Partnership and Planning

Mississippi Mishaps: A Cautionary Tale

by Wes Kisting

The river is so calm I can hear the morning breathing. The trees are still, the current is imperceptible, the fog is just beginning to lift. After an hour on the water, the sun has risen high enough to light the silver moisture in the air like a hazy, shimmering blanket hung low over the water. Somewhere deep within the thick woods on either shore, the trills of waking birds give palpable life to the dawn: the pulse of their songs transmits through the haze like delicate vibrations sent down the fine, silver strands of a spider's web. Otherwise, there is only the dip-dip-dipping of my paddle, the trickling drops of water as the shaft rises and falls, and the far fainter dipping of my partner's paddle, somewhere far behind.

The stillness of this moment is more than an intimate glimpse of the Mississippi river's majesty, or a thankful escape from the hassles and schedules that await me back home. It is also a welcome reprieve from my partner, who appears deceptively tranquil, almost dream-like, as he follows behind in the haze, just outside the range of comfortable conversation. I can hear him if he shouts, of course, but the distance between us is just wide enough to discourage all but the most vital communication. It would take too much effort to voice casual sentiments at this range—and that is precisely how I want it.

As the wisps of fog begin their slow retreat before the rising sun, I ponder my new talent for measuring distances by the amount of effort it would take to communicate across them. Prior to this experience, I never would have explored the matter with any interest. Now, I cannot help but muse upon my new and finely-tuned, intuitive sense of exactly how much water must lie between myself and my partner to silence him. [Quote] After three long days of experimentation, I find I can pay out the requisite distance so precisely that a brief lapse in my stroke—a momentary closing of the gap—will elicit his tireless complaints as surely as the flipping of a switch, and a quick burst of speed will hush them again. Under most circumstances, the usefulness of this talent would seem dubious, but in this case, it is the only thing preserving my enjoyment of the trip.

As the hours and days wear on, I find myself spending less time reflecting on the purposes for which I came—to enjoy the river, to ponder my impending engagement to Anna—and more time questioning the bond of trust I thought my partner and I shared. I have known him for several years—as a boss, as a mentor, as a friend. In that time, I have seen him upset, concerned, frustrated, even weak. I have witnessed the patterns of his thinking, the temper of his humor, and the holes in his memory. I have even seen him in some of his more juvenile, embarrassed, tender, and intimidated moments. Had you asked me a week ago, I would've said, with no little confidence, that he is my friend and I know him well. Now, well into our journey, he seems more like a stranger, and I am beginning to doubt those former impressions I held. The person I have seen since the beginning of this trip—and, admittedly, in a few brief glimpses long before the trip, though I dismissed them at the time—is certainly not the person I have long thought him to be.

For three days, I have been making excuses for this new side I am seeing—inventing reasons for this "out of character" behavior I have witnessed. In fact, ever the optimist, I am still making excuses now. But I am nearing a turning point. Although I cannot yet articulate it (that will come later), my thoughts might be worded thus: "Perhaps, after all, I have been too generous in my estimation of his friendship and too dismissive of his shortcomings. Perhaps he is not the person—the friend—I thought him to be."

The moment I begin to admit this possibility, I am surprised how quickly my sense of isolation grows. Strange as it sounds, I would feel much less lonely if this stranger—this interloper who has replaced my friend—had not come along at all. As it is, his friendship is much too absent to offer any comfort, and his obnoxious moods are much too present to allow any solace I might draw from nature. In my mind, I cannot reconcile the miserable reality of his partnership with the admiration and respect I had felt toward him. Admittedly, this is the first opportunity I've had to test my lofty impression of his character, and as with most high expectations, I ought to have expected some measure of disappointment. Yet it had never occurred to me that the reality might prove so incommensurate with my perception.

And this, believe it or not, was only the fourth day of a partnership which was to last eight days more. Little did I suspect how much worse the problem was to grow.

The Nature of the Change

It would be impossible, in short space, to describe exactly how my partner had changed. To say it simply (and really, it sounds too simple), he had become incomparably moody, pessimistic, and ill-humored—even, at times, overtly hostile. My growing exasperation with his unending cynicism and complaints could be physically measured in the growing distance between his bow and my stern as our trip progressed.

The physical and emotional gulf between us began, innocently enough, on Day One, in the very first minutes of our trip, as we began our long, long journey home. He was slow to launch and even slower to get settled on the water. Within a matter of minutes, he was stopping ashore again to readjust his seat, his skirt, his comfort. This first hold-up was to set the tone for the whole morning. Minutes later, he stopped again—then again, and again, and again. All told, the GPS registered less than two miles of progress in the first hour and a half.

By the fifth stop, the sheer barrage of his complaints—so soon, so emphatic, so numerous—drove me several yards ahead, with far greater force than the current which I sheepishly blamed for our separation. His legs were numb, his seat was uncomfortable, his cockpit was too tight, his butt was wet, his boat was slow, his bow toggle was dragging in the water, the scenery was disappointing.... The list of his gripes was already remarkably long, still so early in the trip.

But I was not frustrated yet. Not by a long shot.

In spite of his negativity, his endless grumbling, I did not begin to resent him until much later in the journey. In those first days, I tried to sympathize, to offer comfort, even to offer solutions and compromises to some of his troubles. When those efforts repeatedly failed, I sought to distance myself from his voice, to prevent it from shattering my own quiet enjoyment of the river. But in the back of my mind, I still could not condemn him. I told myself that his frustrations (however numerous or emphatic) were just part of the usual quirks and annoyances which attend the start of a great adventure, and which work themselves out over time. I thought it best just to give him his space. Surely things would be better after a day or two on the water.

Alas, his cynicism would continue and worsen—even become strangely explosive. These were definitely not the casual complaints which should reasonably be expected on any trip, but an avalanche of frustrations so numerous and so volatile that they really seemed to indicate some far greater, deeper source of discontent or rage. But what could be angering him so? I didn't know, though I would puzzle over it quietly for more than 400 miles.

From time to time, I would work up the nerve to inquire, politely, if something was really very wrong. It was a feat not unlike poking a tiger: It demanded the utmost care, in tone and choice of words, to ask about such a touchy subject without offending pride or provoking resent. I attempted it only a few times throughout the trip. Each time the gesture was met either by a wall of silence or a curt, wounded reply that carried the distinct tone of a personal attack. Neither response was productive—both served only to deepen the wedge between us.

Sometimes, I managed to glean a few hints about the possible source of his edginess: complaints about his boat, frustration with his own physical stamina, tensions with his girlfriend, anxieties about unemployment and aging, uncertainty about the future, desperation to feel a greater sense of accomplishment in his life—many classic signs of a mid-life crisis, though I cannot say for certain whether any or all of those factors were actually to blame. Whatever the cause, his moods came and went abruptly.

