Saluda Sodality:
New Brotherhoods and Departures
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Like many others, the thought of going on the Great American River Adventure had crossed his mind.
With the coming of Chris Jordan was what I would say was the start of life in the canoe. When I met him, I was swiftly heading for a breakup that I don’t really care to talk about. Chris was skinny fat then, had chestnut dreadlocks, and tended to break even on the amount of trouble he talked himself out of as he talked himself into. He was wearing maroon cutoff shorts, and I had thought I’d seen everything. After several beers and a shot or two, he mentioned that he had recently traded some doodad from a scrapyard for an unsellable canoe, and that’s when it hit me. “Hey, would you want to canoe to Charleston? Think of it as a way for me to see how you get on with the water, and we can talk about that sailboat stuff along the way.” I could see the line of thoughts ricocheting around in his head, and it drew constellations of campfires by the riverside and then, much later, schooners in Fiji. Like many others, the thought of going on the Great American River Adventure had crossed his mind. For Chris, though, this opportunity was only the start of something bigger. After he connected his dots, he blurted out, “I’m in!” I smiled, looked down, and said, “Only if you wear those horrible shorts.”
Now, there isn’t a better way to see the state of South Carolina than by river. The Saluda River, the US Army Corps of Engineers says, meanders 180 miles from the base of Sassafras Mountain, the highest point in The Palmetto State, down to Columbia. None of those miles are navigable for commercial interests, which makes this tranquil waterway especially suited for the Great American River Adventure. If you continue past the capital, through the Congaree Swamp, and down the Cooper River, then you will have experienced the entire natural and historical spectrums of South Carolina, ranging from the Appalachian Mountains to the marshy wetlands, and from the textile country to bourgie Charleston, respectively. And that’s what we intended to do.
We got a late start on that first day, with getting up to the state line and all. When we did settle into the river, you might have laughed when you noticed that our aspirations didn’t quite match our current reality. Wading through ankle-deep water, Chris and I spent the whole first day dragging that sixteen-foot green canoe over old stone dams, shallow rock beds, and sandbanks. As canoes go, this beast was the Cadillac El Dorado of rivers, and weighed as much as one, too. We only covered a miserable five miles that day, and I still remember the pangs of embarrassment when he asked, “How much longer is it going to be like this?” The truth is that, at that time, I did not know. I reminded Chris, however, of the often excluded part of the axiom that goes, “Half of life is showing up.” “The other half is dealing with what you’ve just signed yourself up for,” I said as a teachable moment to him and a bitter reminder to myself. That night, Chris and I slept at the confluence of the North and South Saluda Rivers, eager to get this canoe trip going.
After the journey’s start left me with a small hangover, Chris and I approached the boiling waters of Blythe Shoals the next morning, which American Whitewater classifies as a Class III-IV rapid. The problem we had here, you see, was not that we lacked the requisite experience to run such a challenging piece of water. Rather, the problem we had at this rapid was the cantankerous-old-person type. Specifically, we had an “Old White Person” problem. As we were scouting out the line, this disagreeable old man comes hobbling up the shore, telling us he's going to call the cops if we don’t leave immediately. That he owns land on both sides of the river, and we’re currently trespassing. Now, I had heard about this guy on kayaking forums in the middle of my research, but I always thought of him more as the troll under the bridge, a sort of tall tale, if you will. The way I saw it was: we’d zip through shoals, and this troll would be none the wiser. I also thought it to be rather ignoble to get cantankerous over something that cannot be truly owned by one individual - a river. What the old man didn’t know was that I had an ace up my sleeve, though.
In the short time that I had known Chris Jordan, I had learned that he had the gift of the gab. I had seen him finesse his way around the nightlife in downtown Greenville. He had even talked a cop out of a traffic infraction that I was plenty guilty of. I said, “Chris, why don’t you see if you can’t talk him into calming down a little bit?” I give it about fifteen minutes that they talked down on the shore. I saw them shake hands amicably, and I knew things had worked out. Chris came back up the hill, and we launched ourselves into the steady pool of water just before the churning rapids began. Looking over the edge, I began thinking that getting that surly old man off our backs might have been the easiest part to this whole Blythe Shoals thing. Like this whole journey before us, like any other adventure in life at all, we just decided to stick our necks out there and see what happens.
