced a person believes himself to be.
Now, sitting beside the campground fire listening to the river somewhere out in the darkness, I found myself wondering why I was voluntarily placing myself back into moving water again, particularly while paying for the privilege.
We broke camp before sunrise and reported to the outfitter along with the rest of our group. After a brief safety lecture we carried the kayaks down to the river and launched into cold, fast-moving water beneath low morning clouds.
The first rapids went reasonably well. Because the kayaks maneuvered more quickly than the rafts, Ricky and I were usually sent through first while the rafts followed behind us. I adapted fairly quickly to reading the water and choosing lines through the rapids. Ricky struggled almost immediately, barely recovering several times from mistakes that would have overturned the kayak completely if the river had been slightly less forgiving.
Eventually his luck ran out and he flipped. Fortunately he managed to recover both himself and the kayak without serious trouble, though by then his confidence had deteriorated badly. There was no practical way to stop or exit the river at that point, so we continued downstream toward the largest rapid before lunch.
One by one the rafts made it through with varying degrees of success before the guide motioned for us to follow. I cleared the rapid cleanly and spun the kayak around below the drop just in time to watch Ricky enter slightly off line, the current immediately driving him sideways into the rock hard enough to throw him half out of the boat.
Moments later the river had stripped away both kayak and paddle while Ricky somehow managed to scramble onto the rock itself where he sat dripping wet and staring at the water with absolute horror. The guide retrieved the kayak and shouted for Ricky to jump back into the river. Ricky did not appear especially enthusiastic about this suggestion and for several long seconds remained crouched on the rock staring at the water raging below him while everyone else waited.
Eventually, having no better alternative, he jumped.
A few moments later he was reunited with the kayak farther downstream, though whatever confidence he had brought onto the river that morning had disappeared entirely. Lunch afterward was quiet.
The remaining rapids passed without serious incident and by afternoon we reached the takeout exhausted, soaked, and sore from hours of tension and paddling. We hauled the kayaks up the steep bank, loaded them onto the truck, changed into dry clothing, and sat silently for a while letting adrenaline and fatigue gradually drain away.
The drive home passed mostly in exhausted silence.