Patagonia Pluckers

It bears a sharp resemblance to a beached carp, although that
lumbering fish doesn’t officially exist in the 265 rippling acres of
Patagonia Lake.

With a little toe-nudging, however, my lethargic find turns out to
be a yellowing, water-logged oven mitt. Oven mitts aren’t listed as a
game species here, either. But such garbage does seem to profligate in
this picturesque but sometimes abused haunt.

Enter the Southern Arizona Paddlers Club. Some 30 members of this
venerable kayaking clique are about to hit the water, in celebration of
their 10th annual “For the Sake of the Lake” cleanup effort. Over that
decade, the loose-knit bunch has hauled their kids, dogs, ice chests
and abundant goodwill to this erstwhile sparkling oasis in the
Patagonia Mountains south of Tucson. It is a fine deed, with weighty
results: The kayakers have plucked truckloads of trash from these
environs, one boatload at a time.

Today, they’re about to lug in a bit more. The early October crowd
is made up mostly of middle-agers who are lumbering into their gleaming
vessels, some made of fiberglass, others of wood. Their steady work
helps keeps this outpost tidy and supplements the lake’s small staff
and tight coffers, in a year when the Arizona State Parks department
has seen its budget slashed from $26 million to $19.3 million.

As kayakers bag the trash, it will be handed off to a roaming
pontoon. In turn, that floating repository will be manned by Colt
Alford, Patagonia Lake’s park ranger. Alford says the boost from these
folks is enormous. “We usually get a dump-truck load. … I’ve
calculated that in 10 years’ time, they’ve pulled out two tons of
trash. They’ve found some interesting stuff out there, too.”

It was artist and floating bon vivant Royce Davenport who began this
twin-paddle juggernaut after developing a fondness for the lake. He
figured he could mesh his affection with a hankering for good
deeds.

To Davenport, it’s a fluid thing. “I came here from the Midwest in
1974, and I liked Tucson a lot,” he tells me. “The only thing missing
was water. So I started coming down here, and I thought it was pretty
neat.”

But there were growing problems with Southern Arizona’s lakes, such
as mercury buildups that made the fish inedible. That got Davenport
thinking about the state of his own little Shangri La. “It was telling
me that, man, we need to do what we can to make this place nice. And it
was trashy. I got sick of seeing that trash—Bud Light cans and
Styrofoam worm cups all over the place.”

About that time, Davenport stumbled across the Paddlers. He started
doing regular kayak trips with them, and before long, he broached the
notion of these cleanup details. It didn’t take long to assemble a
dozen like-minded folks.

He says this is a natural fit for kayakers, who impulsively clean up
wherever they go: “You’re cruising along, and you see crap; you just
gather it onboard.”

There’s also a spunky camaraderie among these older Paddlers. “Sure,
we’re always eager to get young folks in,” Davenport says. “But today,
we’ll give an award for the most senior member. We’ve got two folks
here that I know are in their 70s. They have their own boats, and they
go just as much as any of us. Personally, those are the kind of people
I want to hang out with.

“These folks don’t need a Holiday Inn. They just pack up their boats
and camp along the shore, and have one adventure after another.”

Among today’s intrepid Argonauts are Jack and Wendy Kriendler, who
recently returned from paddling around the Mediterranean island of
Corsica. Jack says he came by this club through the buzzing kayakers’
grapevine. “Paddlers are that way. They’re passionate about it. You see
someone with a rack on their vehicle, and you go, ‘Oh.'”

He also says that kayaking takes the edge off of daily life. “It’s
meditative. It’s rhythmic. It’s very peaceful and can be very
challenging.”

“And the thing about kayaking is that you can do it for a long
time,” Wendy says. “It’s bilateral. It isn’t like canoeing.”

Jack Kriendler looks around at the chummy, mostly graying crowd with
a grin. “It is an older group,” he says, “but people mostly go do it
because they love it.”

According to experts, that connection is key for the long-term
success of efforts such as this lake cleanup. “The bottom line is that
volunteerism is an emotional bonding,” says Vilma Pallette, a Silicon
Valley-based consultant who managed volunteer services for the 1984
Olympics in Los Angeles. “The camaraderie builds on itself. If you
haven’t tapped into that, the longevity will disappear.”

Beer probably helps, too, and more than one has been cracked as noon
nears. Two hours have gone by, and the paddlers are slowly collecting
on shore. Among them is Matts Myhrman, who is best known as a pioneer
of modern straw-bale home-building. But lately, Myhrman has focused his
energy on the shimmering new kayak he’s now tugging into the soft sand.
Recently finished from a Pygmy kit, the 14-foot marine plywood craft is
sleek and elegant.

Myhrman, who at age 71 will win honors today as the club’s oldest
member, calls it a “wonderful boat.” He’s also a big fan of this little
lake. “From a selfish standpoint, I love it down there,” he says. “It’s
the closest real lake to Tucson. I owe it (to myself) to help take care
of that—to keep it pleasant.”

As Myhrman walks over to a table loaded with food, Davenport is
gathering this year’s more exotic catches on the beach. They include a
car battery, a soggy cowhide, and a rather macabre doll, with plants
draped across her head and one missing eye.

There have been even more unlikely finds. “One year, they even
pulled a picnic table up out of there,” he says.

Then he looks over to where one of the kayakers is dragging along a
car wheel, complete with the tire. That raises a chuckle. “Wonder where
the rest of the car is,” he says.

This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2009.