Cattle-Tank Paddling: the Raucous Nebraska River Race Where Everybody Wins

By 9 o’clock the following morning, we’re snaking via a mixed-grass prairie in an overheated college bus, knee to knee with our competitors, gulping air beneath bib overalls and an excessive amount of flannel. In true Nebraska trend, the temperature plunged roughly 30 levels in a single day, and it’s now slightly below freezing. The Sandhills glitter with snow, and I can image a completed canvas hanging within the window of CaLinda’s Pot Store and Artwork Gallery already: the marble sky, the frosted bunchgrass, the empty street winding via the hills. My mind is throbbing and my abdomen unsure, however for a minute I drift away, misplaced in a well-known reverie.

Greater than as soon as, I’ve hiked this baffling panorama and skilled one thing near faith. I’ve uncorked its intoxicating silence. I’ve sipped the melancholy. I’ve traced the wind for miles: from the cottonwoods shimmering alongside the river to the cedars swaying behind the farmhouse to the cattails dancing within the pond beside me. It by no means grows previous. This land could also be personal, I assumed throughout a short second of readability, however the marvel is mine to maintain.

5 miles later, we stagger from the bus right into a valley cluttered with cedar timber. A dozen shining inventory tanks crowd the banks, geared up with aluminum paddles and customized seating. We discover one labeled Creek Boys, toss our coolers within the center, and huddle round it just like the simpleminded bovines for which these troughs have been initially supposed. As Glidden promised, there’s loads of water within the river. It flows swift and regular behind us, the epochs laid naked within the muddy cliffs above. The Creek Boys self-medicate with somewhat hair of the canine, and since considered one of them is a pharmacist, I relent.

Our beginning instances are staggered by three-minute intervals, and as we watch the primary few groups push off, barking instructions and churning water and at last vanishing across the bend, we briefly ponder making an attempt to win. All of us have been athletic sufficient in highschool to really feel the previous spark of competitors, and I can see it now in Jared’s eyes particularly—he’s watching the opposite groups, finding out their method. He stands somewhat taller, grips the paddle tighter. Beside him, Scott cracks one other beer. He watches it foam over the lip and drip into the grass.

“I made a decision I don’t need to do that,” he says.

We shove our tank into the water and scramble aboard. We sound like a rubbish truck, empty cans rattling throughout the metal flooring, boots hitting our bodies, the pathetic grunts and groans of 34-year-old males whose expertise with the fitness center is generally historic. Squatting onshore, a teenage volunteer grips the metal rim, ready for the sign.

“Is that this factor watertight?” Invoice asks.

The boy shrugs. “Possibly?”

An SUV parked on the street above honks twice, and instantly our tank is spinning and the shore is receding and the Creek Boys are dragging their asses from one facet to the opposite, vainly looking for equilibrium. We crash into the muddy cliffs as soon as, twice, 3 times earlier than we spherical the primary bend and drop our paddles altogether. Grassy islands braid the river forward. Ruddy cedars jut out from the banks. The sky is flat and grey; Invoice ups the amount on Boston’s “Let Me Take You House Tonight” with out cracking a smile. For a minute, we fall silent.

“Can we do our greatest to not simply spin this factor in circles?” Scott lastly asks. He feels like center administration, cautious along with his pronouns. “As a result of I’ll throw up.”

Management is essentially theoretical on this sport, the hulking tanks far much less cooperative than a canoe or kayak. Nonetheless, most groups intuit the method: tips on how to coordinate their paddling to attenuate the spins; tips on how to spur the tank ahead or rein it again, nonetheless briefly, to keep away from collision; tips on how to learn their teammates; tips on how to comply with the deepest channels; tips on how to anticipate the obstacles forward. Our group, nonetheless, doesn’t.

We spin. We glide. I throw up (just a bit). Jared unzips the cooler.

“Who wants a beer?”