Often, he could be civil long enough to seem like himself again. At times, he would even crack a few jokes or volunteer a story. In the first days of our journey, these moments of peace might last several hours at a time, without need for distance to buffer his moods—long enough to convince me that maybe nothing was wrong after all. But as the journey wore on, distance became a necessary defense against his cynicism and ill humor. Sometime around the fourth or fifth day, the hours of complaining began to outnumber the hours of peace. Eventually, there ceased to be any distinction between the two: he began to conduct himself at all times with a strange, oscillating mixture of civility and hostility—often peaceful in demeanor, yet volatile in temper, as if suffering from bi-polar disorder. When he wasn't venting an avalanche of negative opinions, he was forbidding friendly conversation with his wall of cold, frowning silence and reluctant, grudging replies. I could no longer distinguish the good moods from the bad, and found myself tip-toeing on eggshells every time I needed to ask him anything. Worst of all, his negativity turned very, very personal.

The Gradual Erosion: Playing Games with Trust

In a long letter he would send me later (a few months after our trip), my partner would try to justify his cynicism, hostility, and insults by claiming that he had simply been "playing a version of the old devil's advocate game" he had played with another friend while hiking the Appalachian Trail. The way he explained it, the tensions that resulted from this "game" were my fault because I had been too sensitive—I had taken him "too seriously," unlike his friend on the AT who "understood" and therefore never took offense. Call me simple-minded, but aside from the fact that I see no fun in that kind of "game," I also can't fathom why he would have kept playing such a "game" for two weeks if he realized (as he must have realized) that it was causing tensions between us; nor can I understand how he expected me to enjoy his "game" without knowing that we were playing a "game" at all. I'd be tempted to call his excuse disingenuous if I thought it mattered, but it doesn't. Even if he intended his behavior as a game—a very cynical, unhealthy game, full of complaints and insults—the obvious effect was to erode trust and undermine our partnership. All intentions aside, he wasn't "playing" at all. He was doing real damage.

I suspect the real problem was that, deep down, he felt disgusted with himself (for whatever reason), and so, as humans do, he felt disgusted by everything else too—and lashed out. Maybe the worse he acted, the worse he felt—and the more the problem snow-balled.

Maybe. I really don't know.

Suffice it to say that the journal entry and the brief account supplied above describe the better half of a partnership which grew far worse (his complaints increased, his moodiness intensified, and his attacks became far more personal) until, finally, I could no longer bear his insufferable conduct. So, early one morning, more than 400 miles and 12 days into our journey, just a few miles upriver from Winona, MN, as we paddled through an impenetrable fog, we hit the breaking point: Amid a cataclysmic eruption of tempers that shattered the soundless morning, we parted company for good.

Lessons from the River of No Return

Before the Mississippi trip, I did not realize how profoundly partnership could affect the safety, enjoyment, and success of an expedition. Most of my prior expeditions had been solo efforts, and the one that hadn't (my circumnavigation of Isle Royale) had been blessed by the good fortune of an unusually resilient partnership. After the success of that one joint venture, I had assumed (naively) that as long as the members of an expedition party possessed sufficient skill, an adequate friendship, and a reasonable level of maturity, all the other partnership-related considerations (planning, logistics, decision-making, companionship, trust, leadership, communication, etc.) would find a way to work themselves out. Now I know better. Assumptions and friendships are poor indicators of an effective partnership. You must experience your partner's strengths and failings firsthand—and he, yours—before you can determine whether or not you have the makings of a good partnership.

By all appearances, the Mississippi partnership should have been an ideal match. Aside from being a more experienced woodsman and canoe-tripper than myself, my partner was also a close friend, a former co-worker and manager, and a boat-building mentor. In the workplace and in the workshop, we worked well together. We cracked jokes together. We shared interesting conversations and similar interests. I had eaten meals with him, gone to bars with him, built boats with him—even helped him move out of his apartment. More importantly, I had paddled with him many, many times (though only on day-trips) and I had camped with him on at least a handful of occasions. In short, I saw no reason to doubt that his physical abilities, his attitude, or his skills would be up to the challenge, no reason to question his ability to work cooperatively with a partner, nor any reason to doubt we would enjoy each other's company.

The only thing we had not done was to paddle an overnight or short, multi-day trip together. Yet this seemingly benign omission was to become our downfall. Now I understand that great partnerships are not simply "discovered" or "begun," they are built—and building them takes time and effort. Thus, I give you the first rule of partnership:

Rule 1: "Test your partnership before your partnership is really tested."

Before committing to an extended trip with a particular paddling partner—even a very close friend—take several shorter, overnight trips to get to know each other as paddlers. Start out with overnight and weekend trips, and build your way up to longer ventures. Every paddler has a unique set of needs, expectations, personality quirks, and defective habits. Pay attention to these idiosyncracies. Think about how they might aid or hinder a partnership during an extended period. Discuss your mutual expectations about each new trip you take. Do your best in advance to prevent personality issues, mistaken assumptions, and misunderstandings from becoming a serious obstacle to a productive, effective partnership. Communication and a few test-runs are the only way to accomplish this task. If you don't feel comfortable communicating with your partners about some of these issues, find a different partner. If you do communicate, but some partnership-related obstacles still appear impassible, find a different partner.

Rule 2: "Be proactive: Read and heed the signs."

Preliminary "test-runs" will only help you diagnose and resolve partnership-related issues if you are proactive. Reflect seriously and critically on the way that you and your partner interact. Ask yourself the tough and important questions: How well do you and your partner make decisions together? How effectively do you both cooperate and compromise? How calmly do you both communicate your frustrations? What does each of you expect from the partnership? Do you prefer to paddle side-by-side and chat regularly, or to keep your distance and let the miles slide by in quiet? Are you capable of getting along peaceably in close quarters, or do you prefer to sleep in separate tents, cook meals separately, or even occupy separate campsites? At what times do you like to wake up, break camp, eat meals, arrive at camp, and go to bed? How many hours do you like to spend on the water? Are you a "high-mileage" paddler or do you stop often to "smell the roses"? These questions will get you started, but there are many more that need to be considered.

Stupidly, I gave little or no consideration to these issues before the Mississippi trip. Even worse, I dismissed or ignored many obvious warning signs which were already staring me in the face. Before the Mississippi trip, I had gone along on four separate day-trips that my partner had planned (not counting hundreds of regular outings at the local lake). During three of these trips, a "leisurely paddle" turned out to be a suprisingly long, arduous journey because my partner had seriously underestimated the mileage. On one occasion, a "12-mile paddle" turned out to be 21 miles. On another, "a short, 8-mile trip" turned out to be closer to 16 miles. On yet another, a "quick 3- or 4-mile trip" down a flooded creek turned out to be an affair of several hours. In one of these cases, the consequence (for me) was mild hypothermia because, believing it would be a "short" trip, I had not brought along enough layers to keep warm when, many hours later, the weather turned rainy and we were still miles from our take-out. In another case, I ran out of drinking water because, again, I had been promised the trip would be half as long. And in all three of these cases, I ended up spending several hours paddling with a groaning, empty stomach because I had been assured we would be back in "plenty of time" to catch the next meal.