Now, perhaps, a sixteen-foot canoe, built for comfort not for speed, was not the best vessel for this section of the river. Further down? Definitely. The place where we got stuck and had raging water swamping the boat, possibly turtling and sending us to our riparian graves? Absolutely not. In a panic, I stuck my right foot out and almost lost it when the boat broke free from the rocks, and then we took off like a scalded cat. At the bottom of the rapid, that lumbering canoe was halfway foundering. We waved to that old man as we passed his house. I said, “Chris, what’d you even say to that guy?” “I just told him we weren’t just out here fucking around. That we were going all the way to Charleston. Hell or highwater.” Somehow that convinced the old man. Was it the idea that the adventure is bigger than us all? That his hostility wasn't going to stop us anyway? Who knows? All I do know is that old, white man must have thought we were a ship of fools, plenty certain that we were going to die on our way south, as we bailed out a bathtub full of water going past his front porch.
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Blythe Shoals. Cleveland, SC
Blythe Shoals. Cleveland, SC
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Nine dams impound the Saluda River. Initially, these dams were used to power the textile mills that rich Charlestonians brought to the Upstate in the late 1800s. The three near my front porch were built exclusively for this purpose. Almost all of the mills have since been torn down, after every possible penny of profit extracted, and the dams that, indirectly, lit the lights, that spun the spindles, that wove the weavers were left standing as a small token of thanks from those…intelligent businessmen. Now, moving south, those obsolete dams stood in the way of our journey to the sea.
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I know what you’re thinking. Yes. That canoe was a hell of a cross to bear. I kept thinking, when we had to portage around that first dam in Greenville, slipping in that ruddy Carolina clay, backpacks full of gear, of how convenient it would have been to just slip on down the river in that green El Dorado.
It wasn’t all burden, though. During the day, Chris would serenade me a ballad from The Avett Brothers, as we paddled in unison. Out of nowhere. Sitting in the bow, I’d sometimes catch fright, in the middle of my stroke, and look back in cross-eyed confusion. Often, we would talk about the peculiarities of getting a job on a sailboat. Sometimes, we would sit in the natural silence. It was really those muted times I liked the most. My mind would drift to somebody I had left behind in Korea, and to where that whole thing was going to end up. I hadn’t left her in Daejeon on the best of terms. I mean, we were together still, but things were getting rocky.
For lunch, we would each prefabricate a whole sleeve of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the night before. That way, in the middle of the day, you could just reach in, grab a sandwich, and get on with it. For two weeks, we ate almost nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And red bulls. Lots of red bulls. Except, Chris didn’t drink red bulls at all. So, it was just me, really. Usually, I would shotgun it, and throw the can in the boat behind me, and the rush would get me through the rest of the day’s paddle. At night, we would camp wherever it got dark, and there were plenty of places. Chris was pretty handy at building fires, so we’d end up chatting more beside the fire than on the water. Back then, my dinky flip phone didn’t have good reception, and perhaps that was for the best.
Coming into our hometown, Chris and I were about eight years too late to paddle around the bend and see the massive structures of the mills in Pelzer. From the water, it would have been a more impressive sight than riding by them on my Huffy as a kid. Ironically, those historic mills, that went out of business because the industry got sold offshore, also got sold offshore, brick by brick, after the wells had run dry. Those intelligent businessmen found a clever way to sell everything. Well, almost every damn thing.
