Tempting Fate From Depths of Satan’s Pool

You hear the phrase “Satan’s Cesspool” and can’t help but imagine an unbearably hot, dirty, smelly, repulsive place.

The name itself brings to mind an old joke about the guy who dies and is given a choice of accommodations in hell. Perhaps you remember Satan’s punch line: “O.K., coffee break’s over. Everybody back on your head.”

Anyway, I’ve taken a dip in Satan’s Cesspool and have now returned to tell the tale. It wasn’t hot and stinky at all, but bracingly cold, clean and refreshing. And there’s certainly something invigorating about a burst of adrenaline.

All things considered, however, I’d rather not go for another unscheduled swim.

Satan’s Cesspool--at least the one I’m familiar with--is a tricky little stretch of rapids on the South Fork of the American River. This was where I found myself in mid-July, just a few weeks after California’s raging rivers had become uncommonly lethal. El Nino had set a trap high in the Sierra months before. A heat wave turned the heavy snowpack into a heavy snow melt and a surge of white water that claimed a dozen lives in June, including three right there on the South Fork of the American.

The woman who is threatening to marry me booked this trip a few days before the grim headlines, but we never thought of canceling. The flow would slow, of course, and besides, we weren’t neophytes. We had each survived the storied Kern River (a.k.a. “the Killer Kern”) three times. The American, in a normal season, lacks the Kern’s macho reputation. With more than 30 outfitters working the river, the American is known as a crowded river that draws families and beginners.

Jolene, our head guide, didn’t want to talk about the fatalities on the bus ride out to the launch point, a place called Chili Bar. The week before, Jolene said, she had guided a group of Girl Scouts who had asked her at every other rapid: “Is this where it happened? Is this?”

The topic seldom came up on this two-day trip, perhaps because deep down inside everyone knew they were there to tempt fate, if only just a little. True thrills come with true danger.

An editor once coached me to think about “the allure of Eros and Thanatos” while writing about the Northridge earthquake. I must have had a blank look on my face because then he said, “Eros and Thanatos: Sex and Death.” He thought that particular quake story should have explored the adrenalized excitement that comes with surviving close calls. The earth may have moved, but to me, the quake always was too terrifying to be sexy.

Oh, but white-water rafting--now there I understand the Eros and Thanatos business, the appeal of living on the proverbial edge. (In a life-preserver, of course.)

And for the uninitiated out there, the edge is where you are supposed to sit when you paddle an inflatable rubber raft down river. You don’t sit down in the middle except in a panic. And our crew, a convivial bunch, didn’t seem prone to panic.

There were Amy and Taylor, two working moms from the Bay Area taking a break from family. And there were Michael, a neurologist from Encino, and his 15-year-old son, Jeff. Our guide happened to be Michael’s other son, David, a 25-year-old law student.

Saturday was all good fun, the cold water a respite from 100-plus degree weather. Although the river was above normal, its flow was only half the level it was a few weeks before. Rapids change with the flow, and nothing the first day seemed to match the Kern.

Sunday we broke camp late and made our way down river. We passed a rapid called the African Queen--so called, David said, because parts of the movie were filmed there. The greater test, he assured us, would come later, when the river’s velocity picked up as we entered a gorge. And here, too, would come our photo opportunities.

Something else about rafting that most people don’t know until they try it. Call them the river paparazzi, independent photographers shooting every raft that passes by. On your way out of camp, you can’t help but want to see what you look like on one of nature’s best thrill rides. So you plunk down a few twenties for your scrapbook.

Satan’s Cesspool, as it turned out, was our first photo op.

The memory of what happened is somehow both blurry and sharp. The photos helped only a little.

The current eased left, then swiftly turned right at a big boulder, dropping us into a frothy “hole” that seemed to bend the raft into a taco shell. I was sitting in the front left position. My left foot kicked high in the air and wound up outside the boat, leaving me straddling the gunwale. One leg in and one leg out is not recommended for a class 3+ rapid. I could feel the river pull at the Velcro buckles of my rubber sandal.

Experience has now taught me that the proper response would have been to panic and dive toward the inside of the boat, with or without my sandal. This wouldn’t look very cool, however. Smaller bumps followed the hole, and every time I tried to lift my leg into the boat, I felt my rump slip farther and farther out until I was, very briefly, sitting on air. This is not recommended either.

Suddenly I was drinking from Satan’s Cesspool and thrashing back to the raft. In a matter of seconds, Michael yanked me back aboard. The river ripped off both of my sandals, which were retrieved by our friends in another boat.

The photographer, as it happened, missed my unscheduled swim. We were through the worst of Satan’s Cesspool.

There was one more photo op, a few minutes later. These pictures told the story.

Everything looks fine at first, a determined crew of seven muscling through a rapid called Haystack. The next shot shows Taylor losing her balance, falling backward toward the water, her left foot swinging toward the unsuspecting woman sitting in front of her, the one who booked our voyage.

The last shot shows a crew of five.

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Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.