Hallelujiah! It's October and I didn't think I could get any more excited until I read the letter in this morning's mail bag. Now I'm really cranked! My old pal Slim Chance, world famous cowboy poet, sage of the sagebrush, masseur to Madonna, is on his way. He's riding in with the hordes to rope the Russell.
Since last we spoke, Slim has taken to the whitewater circuit. He paddles a strange amalgamation of canoe and kayak he calls a kayoo by day and peddles cowboy poet t-shirts at the festivals by night. Said he's having the most fun he's had since he quit busting bulls. This is what else he said:
From over the border, West Virginia way
to you I am scribbling my brother SJ
beside me the raging Gauley River wide
all around brave paddlers prepare for the ride
breaking bulls and busting waves are thrillseeking kin
the difference is here ya better know how to swim
I too in my kayoo did brave the rushing stream
and if rapids numbered twenty, I surely swam fifteen
but to relay my fun is not why I picked up this pen
it's what I've seen over here makes me write you again
cause if some of your folk could come over and see
what whitewater and tourism has done for this economy
then maybe they'd try to find a healthy solution
to keep your town going without so much pollution
and when king coal has dried up and all blown away
Russell Fork will keep drawing these people to play
just keep them coming and before long you will find
where they go to paddle they leave money behind
come look at Fayetteville which a few years ago
was a boarded up ghost town all broken and cold
but today is thriving with shops and cafes
filled with travellers and tourists with nothing but praise
for the clean little town on the banks of the stream
that flows like new money in an old banker's dream...
Well, the letter goes on and on, but you get the idea. We're moving into another whitewater season, another wave of paddlers and nature lovers will invade our corner of paradise for a month. They'll return home with wild stories of adventure and incredible beauty, wondering why we aren't pushing this thing to the next level.
Our tunnell-vision leaders will worry about the number of rafters being down, ignoring the fact that kayakers and canoeists are on the rise. A lot of people will have a great time, a few people will make some money (still mainly people who don't live here), and the trout people will complain that all that released water will disturb the fish they introduced to our river.
Well, today there's over 5000 cfs of water running through Elkhorn like a locomotive. I wonder if those trout folk will threaten to sue God over the rain. If season started today (Wednesday), there'd be too much water. But by Saturday, it should be down to navigable levels.
This will be another exciting whitewater season on the Russell Fork. The word continues to spread about our place and there'll be a lot of folk here for the first time. If we do the right things, they'll keep coming back. It's time to make some serious decisions about the future of tourism in the Russell Fork corridor. We've talked and talked and still there is talk about projects that would essentially kill our hopes of becoming a true functioning attraction, such as intrusive development of sky-lifts and such in the Breaks.
But I'm not going to worry about that stuff until November. Right now, I'm kicking back, waiting for Slim to arrive. October is our month and I'm going to wallow in it. Or, in the words of Slim:
don't speak to me of crises or empires falling
the sweet siren song of the Russell is calling!