The setup: After getting my pool roll fairly solid, one of the people who had helped me get it that way, Samantha Ruppelt, posted on Facebook that she was doing a beginning creeking clinic. She didn’t specify which river. I contacted her and told her I was interested in joining, if she thought I was ready. We talked a bit about my previous experience, and she said … no.

I wasn’t upset. She had told me that the clinic was on the Ledges – a series of drops on the beautiful Tellico River: 5-foot, 7-foot, 9-foot, and 14-16-foot, depending on water level. Beginner? I had done the easier middle Tellico section a couple of times, but the Ledges? She might as well have said it was on the North Fork of the Payette, as far as I was concerned. So Sam recommended I join her on the Nantahala for a class instead, and I did. We worked on skills and drills there and, later, on some other easier rivers as well. I kept working on my roll, my strokes, and learning to read the water. I kept the Ledges in the back of my mind as an eventual goal. For someday, when I had the skills.

About a year later, Sam told me to watch for the diaper on my Facebook timeline. The diaper…as in, put on your big girl panties! “When you see it,” she said, “clear your weekend. We’re doing the Ledges.”

I was excited and terrified and flattered. Then, one day at work, I looked at my Facebook timeline on my phone and saw this:

I laughed and screamed and leapt out of my constricting office chair, jumping around the room like a 5-year-old. I was going to the Ledges!!!

And I didn’t sleep all night. I was going to the Ledges.

I had a solid year and a half of seat time. A drysuit. Some burgeoning skills. A new, gorgeous Jackson creeker. But better than all of that, I had a dream team to take me on my PFD (personal first descent) of the Ledges: Sam and her husband Boyd, both ridiculously skilled and members of Jackson Kayak’s whitewater team; their friend Michael Neff, fellow class V kayaker and supremely nice guy; my increasingly accomplished fellow CFO team member Mike Arvidson, who had already done the run a number of times; and 37-year whitewater canoeist veteran and Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association President James “Woody” Woodall, coming back to the Ledges after 15 years away. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve to have such a crew to escort me, but it made me feel like a (pretty awkward and supremely grateful) princess. I couldn’t have been in better hands.

But even though I was thrilled, I was also so nervous that I almost cried in the car on the way there.

STOP. What?? I’d been working toward this for a year! So I started going over what it was I was afraid of. Was I going to get hurt, at 1.6 feet on the Ledges? Drown in a terminal hole? Break one of my limbs on a rock I couldn’t maneuver around?

Nah. Not really.

So I chewed on it some more and realized that I was afraid…of swimming. What if I swam all day? I didn’t think I’d get hurt. But I’d be embarrassed! And worse, I’d disappoint these amazing, generous people who’d given up a day, when they could be paddling something engaging and fun for people at their level, just to help me down this river – their version of, say, the Hiwassee for me. I had visions of them giving me smiles and hugs afterward, because they’re nice people, and then getting in the car to go home and saying, “That? Was PAINFUL. Let’s go to the Green.”

That was the hardest thing to get over. The rest of the day was fabulous.

Here’s my report of the trip, which I wrote that night:

Things that were awesome:

1. The drops aren’t as intimidating as they look on video. At least, not when you have really good people to follow – even though the eddy above Auto-Boof (3rd ledge) is about 2.3 mm away from the drop. And you’re backwards.

2. Skills consistently drilled in comfortable situations still work in harder situations, if you let them. Eddy, ferry, blah, blah, blah…no, really.

3. It goes fast! We were through the first three ledges in what seemed like about five minutes.

4. If you lose your drain plug, a stick works. Creekers are resourceful. Boyd built me a new one, with a hastily chosen stick and a rock, in about 27 seconds. My original drain plug, CFO WW team sticker, and GoPro mount are still somewhere in Diaper Wiper.

5. Should you, hypothetically speaking, happen to miss that tricky turn and run the rest of Diaper Wiper on your face, don’t panic. It turns out that Jared’s Knee is a really good ways down the river. There’s no need to pull your skirt and bail because you think you might float into it upside-down. Really.

6. We live near the Tellico.

7. Everything.

Notes to self to remember for next time:

1. Relax. Or, as Samantha posted to my page the day before, “Calm [my] t*ts.” It’s within my current skill level.

2. Boof, baby. I know what it feels like coming off of a drop now. It’s not *that* hard, and it’s useful and, even better, fun!

3. Do your practice roll. I was close to tears on the way to the put-in because I was so apprehensive. I put my gear on and immediately felt better. My roll is part of my gear, and I like to know that I have it at the ready if needed. Like I didn’t last time.

4. You’re always going to feel like you mightily suck when you try something harder. So check the ego at the put-in, do your best, and accept your mistakes with grace and a sense of humor. (And self-rescue as best you can so people don’t want to kill you.)