Canoeing Through a No-Escape Gauntlet of Whitecaps and Boulders — wired.com

Getting there isn't the hard part. One way or another, I'm pretty sure I'm going to wash up at the appointed takeout spot in a few days. It's how I get there that has my mind spinning like foam bubbles in an eddy. I've never paddled the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, which starts in Tennessee and flows northward into Kentucky. I'm told it's beautifully volatile, unblemished by dams yet constricted by sandstone cliffs, with water that can rise and surge on a whim. The rapids, the waves, the seams, the currents: They are all mysteries to me.

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