Clearly, these signs should have raised serious questions about my partner's ability to plan a trip—in particular, to read a map, to calculate distances, and to estimate time or pace accurately enough to establish a reliable itinerary (all vital elements of a successful expedition). Instead, I dismissed all of these warning signs as isolated "accidents," "flukes," or "honest mistakes." I trusted (foolishly) that he would never take the same careless, cavalier approach to planning a more "serious" expedition like our Mississippi trip. I was wrong. These warning signs actually turned out to be strikingly accurate indicators of real problems that would arise on our trip and intensify the tensions already contributed by his moody cynicism. More than that, his navigational-impairments would become the direct cause behind our final, climactic split.

The Notorious Fog Incident

How exactly did the split happen? There's no reason to relate the whole, heated story—even if I am tempted to set the record straight. Here's the abridged version (the original account from my journal is more than twice as long), without the fully flaring tempers, the vulgar dialogue, the accusations, and the spiteful commentary:

Early into our last morning together, while paddling through an impenetrable fog, we disagreed about which course to paddle. My partner wanted to stick to the shoreline, claiming that he didn't feel comfortable paddling in the channel. While I appreciated the sentiment, I saw two problems with his plan: First, following the shoreline would add roughly a mile to our trip. Second, it would eventually force us to paddle in the channel—not only in the channel, but on the shore side (the eastern shore becomes the eastern edge of the channel for quite a long stretch above the dam), without any "buffer" zone between ourselves and any barges or boats that might happen to pass through. (Boat traffic was unlikely in the fog, but we couldn't dismiss the possibility.)

For my part, I wanted to stop following the shore and take a more direct route, paddling along (but outside of) the buoys marking the channel. My plan would get us to the dam faster, without entering the channel. It would also eliminate the need to paddle out and around several bulging contours along the eastern shoreline, thereby saving us still more distance and effort. Best of all, my course would take us past the backwater sloughs and islanded areas, where small-boat traffic (if any) was likely to be much slower and more cautious due to obstructions and shallows. In the unlikely event my GPS failed, we would still have the channel markers to guide us through the fog, or the option to land in the shallows and wait for better visibility when the fog lifted. In every way, it made more sense.

Paddling through the impenetrable fog on the Mississippi.

My partner transformed the debate into a matter of pride—as if I was calling his navigational skills into question. When I tried to explain that he was adding unnecessary mileage and paddling a trajectory more than 20 degrees off the shorter, safer, more efficient course, he refused to listen. When I asked him to paddle over to see the buoys for himself (to prove we could get over to the other side of the channel quickly and safely), he refused again. And when I offered to show him my GPS so he could visualize what I was trying to explain, he refused yet again. "I don't need a GPS," he said, condescendingly: "I know where I'm going. A good navigator always trusts his map." His voice carried an unmistakable critique: an obvious, albeit implied, jab at my "unskilled dependence" on GPS navigation, much like the jabs he had taken at my "unfortunate" and "intrusive" dependence on cell phones a few days earlier.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have agreed with his implicit suggestion that a GPS should never replace skillful map reading. What you have to understand, however, is that with the fog so thick, the general topography and distinguishing landmarks were completely invisible. It was impossible to pinpoint our location accurately on the map, except by estimating course, speed, and time since our last known position. The longer we spent in the fog, following a fairly featureless shoreline, the less accurately our position could be determined. By this point, we had been paddling in zero visibility conditions for at least three miles. Given these circumstances, there was no good reason to ignore a perfectly-functional GPS—especially when it flatly and dramatically contradicted his "skillful" map reading. Besides, even the map should have confirmed that his proposed course would be longer, and would force us into the channel. (When I look back at the map now, I can't understand how he could've failed to realize this.) For the moment, we debated the point civilly, but the exasperation in my voice grew in direct proportion to the condescension and smugness in his.

At some point during this argument, he broke away from the shore, crossed my stern wake, and began paddling just off my right-rear flank about ten feet behind me. I still don't know why. Perhaps he had begun to see my point, but was too embarassed to admit it after his boasts about being a skillful navigator. Maybe he simply didn't realize he was no longer following the shore. I'm not sure. What I do know is that, a few minutes later, after making a pretense of following me, he turned further to the right (toward the channel) and vanished into the fog without a word. Only about 30 seconds had passed since I last saw him. He couldn't possibly have paddled out of earshot that quickly, but when I called out, there was no reply. I called out twice more. No answer. I called out again, at the top of my lungs. Still no answer.

I could fill several pages with the thoughts that ran through my head at that moment, but it's easier to describe the general pattern: First, there was an intense, genuine concern for his well-being (and my own), which inspired an urgent desire to find him (somehow) in the fog. Then, there was an equally intense concern about not knowing where exactly he had vanished—and worse, not being able to see or hear him: Was he behind me? Ahead of me? Off to one side? Which side? Was he still paddling? Could he have changed course? Did he even realize we were separated? Is he really out of earshot already, or is he deliberately not answering? Is it better to search for him, or stay put? Is he searching for me? The variables were endless and overwhelming. They poured through my mind in a flood. At the same time, my anger began to rise as I considered his recklessness, his apparent indifference, toward my own well-being. Suspicions came naturally: Is he deliberately playing games? Would he disappear on purpose? Can he hear me calling for him? Is he really that hostile or apathetic that he would ignore my calls in this fog? Collectively, the effect was to intensify my worries, my frustrations, and my rage.

Scarcely a minute had passed, but time was of the essence. The longer we were separated, the greater the chance we might not find each other again. I needed to make a decision, so I did: I would search for him in a zig-zag pattern which would allow me to cover a wide area of the river off to the right (according to his last known trajectory) but would also keep returning me to my original trajectory in case he came back looking for me. If he was off to the right, the zig-zag pattern would bring me within earshot. If he was behind, it would give him a chance to catch up. If he was ahead, I would catch up to him later (hopefully) when the fog lifted. And if he was off to the left, near the shore, then he was deliberately ignoring my calls, in which case he was a complete jackass and I would beat him severely, later. The plan made sense, so I set a waypoint and began the search.

