Surfing the Cuyahoga Brown Claw

The 271 wave on the Cuyahoga River.

We all have a home river. Maybe it's the whitewater in your backyard. Maybe it's the river that kindled your passion for paddling, or it could be the water you learned how to kayak on.

For me, that home stretch is the Cuyahoga River. I've paddled almost every stretch of it that's worth paddling (except the Class V Sheraton Run). The Cuyahoga starts in Northeast Ohio, heads south and then turns north, carving a wide "V" across the northeast part of the state. I'm fortunate to live just above the crux of the "V" where the best whitewater can be reached from my house with a simple 15 minute driver either east or west.

Last season, I borrowed a friend's Wavesport Fuse 64, which is a great river play and river-runner mix. And it's improved my game immensely, including surfing. I am by no means a play-hog. I am mastering the front surf and learning the side surf and flat spin. So it was great watching some much better paddlers hit the 271 wave on the Cuyahoga River in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The 271 wave is named for the highway overpass bridge that spans the valley high above the spot on the river where the wave forms.

There are great whitewater run and play spots in northeast Ohio. And I'm fortunate to live within 15 minutes of many of them!

Why do we rejoice when it rains?

The 271 wave on the Cuyahoga River in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Northeast Ohio. 

The obvious answer is it means the rivers are running and there is whitewater to explore.

But I think the joy we find in drops of water falling from the sky is because paddlers love nature more deeply than most. And that appreciation, that connection, establishes within us an understanding of the nature of water.

In past eons, we would be farmers. We would be fishermen. We would know the simple beauty that water means life, a lesson we learn today as fierce drought gets a temporary reprieve from El Niño rain and snow storms.

Few others whose livelihood does not rely on rain clouds and swollen rivers grasp this simple truth.

As paddlers we are happy that fun and comradeship is found in healthy flows. But we also learn the bigger picture of the watershed, and rejoice for its recharge each time the skies open.