Getting around the Pelzer Dam was the easiest of the nine entrenched on the Saluda River. We had known the trails that the fishermen would use to go from one side of the dam to the other since we were kids. We even knew a secret little place we could stash that green El Dorado so we could reprovision for the next leg. Still, there was an easier and obvious way to pass along the river more efficiently. To date, there have been no real conversations about tearing down the obsolete dams used for the textile industry. The South Carolina Aquatic Connectivity Team Regulatory Committee said in December 2021 that the two dams closest to my front porch are owned by Consolidated Hydro Southeast, LLC., which is another group of intelligent businessmen, I guess.
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Pelzer Mill Hill. Pelzer, SC
Pelzer Mill Hill. Pelzer, SC
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Maybe that’s why I liked life in the canoe so much…not an intelligent businessman to be found! The only smart thing we ever did on that trip was find a way to set a spinnaker from the bow. One day, back in Pelzer, Chris and I went to his junkyard, where he found an old aluminum window washing pole. He lopped off the male end of the pole and found a way to glue it into the bow. Whenever we wanted to use it as a mast, all we had to do was screw the female end in and launch the sail. Easy peazy. It wasn’t until we got to Lake Greenwood, which was really a large pool of the Saluda River tapped for flood control and drinking water, that we were able to give the rig a proper sea trial. And what a glorious sail it was! Blue. With a crescent moon. And a tall palmetto tree. The only problem we found was that the state flag was more of a napkin than a sail. When we did put it up, we found that it provided us with acceptable, if lazy, propulsion. Yet, that ungainly El Dorado needed something more. Then, I remembered the rain fly from my tent. Admittedly, at first, I was a little nervous about the idea. I was a little nervous that we would set the bigger sail, get hit by a puff, and then get capsized, looking like the ship of fools the old man at Blythe Shoals took us for. If only he could have seen us when the big, green rain fly was up, though! With the right wind angle, that green piece of nylon was a tower of power. That green piece of nylon pushed that green canoe, and us, almost all the way down Lake Murray, just shy of Columbia. It was a sad but necessary moment when we had to douse the green kite in the dying night breeze, city lights to the east.
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Piedmont Dam. Piedmont, SC
Piedmont Dam. Piedmont, SC
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Angry Cow
Angry Cow
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Ware Shoals Dam. Ware Shoals, SC
Ware Shoals Dam. Ware Shoals, SC
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Portaging around Piedmont Dam. Piedmont, SC
Portaging around Piedmont Dam. Piedmont, SC
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Saluda Lake Dam. Greenville, SC
Saluda Lake Dam. Greenville, SC
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Pelzer Dam. Pelzer, SC
Pelzer Dam. Pelzer, SC
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Lower Pelzer Dam. Pelzer, Dam
Lower Pelzer Dam. Pelzer, Dam
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First Sail. Lake Greenwood, SC
First Sail. Lake Greenwood, SC
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Improved design. Lake Murray, SC
Improved design. Lake Murray, SC
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Intake towers for Dreher Shoals Dam. Lexington, SC
Intake towers for Dreher Shoals Dam. Lexington, SC
The next day, we made our march on Columbia, just like General William Tecumseh Sherman almost 160 years before. The only thing Chris and I will ever have in common with that honorable general is that all three of us have burned that city to the ground. We went hootin’. We went hollerin’. We went honking-tonkin’. Chris and I, by that point, had solidified a kind of brotherhood that comes with prolonged discomfort, and pain, with collective agreements on how to live life well. When I think about it, we were closer to Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac rambling in a canoe than Chris Jordan and Joseph Waits. This newfound sodality charged the last two legs of the journey on down to Charleston, making it easier to step into the El Dorado and paddle for hours on end. As for the rest of our time in Columbia, we squatted in a cruddy park as we waited for storm clouds to pass. The park, which was right downtown, was also inhabited by other ne’er-do-wells, and Chris proclaimed it, Doo-Doo Beach, and in every way was that appropriate. The only caveat to this fine city living was that cell phones now worked. One morning, after a night of carousing, I woke up in my tent, on Doo-Doo Beach, to the unenviable text of: “We need to talk.”
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Step-print of sailing the El Dorado
Step-print of sailing the El Dorado