All told, my GPS recorded five complete "zig-zags" of increasingly wider angles (taking me further downriver each time) before my search ended. At some point during the fifth "zig," I called out and finally received a curt reply: "What?" he barked, as if I were inconveniencing him by forcing him to reply. I could not see him yet, but his voice was closer than I had expected—close enough that he must have heard the two or three calls which had just preceded the one he finally answered. I paddled toward the sound of his reply and a few seconds later, there he was: paddling gleefully downriver with no apparent concern either for my well-being or for the inconvenience his disappearance had caused me. According to the time stamps on the GPS waypoints I set during the search, at least eight minutes had passed. Even now, I find it difficult to comprehend that he could have paddled out of sight or communication from me for that long without caring, but he certainly didn't seem concerned when I finally found him. In fact, unless he really didn't care about my safety, I can only conclude that he must have heard me calling for him in the fog and assumed that as long as he knew where I was (by the sound of my voice), it really didn't matter if I wasted my time zig-zagging through the fog searching for him. Surely, then, you understand why my temper was fast approaching the breaking point.

The Shouting Match

Suffice it to say, a heated argument ensued. The way he would tell it later (in a fictional, story-like "re-creation" of the event), it was I who had suggested splitting up—a suggestion I supposedly mentioned "within the first few minutes" of paddling that morning. Not true. We paddled together for well over an hour before our shouting match ensued, and when it did, it was he who first suggested the split—though I still don't know whether or not he expected me to take him seriously. Here's the much-abbreviated (but accurate) account of the argument that ensued as my zig-zag search ended:

"What the hell are you doing way over here?" I shouted. I was thoroughly annoyed. "Why didn't you answer me? I've been looking for you for the last ten or fifteen minutes!" (Actually, about eight minutes had passed, but it felt longer at the time.) "Why the hell would you just take off and leave me in the fog?"

"I told you, I'm following the shore," he said.

"What shore?" I retorted. "You're not even near the shore! You're paddling along an island!" It was the truth. The "shore" was far off to the west of us. The trees nearby were part of an island in the middle of the river. Worse, his trajectory was at least 15 or 20 degrees off-course, pointing him toward the middle of the backwater area (and another island) which, given how low the river had been, was likely to be full of snags, shallows, and marshy weeds. "If you would just swallow your pride and look at the GPS, I could show you!" I said. "You're wasting time and creating more work for us!"

His anger exploded: "Why the f**k do you keep yelling at me?" he shouted. "Go ahead and follow your GPS if you want to! I'll follow my map! No one said you have to follow me! Go wherever the hell you want! Just stop yelling at me! I don't want to be yelled at!"

Whatever he might have meant by those words, they sounded like an invitation to split up. And he would repeat them at least twice more, in shorter form, during the argument.

"What are you saying?" I shouted, taken aback. "Are you saying you want to split up? In the fog?" Of course, what I was really asking was this: Do you even give a damn about me? Does your friendship really mean so little? Are you really this spiteful?

"Do whatever the hell you want!" he repeated. "I really don't care! Just stop f**king yelling at me!"

There it was: I finally had my answer (my "proof") spelled out damningly in his own words: He didn't care. It pushed me beyond my breaking point:

"That's the problem!" I yelled. "You don't care! You don't give a s**t if you lose me in the fog! You don't give a s**t about my schedule! You don't give a s**t about the fact I've had to listen to your incessant whining for four hundred miles, even though it was your choice to start so far north! You don't give a damn if you wreck this whole trip!"

"What about all your shit?" he hissed. "You've pretty much wrecked this whole trip for me, too!"

That was the exchange that sealed our split: not just because his negativity had been so glaringly disproportionate to mine, not just because I was the only one who had made any attempt at reconciliation, but also because he tried, thereafter, to cite examples of my "equally unbearable" conduct—examples which (with my memory of his faults honed to a keen edge by days of growing resentment), I eagerly and triumphantly refuted at every turn.

The problem, of course, was that I really had conducted myself far better than he, and so, in that moment of fully-flaring tempers and hostile accusations, I climbed up onto my soapbox and railed against him so fiercely that I'm sure (to my shame) I must have appeared, to him, to be the far worse friend. In fact, I don't doubt that he honestly believed at that moment that I had acted just as badly, or worse, than he. I knew there was no evidence from our trip to substantiate that claim, but to him, my seething anger in the fog must have looked like irrefutable proof that I really had been an awful friend "all along"—casting an insidious light on everything he remembered of our partnership up until that moment. Thus, while I cited the prior two weeks as damning evidence that he had not been a good partner (or friend) to me, he probably took my sudden explosion of angry accusations as damning evidence of the same from me. In any case, the more he tried to excuse or deny his atrocious behavior—or to equate it with my own—the more my rage increased, and the more my civility diminished. We had passed any hope of reconciliation or healing. Now, there was only a bitter, growing animosity and a long string of vulgar insults. Trust, forgiveness, and good will had evaporated—possibly forever.

Going Separate Ways

When it became clear that it would be more dangerous to keep fighting in the fog than to go our separate ways, I offered him any supplies he might need (including the paddle he had borrowed). He refused. In fact, he gave my paddle back, saying he didn't want anything of mine because he didn't want to have to contact or deal with me later. I usually try not to read into things, but it seemed clear that he was done with our friendship, so in my head, I resolved to be done with it as well. He hadn't demonstrated any real measure of friendship since our trip began anyway. Even so, I still gave a damn about his safety: I asked a second time if he needed to borrow any supplies (a paddle, a water bladder, a purifier, extra white gas, or whatever else he might need) and then, upon receiving the sharp "no" I had expected, I dug in and paddled away as fast as I could. Anger drove me onward. It felt good to release my frustrations through the paddle. At first he tried to keep pace with me, but within a minute or two, he fell away into the fog behind me. There was no question I was the stronger paddler. I knew he could not keep up. When I reached the dam, the gates were already yawning wide to receive me. They closed behind me in a loud, reverberating slam, as if to signal the end of the friendship I had, quite literally, just put behind me. I felt disgusted and angry, but relieved. The fog had begun to lift. I tried to concentrate on the fact that it was shaping up to be a beautiful day.

When I reached Winona, MN, I took out beneath the bridge and laid my kayak along the top of the bank, in plain sight. The trip was wrecked for me, I knew. There was no sense continuing on. Without anything to distract me, I would spend the next few days feeling bitter and angry about the falling out. That was no good. I would also have to eat all my meals cold because the fuel pump on my camp-stove was broken, so I had been using my partner's stove thus far. Cold dehydrated meals would taste awful and wreak havoc on my stomach. That was no good. At home, I still had boxes to unpack and a course syllabus to compile. Tomorrow was August 15, the day I had originally planned to finish before my partner muddled up the matter. If I continued downriver now, past my original return date, I would feel stressed by how little time I would have to get everything settled when I returned. That was no good either. Of course, all other considerations aside, I had already answered the real question I had come to answer: I knew I was ready to propose to Anna. There was no reason to put it off any longer or to delay my return. It was time to go home.

