Kayaking is fun.
Usually.
That’s why MHC Historical Society Staff Aide Davis Scott took a Friday off work to go with his friends kayaking on the Smith River.
He went with Jake Belton, sisters Jolie and Autumn Boyer and a person we’ll just call Lady X so as not to embarrass her for what we tell about her later in the story.
“This first goes wrong when we get to Jolie and Autum’s house,” where the kayaks are stored, he said. “We’re spraying off the kayaks and the handle of it starts spraying me – not sopping wet, but enough to make me mad, enough to make my glasses wet. Then I slip in the water.”
Then nobody could find the life jackets.
Once life jackets and kayaks were in order, it was time to back up the trailer, which was attached to Autum’s Jeep, to them – “and no one knows how to back it up.”
Davis stood in back to guide Autumn on which way to go – “the whole process of go forward, back up, pull forward, back up, pull forward. I eventually got tired of doing it so I picked up the trailer and put it on the hitch.” It was very heavy!
When Davis had been driving to the Boyer house, he noticed that a road work crew was setting up. The kayak crew didn’t get back down in time to beat the road closure, so instead, they had to go the long way around from Hidden Valley down Figsboro Road to King’s Mountain Road and then to the bottom of Philpott Dam.
At the dam they got everything unloaded from the trailer. As Autumn backed up the Jeep, “the trailer jackknifed and all we heard was ‘psst’ – a metal part of the trailer punctured a tire.
“Growing up, my family taught me how to change a tire not once, not twice but multiple times. However, they would not let me change the tire. They were afraid the jack would drop and fall. They say, ‘Let’s call Dad.’”
David Bowyer had to drive the 20 or 25 minutes from the Henry County Administration Building to the Smith River at the bottom of the dam.
The jack fit just fine under the Jeep when the tire was flat, but the jack didn’t raise it up high enough to fit the spare tire on.
“Well it was a struggle” to get a second jack out of a crowded vehicle, but they did.
When the tire was fixed, they took both vehicles to drop off the Jeep with trailer at the place they’d be getting out of the river.
After they dropped off the Jeep they all rode in Davis’s car back to their kayaks at the getting-in-the-river place. “I’m going back going 13 or 14 miles per hour down that back road and some guy’s standing on the side of the road with his granddaughters, and he says ‘Slow down! Slow down! You need to slow down!’ The speed limit is like 20 or 25 miles per hour, but he has a little makeshift speed limit sign that says 10 miles per hour, but I don’t think it’s approved by VDOT.
“We get up there and we’re the only car there. This is important later on.
“We get in the water and we immediately noticed that the water is like 8 or 9 inches lower than it should be, which is a lot when you go kayaking.
“Then we hear somebody running on the river bank up beside of the river and we notice it’s this guy and he’s like, ‘I told you to slow down!’” Davis said.
Well, this is where Lady X comes into the story. From her kayak, Lady X yells back in a markedly unladylike way: “‘Shut up, Bro!’”
Since Davis’s car was parked all by itself, he got worried over what the angry man might do to it, so he asked Lady X to compose herself and be quiet. However, she yelled again at the man: “‘Stop staring at us … Take a picture: It will last longer!’
“Now the whole time we’re kayaking I have to be worried about my car.”
In the lower-than-usual water, troubles, trials and tribulations ensued. The first incident was when Davis’s kayak T-boned Jolie’s, and she fell out and into the river.
They got stuck between rocks. They had to get out at times and drag their kayaks through super low areas. Autumn was chased and tormented the whole time by a horsefly.
“Right there at the very end I get stuck in rapids and I have to get out of my boat, walk down, then at one point I trip and fall and I scrape my left leg and then – this water is like 35 or 40 degrees. It is freezing. It is so cold that when you start to touch it your hand goes numb in at least a minute. Your hand starts to tingle and it starts to really hurt.”
Davis fell face-forward into the water, fully immersed: “When you hit that water it takes your breath away.”
He felt something on his foot but didn’t realize the severity of it until Jake said, “‘Oh my god, Davis, your foot is dripping blood.’”
They were almost out. To escape the river they just had to scoot their kayaks through an unusually shallow part at the bottom of Trent Hill. Autumn and Jolie’s kayaks got stuck in there. Davis pulled a muscle in his shoulder trying to get his out.
“It’s important to know that it was raining for half of this,” Davis added, shuddering at the memory. The rain made everyone feel that much colder.
“By this time I have tears coming down my face. This was supposed to be nice and relaxing. Usually when you go kayaking it’s a nice, pleasant experience. You have one or two moments like that,” but not the whole trip like that.
At least when they reached Davis’s car at their get-out point, it was just as he had left it.
