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  Yough welcomes our river sojourners with cold, wet splash June 23, 1998
OHIOPYLE -- I hate to say I shrank from the challenge of the mighty Youghiogheny River. But, man, was that water cold when it first sloshed over my shorts yesterday morning. Being soaked was pretty much the theme of the first of six days of our "River Sojourn" down 74 miles of the Yough, from Confluence in Somerset County to McKeesport in Allegheny County. Post-Gazette photographer Annie O'Neill and I are among about 20 amphibious folks who are doing the whole adventure. It's sponsored by the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to foster appreciation for the many attributes of 1998's state River of the Year. A total of about 100 sojourners are joining us for a day or two, as we journey along the river by canoes and rafts and, on the adjacent Yough River Trail, on bicycles -- camping out along the way. For the first morning, we numbered about 55. Most of us were wet hours before we even launched, thanks to a downpour that hit as we woke and broke camp from just below the dam at Youghiogheny Lake. As will be the case for most of the trip, our breakfast was fixed for us by a community group: the ladies auxiliary of the volunteer fire department in Confluence. It's a postcard-pretty town so named because it sits where the Casselman River joins the Yough. We were shuttled over in vans, in which it occurred to me that already we were smelling like bird dogs. But thanks to the auxiliary ladies, we stoked ourselves with scrambled eggs, ham, potatoes, toast, juice and hot coffee from big metal urns. Around 9:30 a.m., we gathered at the edge of the rushing river, which was blanketed in a thick-as-fleece fog. But still you could have used sunglasses: Our outfitter, Wilderness Voyageurs, littered the banks with multi-colored inflatable kayaks called duckies. We sojourners were even more garishly garbed in our coverings of Gore-tex, nylon and neoprene. And, boy, did we clash with the green sport coat and green tie of Somerset County Commissioner Dave Mankamyer, one of the dignitaries who came out to meet our party. He read a proclamation that we look to be hearing a lot of over the next week, filled with "whereases" about the Yough's assets -- history, scenic beauty, recreation, wildlife, even commerce and industry. As we learned in an outdoor slide show at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campground the night before, water released from the dam not only generates electricity, but it also helps keep water levels high enough for barges and other boats to navigate the Monongahela and Ohio rivers farther down. (We also learned it's bear mating season, so we shouldn't take any food into our tent, but I digress.) "We're proud of our river," Mankamyer concluded, wishing us all a safe journey before zinging us, "And I'm sure there's a hairdresser waiting at the other end." Then, after we all had duckies, life vests and paddles, and the guides went over the safety rules, we "put in" to the water so icy -- about 58 to 60 degrees -- that Annie and I gasped.
With whoops, the assembled flotilla started down this stretch of the river, which most folks call the middle Yough. Annie whispered, "This is heaven." And it was breathtakingly gorgeous: The dark, swirling water, and the ghosts of green mountains rising all around out of the fog that seemed one with the low clouds. Sojourner Annie Sheer, of Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, was a vision as she floated gently down the stream, her head haloed in mist and with the wild flowers, willow bows and other plants she'd plucked from the shore. If you were near enough, you could hear her softly singing sea chanties. Alas, within minutes, the rain was slashing down again. But it was warm enough that none of us seemed to mind too much. The rapids on this part of the river are Class I and Class II, which are pretty mild, but they still can get hungry. Wilderness Voyageurs owner Eric Martin also warned us to watch out for the "Yough Ness Monster." Early on, one senior-citizen sojourner flipped his ducky in a rapid, and things got serious, but Martin, in his orange whitewater canoe, executed a textbook rescue with help from the other guides. Later, Annie and I tried to help rescue one of the friends we've made, 35-year-old Bill Fiesta of Connellsville. He and his neighbor, Rob Hyatt, decided to do this leg in their own hard-plastic kayaks, like they do all the time, living so near the Yough. They're not like some natives, who, as Hyatt puts it, "are scared of that big ol' river." But they're reminded to respect it, every time the river flips them and they go for a long, unintentional "swim" like Fiesta did. When he came up for air, we yelled for him to grab the side of our big two-person ducky, grabbed his paddle, and steered him through some rapids to shore. He said he was fine, caught his breath, and climbed back in his craft. The heavy fog stayed with us to lunch -- cold cuts, cookies, fruit, lemonade -- that the outfitter set up on folding tables in a lush meadow just up from a beach.
But the resuming rain cut the revelry short, and sent us shivering back to the boats for the last 5 miles of our 11.8-mile day. Soon enough, we finally paddled in sunshine, and almost were to Ohiopyle, when Annie and I bounced off a boulder the wrong way and -- plop! -- Annie fell off and underwater. She surfaced right beside the ducky and was able to be pulled/climb right back in. After she calmed down, she said, "Actually, it felt pretty good." We all were feeling good at the end, around 2 p.m. Those of you who read yesterday's report may remember the 75-year-old, retired insurance salesman from Bradford Woods who decided to go on this trip -- his first time on the water and first time camping -- on a lark? In the heat of filing reports from a laptop computer, I misspelled Don Nixon's last name, but he's still speaking to me. And what he said when we reached Ohiopyle was, "Quite a trip, Bob. I loved it. It was wonderful ... If you got tired, you could just let the river take you." After we were shuttled to Ohiopyle State Park, we set up our tents to dry out in the group camping area. In a picnic pavilion there, thanks to the Ohiopyle-Stewart Community Center, we wolfed down a spread of spaghetti, garlic bread, salad, brownies and slabs of watermelon. Later, we were to have a big campfire, with singing. As I type this Monday evening, in the office at the Ohiopyle Visitors Center, fellow sojourners are next door oohing and ahhing over videos that depict whitewater much worse than what we faced yesterday. We face that today. Annie and I hope to survive it to file another report. Or at least to have another dinner.
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