I called and told my dad the long story of my partner's terrible moodiness and our recent split. Sometime during that phone call, about an hour and a half after I had arrived in Winona, my partner paddled by on the river. At my dad's request, I tried to flag him down. He didn't stop or slow—didn't even acknowledge me. I think he must have seen me (his head turned in my direction several times, and he seemed to go over to the far side of the river deliberately), but later, in an e-mail, he would claim that he hadn't. I really don't know. Regardless, in spite of the animosity between us, I didn't want to force him to continue down the river alone if he didn't want to. I was still willing to offer him a ride home or to loan him any gear he might wish to borrow. Instead, he passed through and disappeared down the river. So it goes. After I finished talking to my dad, I changed into clean clothes and spent the afternoon exploring Winona, trying to get my mind off all the angry sentiments rattling around in my brain. Many hours later, my dad showed up in my truck to take me home. A day later, I would propose to Anna (she said yes!) and begin another journey that would eventually lead to building a little sailboat which would carry us (a year later, on our honeymoon) down the same stretch of the Mississippi where my partner and I had had our falling out. Good memories would wipe away the bad, and I would finally complete my goal to reach Dubuque—this time, with my best friend: my wife.

Looking back on what happened between my partner and I, none of the issues which became the catalyst for our split (pride, mileage, and navigation) should have come as a surprise. They were all plainly apparent from the mishaps that had arisen during our prior day-trips. Had I heeded the signs and addressed them more seriously back then, perhaps they wouldn't have proven so volatile on the Mississippi. But I didn't. I ignored them. I wrote them off as isolated "quirks." To that extent, and to the extent that I failed to control my temper, I accept responsibility for our split. Yet I feel no need to apologize for any part of my conduct except for the final, explosive flaring of my temper in the fog—though in my defense, those circumstances would have tested anyone's patience. When your partner won't act like a partner, when he refuses to communicate his grievances, when he won't answer your questions candidly, when he contributes nothing but negativity, when his pride defies all logic, and when he wilfully leaves you in the fog, he ceases to be a partner. He becomes a serious liability: a detriment to the morale, safety, and success of the trip. Under the circumstances, splitting up was the right choice. That said, I cringe to think what could've happened if we had been paddling somewhere more remote, more exposed, and more dangerous. Under different circumstances, our split up could've very easily cost someone's life. I am grateful I learned this lesson on the placid waters of the Missippi, rather than on the far less predictable waters of Lake Superior or the Atlantic, far from help.

Now, with the climactic split fresh in memory, let's rewind: Let's go back to the beginning to see where we went wrong.

The Long, Long Drive North

Early in the morning on August 2, my partner and I loaded our kayaks onto the roof of my truck and drove north into Minnesota without knowing fully well where we were going to stop. Our "plan" had gone back and forth many times, but still was not definite. We both wanted to see the headwaters portion of the river, but I needed to be back by August 15, so I had suggested we start at the lock and dam system, at Minneapolis. He had suggested starting at Lake Winnebegoshish, much closer to the river's beginnings which he kept insisting was "the best and prettiest part." I had said I would go as far north as he liked, but made it very clear that, wherever we started, I wanted to reach Dubuque, Iowa (my hometown) by August 15 so that I could have the last week of the summer break to complete the syllabus for my literature class.

In any case, the miles of Interstate fell away behind us and the landscape turned decidedly more "northern" as we passed Rochester, Minneapolis, St. Cloud, and continued north. Finally, after more than eight hours in the car, we resolved to find a put in. My partner still wanted to keep going north, but it was getting late and we still needed fresh water, so I insisted that we stop at the next campground, in Jacobson, Minnesota—a full 60 miles downriver from his most recent suggestion for launching. All the while, we had the maps along. We could have looked into the trip in more detail. He might have calculated the actual mileage or the number of days it would take to reach Dubuque.

Should have, would have, could have....

When I think of it now, we were both idiots: he, for not putting his long time in the passenger seat to better use; me, for not asking him to. In retrospect, it's surprising to me that I didn't just do the work myself. Never before had I trusted a paddling partner to do the planning (ask anyone who knows me, and they'll tell you I'm normally a planning freak, calculating tides, winds, wave patterns, currents, temperatures, topographic features, and every other variable of Mother Nature you can imagine). But in this case, I respected this particular partner as my peer and, to some extent, my superior.

I had every confidence that he had considered the mileage and the pace carefully before he suggested that we go further north. In the back of my mind, I assumed he had done the calculations as carefully and meticulously as I would have. I believed he had listened to and acknowledged my desire to reach Dubuque by August 15. Beyond trusting in his authority, I deferred to his judgment. As the pavement streaked away beneath us, I realized the paddle home was going to be long and rigorous, but I vowed quietly to myself that I would gladly paddle as many miles as he liked if he thought it important to start so far up. That may very well have been my biggest mistake: not trusting my gut, not holding my partner accountable for the decisions he was making, not forcing him to take my reservations seriously or to clarify his own thinking. In those terms, I accept blame for everything that followed.

Rule 3: "Each individual is 100% responsible for planning."

Respect your paddling partners and their expertise, but don't give them too much respect. Never opt out of the planning or defer to their judgment just because they are more experienced. Spend time on your own going over the entire trip, from start to finish, and speak up if you disagree with any facet of the itinerary or preparations. Question your partners. Learn the reasons and expectations behind the planning decisions they make. Planning is not something that the "most experienced" or "most willing" paddler does for the rest of the party; it's something that every member of the party does—with equal authority, equal commitment, and equal understanding of the risks.

Rule 4: "Plan time to go over the plan together."

While each individual must be fully responsible for the plan that results, no plan should take shape in isolation from the group. Always make time to discuss what the journey entails, and what each paddler is promising or expected to bring to the partnership. When making a commitment to your paddling partners, don't speak in vague language, loose itineraries, or estimated measurements. Sit down and mull over the details carefully together. Never count on the logistics to work themselves out. The more you discuss the plan together, the more you can count on cooperation from your partners. Ask each partner to verbalize his or her expectations, needs, and commitments. Assume nothing. Question everything.

My partner and I had discussed our plan (briefly and vaguely) a few times before the trip, but our mutual understanding about the trip had been clouded by his equivocal attitude. At first, he was extremely complacent about the logistics: "It's your trip," he kept saying, "You plan what you think is best. I'm just along for the ride. All I need to do is kill time until Ilena [his girlfriend] finishes her summer job and we figure out where we're going to live." Two days before the trip, however, this complacency suddenly gave way to determination. When I suggested we start our trip just above Minneapolis (where the lock and dam system begins), he suddenly insisted we "have to" paddle "at least part of the headwaters" because "that's the best and prettiest part." My unspoken reaction went something like this: Is he serious? After all that talk about how he's "just along for the ride," he suddenly has his own set of expectations for this trip? Why didn't he share them sooner?

