Live Whitewater

There's a feeling you get when you commit to the rapid.  When the eddy line releases and the current consumes you, at that very moment everything else ceases to exist.  The noise of the world goes quiet, and time stretches.  You're reading water, making micro-adjustments, feeling the boat respond beneath you.  It's a slow-motion dance between you and the river, and for those few seconds, nothing else in the universe matters.                                                                                I have been chasing this feeling since 2002, when a guided trip down the New River Gorge in West Virginia lit a fire that has never gone out.  What started as weekend runs on Appalachian rivers grew into commercial river guiding and weekslong self-supported expeditions.  Then finally, international trips to Wales, Costa Rica, Brazil and beyond.

I paddle because the river demands presence.  You can't worry about tomorrow when you are reading a class V rapid and you better not think about yesterday when you're ferrying across a pushy current.  It's all about that moment, that exact second in time when split second decisions make all the difference.  An old friend once explained his molecule theory to me.  He said, "when things get dicey remember, there is always a molecule of water going where you want to go.  All you have to do is put your boat on it."  Although as funny as it sounds, I have always paddled with that in mind.

Livewhitewater.com is my expedition log -- a living record of the rivers I've run, with photos, videos and the stories that go with them.  It's part journal, part archive, and part love letters to the rivers that have shaped me to the boatman and guide I am today.  Please enjoy, and if you have any questions, comments or you want me to take you down the river, I would love to hear from you.

                                                                                                  Zeb Williams