In the summer of 1987 a friend and I set out to float down the Gunnison River in Colorado, from the town of the same name into the Blue Mesa Reservoir. In retrospect, floating was what I had been doing mentally as well for quite a while —drifting into trouble. I had gone on this vacation from what I considered a maddening job, and was feeling put upon, trapped, and angry—not ideal mental conditions for doing anything that required careful thinking.
Before we set off, I felt something was wrong, but did not want to tell my friend, because I was determined to have a good time. At one point in the journey my friend felt impelled to stop the boat on a sandbar and suggested we tie down more securely the small life jackets we wore. We both felt strongly that this was something we needed to do. We had not checked the river in detail beforehand—that is, had not walked it from the beginning of our course to the end—and were apprehensive about getting into a channel with a large rock next to a whirlpool.
A few minutes after leaving the sandbar, we encountered a line of snags blocking all but a few yards of the fast-moving river. I didn't slot our boat straight into the clear water in time, and hung it up on a snag. We were dumped into the water, and I struck a submerged root hard, injuring something in my right side, below the ribs.