I wasn't mad, just surprised—particularly since he first raised these concerns on August 1, scarcely a day before we were supposed to leave. Yes, he had mentioned them a few times before that, but always as casual "suggestions" or "ideas"—never with a word or tone of insistence. Now, however, casual recommendations became thinly-disguised mandates: places that "everybody knows you have to paddle" in order to make a trip down the Mississippi "worth doing"; "otherwise, what's the point?" (Yes, those were nearly his exact words.) Clearly, he wanted to start our journey much further north than my plan for a 20- to 25-mile-per-day pace allowed. Fine with me. My endurance as a paddler is famous. I love hard-core touring, so I would happily paddle more miles if he was willing. That said, I should've recalled the warning signs from our day-trips together: I should have guessed he wasn't thinking intelligently about mileage and pace, which would become one of the most consistent sources of his complaints, increasing in direct proportion to the progressive aches and pains in his back, arms, and neck.

In the end, it comes down to this: I knew I was willing to handle whatever pace it took to satisfy my schedule and my partner's desire to start further north. What I didn't do was hold him accountable to the same commitment. I should have sat him down and made him commit, explicitly, to the ideas he was proposing so casually at the last minute.

A Conflict of Schedules

Much of the confusion about our daily pace and the total mileage probably stemmed from a conflict of schedules. My partner's schedule had far fewer limitations than mine. From his perspective, with no job, no place to live, and all of his belongings stowed in temporary storage, the trip was an excuse to kill time until his girlfriend finished her summer job (so they could decide where they were going to live). That meant he needed to kill about three weeks, and as I understood it, he was just going to keep paddling for another week after our trip ended (either further down the Mississippi, or perhaps somewhere up in the Boundary Waters). For my part, I wanted to be back by August 15 so I could prepare my syllabus for the Fall semester. Somehow, he translated this into the idea that I wanted to spend 15 days on the Mississippi, but since we had begun our trip on August 3, I really only had twelve days. At several times during the first week of our trip, I reiterated my desire to reach Dubuque, Iowa by August 15, yet he continued to calculate our "necessary daily pace" as if we had until August 18 (fifteen days from when we began). Later, he would translate this date (again) into the idea that I had 18 days on the river, changing our target date to August 21. In short, he wasn't hearing me, or if he did, he kept confusing dates with days.

Eventually, I gave up trying to communicate the matter and resigned myself to the fact that we might reach Dubuque at some point between August 18th and August 21st. That would leave me with barely a handful of days to prep my syllabus for teaching, to finish unpacking boxes at my new apartment, and to decide when (and how) I would propose to my girlfriend Anna. Needless to say, my stress level and my frustrations grew perceptibly. Thereafter, I found it hard to enjoy the trip. My mind kept worrying about how I would get everything done in time, and yes, part of me resented my partner for this fact because, to my mind, he was the reason my schedule suddenly had to change.

As I later discovered, our confusion about pace also owed to some dishonesty or self-delusion on his part. Several times (both during and after our trip), my partner said he "probably never would have committed to going along" if he had known how many miles we were contemplating. He also tried to blame his moodiness on this fact—as if his ill humor were entirely the result of a simple misunderstanding about the pace. But it wasn't true. A month or two later, I stumbled across an old web page he had created sometime before our trip, in which he declared: "We, the RoguePaddler.com team, are trying to paddle around 850 miles in three weeks" (www.geocities.com/midwestclimber/boats/, July 21, 2006). Apparently, in his mind, he was actually committing to a much longer trip (nearly 200 miles longer) at a more grueling pace (40.5 miles per day, for 21 days straight). This was the first I had heard of any three-week, 850-mile plan, except for the few times we had joked about starting at Lake Itasca. (Looking back, I'm no longer sure he was joking, but I certainly was: I made it perfectly clear that I wanted to be back by August 15.)

All other talk aside, I warned him dozens of times (during the long drive north) that we were traveling very far, and that it would take a lot of work to paddle back home on our schedule. His reply? "Let's keep going." Six or seven times, I agreed. By the eighth or ninth time, the sun had already gone down and we still had to find a place to put in, so I finally insisted we stop at the campground above Jacobson, MN. He was still encouraging me to go "just a little further north, at least to the next campground" because it was "important" to see "as much of the headwaters area as possible." Surely, then, you can see why I was deeply annoyed to spend the next two weeks listening to him complain that we "should have started further south" and that he "didn't see what was so great about the headwaters area."

Wordplay

The way he tells the story, it sounds like we were governed by a meticulous plan. Certainly, you would never suspect the truth: that the sunset determined our decision to stop at Jacobson, that he complained about the mileage several times per day, and that he claimed (more than once) he had only expected to travel "about 20 or 25—maybe even 30—miles per day." You would also never guess that I had told him (as I certainly did, many times) that while I would love to paddle the whole upper portion of the river, my schedule was too constrictive to do it all in one summer so I thought it best to start somewhere in the vicinity of Minneapolis. We had talked of beginning at Itasca only before we realized how many miles we would actually have to travel. In the weeks leading up to the trip, and during the long drive north to the put-in, there was no question we needed to start much further down, especially since water levels and currents were reportedly low. Here's his version:

My friend Wes and I had been planning for months to kayak down the Mississippi River and end in our hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. Originally, our plan was to start at Lake Itasca, the source of the river, but due to time constraints, we choose to start further down the river. And due to a further time constraint that I only found out about shortly before the trip, we needed to shorten the trip further, so on the car ride up to the drop off point, we moved the start point further down the Mississippi to give us 15 days to go 560 miles. Or 37 miles per day. (www.nessmuking.com/mrt.htm, July 21, 2006).

In another article, he tells the same story in near-identical terms, but with the added drama of him "scrambling" to compensate for my shocking failure to plan the trip better:

The original plan was to take three weeks, and paddle from Lake Itasca, the source of the river, to Dubuque. As it turned out, the plan changed when a reduction of time forced us to change our put-in, so we paddled from Jacobson, MN 560 miles to Dubuque, IA. With 15 days to complete the trip, we would have to paddle 37 miles per day with no rest days, and at least one resupply grocery-shopping day taking a half-day. Much to my surprise, a week before the trip, I found out that he hadnt done any planning for this trip. I scrambled to get maps and information, and the night before the trip we got together to try and plan, but we didnt get much done. (www.nessmuking.com/plan.htm, July 21, 2006.)

Again, you would never suspect the reality: that I had obtained the necessary maps from the Minnesota DNR several years earlier; that I warned him I had done very little planning (even invited him to help, to which he replied, "No, it's your trip. I'm just along for the ride."); that we agreed to calculate a more exact mileage estimate during the drive up (which he failed to do, though he had the maps in his lap for eight hours); and that we agreed to plan on reaching Dubuque in two weeks (not three, which would've left me only one day to compile my syllabus before I resumed teaching at the university). Instead, it sounds suspiciously as though he scrambled to make up for some glaring incompetence on my part. The truth is that we never reduced our "planned" mileage "due to time constraints"; in fact, he kept increasing the mileage (during the drive north) in spite of those constraints.

His convenient omissions distort the truth still further: Neither article makes any mention of his unending complaints about the weather, his boat, the pace, the early mornings, the aesthetic quality of the river, the lack of rest days, or the thousand other things he railed against. Neither article mentions my search through the fog, or his reckless indifference to reuniting, or his navigational inaccuracies, or the barrage of insults I had to put up with. Instead, these details are subsumed by much blander observations which conceal the real extent of his negativity: The way he tells it now, the upper Mississippi simply "wasn't as majestic" as he expected, and "we chose to start further down the river," and our split was caused by "a simple disagreement over navigation" (www.nessmuking.com/mrt.htm, July 21, 2006). Something is definitely missing from his account. Where did all his complaints go? How did all these events suddenly become so mundane and unremarkable when, at the time, they inspired negative remarks for hours on end? And why isn't there any mention of his attacks on my politics, my faith, my character, my values, my personal sense of accomplishment, my prospective fiancee, and all the rest? If he had shown the same level of verbal restraint during our trip as he now shows in his retellings, I might never even have noticed his cynicism.

Alas, it was not so. Restraint is exactly what he lacked. Indeed, in spite of all the other problems, I honestly believe our partnership would have fumbled on all the way to our goal were it not for this one, vital failure on his part: his absolute inability to silence or control his negativity.

Rule 5: "Group morale is the responsibility of each individual."

Simply put, hardships arise on expeditions, but they must not be allowed to overwhelm group morale. When an expedition wears you down, it is your responsibility to try to remain positive instead of spreading your complaints and negativity to your partners. If your partners are struggling under the burden of stress or frustration, it is also your responsibility to help them work through it and, if possible, to resolve any controllable problems that may be fueling their negativity. Remember, on an expedition, joy and pain are collectively experienced by all. If the negativity is yours, voice the problem calmly, try your best to fix it, but do not let it become a burden to your partners. If the negativity is theirs, forgive often, avoid resentment, and try to alleviate their frustration. Whatever you do, keep communicating. Never let negativity alienate anyone from the group.

My partner failed this rule in two ways. First, he made no appreciable effort to restrain his negativity. He vented every complaint, repeatedly, to the point of exhaustion. While there is nothing wrong with voicing complaints, per se, it is wrong to dwell on them, to elaborate upon them ad nauseum, to impress them upon one's partners to the point they become a real and palpable burden upon the spirit.

Second, and worse still, he refused every effort I made to help alleviate his complaints. When I suggested we relax the pace (even at the expense of my goal to reach Dubuque), he accused me of being weak and spoke as if he wouldn't dream of slowing. Yet he continued to complain, daily, about the aches, the pains, the exhaustion, the pace, the long hours, the lack of rest days, and so forth. When I offered to trade boats, he insisted (proudly, of course), "I built this boat for this trip, and I'm going to paddle it all the way home if it kills me." Yet he continued to complain, daily (sometimes all day), about his boat being too slow, too "turny," too cramped, too "crappy," too uncomfortable, and so forth—even vowed (several times) to "sell or burn it" the moment he got home. When I offered tips to increase the efficiency and comfort of his stroke, he flatly refused my advice, claiming that he "knew the correct stroke for a Greenland paddle," even though it was obviously causing him soreness, pain, and extra work—all of which I got to hear about, loudly. When I offered to loan him my spare Euro paddle, he refused again. Yet he continued to complain about the slowness and lack of control of his boat (exacerbated, I suspected, by his paddle) for another eight days before he finally agreed to try my spare paddle (whereupon he promptly declared that "Greenland paddles are crap" and my spare paddle was much easier to use).

The list of examples goes on and on, but the pattern remains the same: Every time I tried to address his complaints, he refused my help and persisted in his misery. Fine, that was his choice. What was not fine, however, was that he continued to vent his negativity (at length) long after I had made every reasonable effort to address and resolve it. As for the "grievances" beyond my control—the temperature, the wind, the waves, the rain—I tried to put a positive spin on them (and really, there was every reason to be positive: we had surprisingly good weather for two weeks), yet he complained about those too—even openly resented my efforts to stay positive. Needless to say, it was hard to maintain morale—his or mine—in the face of such bottomless cynicism.

Rule 6: "Communicate your feelings clearly, candidly, and promptly."

This rule goes hand-in-hand with the previous rule. It's simple to grasp, but hard for timid paddlers to follow. Nonetheless, it is vital to the safety and general harmony of your trip: Tell your partner(s) how you feel about the expedition and your partnership. Communicate your needs, your desires, your fears, and your frustrations clearly, on a regular basis. Communicate any changes that occur in these feelings throughout the trip. Don't suppress them. Don't wait to communicate them. Don't let them simmer on the back burner. Voice them (respectfully) even if they feel awkward to share. If you don't, they may explode later.

When I look back at the long list of accusations and complaints contained in the letters my partner sent after our trip, only one criticism really stands out and strikes me as legitimate: Apparently, it bothered him immensely that I always paddled ahead of him during the majority of the trip. Obviously, I did so deliberately, to escape his unending complaints and general hostility. (Ironically, by doing so, I may have exacerbated the very frustrations I was trying to avoid.) In retrospect, I can understand why paddling ahead might have bothered him. If I had known it bothered him so much, I gladly would have done differently. Unfortunately, he never voiced this "grievance" until our last, heated argument in the fog. Worse, when I asked him—explicitly, on three separate occasions—if it bothered him, his reply was always the same: "It doesn't bother me, as long as it doesn't bother you that I'm going slower and you have to keep waiting for me."

So you see, I did ask. I did consider his needs and frustrations. Unfortunately, he was never candid about them. That is why I felt no sympathy later when, during our argument in the fog, he suddenly accused me of deliberate "rudeness" for constantly paddling ahead. How could I be to blame? I had asked, and he had assured me (more than once) that my behavior didn't bother him. In the fog his story changed: Suddenly, it was my fault that I hadn't assumed he was just too timid to tell me the truth.

Worse still, he pushed the issue a step further to accuse me of wrecklessness, claiming that I had "abandoned" him and deliberately put him "in danger" when, during our moderately rough crossing of Lake Pepin (in quartering waves, about one foot tall), I paddled far ahead. It is true I surged ahead of him by as much as a quarter or a half of a mile while surfing the waves on Pepin; but again, his accusation was baseless: Before I left his side on Pepin, I had asked him if he felt comfortable in those wave conditions (which, to me, seemed quite mild for a sea kayak). He had assured me he was fine. He had even reminded me that he had paddled through rougher stuff back home, at the wildlife preservation area. But later, in the fog, his story changed: Suddenly, I had "abandoned" him to fend for himself in conditions which, apparently, had done more than a little to scare him. I still don't know if those accusations were sincere, or if it was just his anger talking. Had he really been scared on Pepin? Had he really been too timid to tell me he wanted me to stay close at hand? Worse, had he left me in the fog deliberately, to "get back" at me for leaving him on Pepin? Or was he just lashing out by seizing upon every and any accusation he could think up? I really don't know.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter what his motives were. The moral remains the same: Your partner(s) can only accommodate the problems you actually verbalize, explicitly. You can't expect them to "read between the lines" or to pick up on subtle innuendos. You need to communicate your needs and fears (and answer their questions) honestly, without reservation. If you share anything less than the plain truth, you create a breeding ground for resentment and ill will. Worse, you deprive them of any fair opportunity to alleviate or accommodate your grievances. You begin to begrudge them for things you haven't actually allowed them to respond to—and that's a sure recipe for a failed partnership. In the end, the real difference between my partner's conduct and my own is that I tried to be accountable for our morale and I tried to resolve the few grievances I could control. He did not.

The Aftermath

After our trip, my partner wrote a romanticized sentimental reflection about the experience to suggest he had put our differences behind him—or that he had at least let go of his anger. Maybe that's how he wants to be perceived, but what I actually received from him (the "last letter" he refers to in his reflection) was a long, confused letter full of hostility, blame, defensiveness, and more attacks. Many months later, that letter was followed (unprovoked) by a few rude confrontations on an online forum, some hostile e-mails, ridiculous threats of legal action concerning some articles he wrote for RoguePaddler long ago, a libelious statement he posted (but later retracted) on his website concerning the integrity of my editorial practices, and some very juvenile harassment—including an out-of-the-blue "donation" to RoguePaddler in the amount of $0.01 (one cent), accompanied by a smug note to the effect that his donation showed how much he "appreciated" this website.

So much for letting go of his anger.

Shortly thereafter, I received one final, heated (and inexplicable) e-mail declaring that he had blocked me from all of his e-mail accounts so I could no longer "harass" him. I harass him? I hadn't spoken to him in months until his "donation" and snide comment showed up in the RoguePaddler in-box. Unless, of course, he felt "harassed" by the articles I wrote to address his narrow views about cell phones and kayak weight—both of which began as overt personal attacks that he initiated, and which I responded to in logical, not personal, terms. Whatever. I took his declaration as a hopeful sign that perhaps he was finally going to shut up and stop focusing his negativity on me.

No such luck. Instead, it gets even stranger: Today, after the recent redesign of this website, I received a hostile message from his brother, comparing RoguePaddler's redesigned new look to poop and telling me I should do the world wide web a favor and eliminate this site. (I'm paraphrasing his words in more polite terms.) That's all the letter said: no salutation, no introduction, no constructive feedback—just a mean-spirited jab. I won't try to speculate on the quality of his character, but it's regrettable he feels obliged to throw blind support behind a brother who has clearly given him a warped impression of the Mississippi events and my general character—a version so warped, in fact, that he's willing to write an e-mail lashing out at a perfect stranger. (That's right: I've never met him.) To offer an analogy which points up the ridiculousness of the situation: that would be like me writing to my sister's ex-boss (who I also have never met) to tell him his cat is ugly, or some other irrelevant critique. Really, it's funny.

Breaking My Silence

So why dig up this old article? To share some extremely valuable lessons that I wish I had understood prior to the Mississippi trip. Originally, I chose not to publish it as a courtesy to my former partner. In spite of the initial (and for him, ongoing) hostilities between us, I chose to believe that his atrocious behavior had been an isolated chapter in his life, and that he was a much better person than he seemed through the lens of my bitter recollection. The trip had cost us our friendship, but there was no reason to publicize his failings to the world. In fact, until now, I had only ever told the story to three people: my roommate, my fiancee (now my wife), and a friend who dropped by to visit the same day I returned from my trip. To everyone else, I said, quite simply: "Things didn't work out. He (my partner) turned out to be very different than I thought, and he felt the same, so we went our separate ways." Truly, that is exactly how I told it. No particulars, no insults or personal attacks, not even a hint of resent. In some of his bitter e-mails, he accused me of telling lies about him and our trip, but I have no idea what he was referring to. I always kept the story to myself. After the way he had acted, I owed him no such courtesy, but I extended it anyhow.

Now, years later, there is no longer any reason to hold back the story—especially not after the e-mail I received from his brother this morning, which suggests my former partner is still out there stewing in his anger and actively spreading that anger to others. This article has been sitting on my hard drive for nearly three years, waiting to be finished. In that time, I've done little with it, except to cut out more and more of the details: the long lists of insults and injuries, the minute-by-minute descriptions of heated moments, the meticulously re-created debates, the map of my GPS data to "prove" his haphazard navigation and show the extent of my zig-zag search through the fog—the list goes on. I've even omitted his name and the worst examples of his conduct so that, at the very least, this story will never haunt him on Google. In those early days after our falling out, when I was still bitter and disgusted, those details seemed so very, very important—partly because "his version of the story" distorted the facts so terribly, partly because my desire for justification kept urging me to tell "my side," partly because his so-called letters of apology were thinly-disguised efforts to blame me for his conduct, and partly just to get them out of my brain by putting them down on paper.

Ultimately, self-restraint won out. I chose not to respond in anger. I chose to wait until I could look at the matter more objectively, from a chronological and emotional remove—even if it meant denying the urge to justify myself to those who heard his distorted version of events. Now, I see that my conduct needs no justification. What I thought to be the one big failure on my part (losing control of my temper in the fog) was not the real problem; the real problem was my complete naiveté about the requirements for a good partnership and my utter failure to hold my partner accountable to the committment he was making. The truly interesting and valuable part of this story is not in the details, but in the general phenomenon: the reality that, in spite of what we both presumed to be a strong friendship and a history of working well together, my partner and I lacked the essential requirements for a successful, resilient partnership. It doesn't matter whether the individual failings were mine or his. What matters is that I never paid them any heed until they exploded: What began as a promising journey ended in a fiasco that could easily have proven disastrous under more demanding conditions.

The moral? Choosing a paddling partner may very well be the most important factor in the success, safety, and enjoyability of your expedition.

Choose wisely.

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