Trip Report: Buffalo River
One quick thing before I get down to business: I can't believe I was outraged that Avery Johnson didn't get the Coach of the Year in the NBA. After the first round choke job, it didn't appear that the Mavericks were even coached at all. I DO have to give him props for keeping the team focused during the season, but as so many teams recently in sports have proven - it doesn't really matter what you do in the regular season, everyone has a clean slate at the beginning of the playoffs. Avery was embarrassingly out coached. He's not the only one to blame, however. The entire team seemed to be just going through the motions. Many people in the area have theorized that the Mavs were just looking past the Warriors and making plans for their return trip to the finals. I don't think this is the case - the Warriors have had the Mavericks' number since last season - not just beating them in all but one game, but soundly thrashing them in most. Additionally, if you're the best team in the NBA and you're looking past your opponent, you focus immediately after that game 1 hide tanning and pull it together. The Mavericks were thoroughly outplayed in all but one game. Even their second win, they were outplayed for the most part. I'm embarrassed and disappointed and this was an unacceptable ending to the season.
Now... on to the stuff. This spring's adventure trip was a hiking and canoeing trip to the Buffalo River National Park in the Ozark Mountains in northern Arkansas. We've been to this area twice before, once backpacking, and once canoeing. The last time was two years ago - we canoed the middle third of the river over 2 1/2 days. We wanted to see the upper part of the river this time - as that was supposed to have the best scenery on the whole river. So we planned to key our trip around the upper region of the river. It started with getting a cabin be our base of operations. This has worked well for us now a couple times - it gives us a lot of room to pack our gear. This cabin was very nice - not quite as roomy as we were led to expect from the pictures we saw on the 'net. But still adequate, and better than a motel.
Day 1 - the drive up from Dallas - we got started later than we would have liked. I made my way over to Chris' at about 9:30, and we packed everything up and strapped the canoe on top of the Hummer. The road was hit at about 11:00, which would put us at the cabin somewhere between 5 and 6 in the afternoon. The drive up is pretty boring - 75 up through Oklahoma, then turning east at I-40 through Fort Smith, then north up through the mountains on the new I-540. Without much in the way of 'events' we arrived at the cabin within the projected time frame, took stock of the cabin and went down to check in with the operators, who also operated a livery/horeseback ride business on their expansive property. After that, the evening was spent unpacking the Hummer, taking the canoe down from the Hummer, and relaxing. Dinner was chicken fajitas, and Dos Equis with lime. The TV had no antenna or cable or satellite, so we were limited to the ancient library of VHS cassettes that were in the building... we watched Star Trek: Frist Contact until Chris fell asleep on the couch and I started nodding off in the armchair. So... we went to bed - Chris taking the master bedroom, and me climbing the stairs up to the loft.
Day 2 - the hike. I slept like crap. I'm not sure what it was, perhaps anxiety over the difficulty of this hike coming up, I don't know. I kept waking up like out of a nightmare, only I don't remember any nightmares. I MIGHT have gotten 2 hours total sleep. Chris said he slept like a rock for 9 hours straight. Breakfast was eggs and bacon and toast. We got in the hummer and headed for our trailhead, which would lead us to Hemmed in Hollow - the highest falls in the US between the Rockies and the Appalachians:
The hike was 5 miles, round trip, with 1200 feet of elevation loss down to the falls, then the same 1200 feet up coming out. Hiking down was fairly easy - only a few bits of having to boulder hop and such. The temperature was warm, and the sun was out. Not my preferred hiking weather. We made it down to the falls in quick time, relaxed for a bit, decided we needed to actually stand under the falls for a bit. The water was quite cold, and the rocks were very slippery, so it was difficult to make the stand under the water short. I got totally soaked, which was quite exhilarating, and cooled me off quite nicely. Then we settled down to eat our lunch we packed (roast beef sandwich and water from our Camel Bak backpacks.)
After a bit of relaxing and chatting with another couple guys who hiked up from the river from their canoe, we hit the trail back up. And up. And Up. Did I mention up? This was not as grueling as climbing out of the Grand Canyon from the Colorado River for two days was on our trip a couple years ago - but it was similar in spirit. It was quite a bit warmer, but the elevation wasn't as high, and we weren't carrying 40 pound backpacks. After about 15 minutes of climbing out, I started to feel poorly. I had to sit down and rest every 15 minutes or so. One of those sit down breaks, I started feeling like I needed to throw up. Some of you who know me, know that if I see, hear, smell anyone throwing up, or if I even think about it too long, I will hurl. So after pondering it for a couple minutes, I did, in fact revisit my lunch. After which, I actually felt MUCH better, and just so I'd have SOME sort of fuel in my stomach, ate about 4 peanut butter M&Ms, drank some water, and carried on. The hiking went much better and faster after that, and we eventually made it back to the Hummer, where I was very pleased to have the air conditioning on full blast. The rest of the day was spent driving to Ponca, where we talked to the outfitters who would be shuttling the Hummer for us from our entry point to our exit point a few days later. We talked to them, got a recommendation for an entry point, bought a Coke, and went in search of a gas station that actually had gas.
When we had fueled up the Hummer, we headed back to the cabin, relaxed for a bit, watched the end of the Star Trek movie we didn't see the night before, then started packing for the big canoe trip, and prepared dinner. Dinner was gigantic T-bone steaks, roasted garlic, and grilled squash. The movie for the night was The Mask of Zorro. I was ready to turn in at about 10:30, so climbed up the stairs and turned in.
Day 3 - first day on the river. Breakfast was frozen waffles. Having already packed most of our gear, all we needed to do was throw the suitcases in the Hummer and hit the road. I was anxious to get underway, as I thoroughly enjoyed our ride down the river two years ago. We drove down to Steel Creek to put in, and unloaded the gear, put it in the canoe, parked the Hummer, and hit the river. We could already tell this trip would be different... the water was a lot swifter and more active than the section we did the last time. We made our way through several mini-rapids, with minimal issue. After a couple hours, Chris kept getting anxious about each rapid, and after one rather lengthy and difficult one that we navigated with relative ease, I said 'Dude... we have nothing to worry about.'
Yes. I know.
Within an hour of my confident proclamation, we were dumped by a stealth rock at the end of a particularly swift rapid, into a long, narrow, deep section. Chris looked to be struggling to touch the bottom or pull the boat or keep it afloat. I knew that none of these were going to happen unless the river let us, so I just concentrated on hanging on to the boat and my paddle, and told Chris to take it easy, just hang on to the boat. He said that we needed to get the boat over there (pointing across the river) ... I said, "there's no way we're pulling this canoe full of water against current across the river to that shore. just let the current pull us to that outcropping over there." As we rode the current, Chris got a panicked look on his face and reached down below the water and pulled out his digital camera from his pocket (which was in a ziploc bag.) It had almost fallen out of his pocket. I was similarly panicked, reached down, felt my pocket and made sure my camera was secure (it was still there.) Eventually, the boat saw fit to make its way to shallow territory, we got out of the water so we could unload the canoe, empty it of water, and proceed. I reached down in my pocket, pulled out the ziploc bag the camera was in, and noted with extreme disappointment that in addition to my camera, there was also a significant amount of water in the ziploc. So... my new digi-cam that I loved was toast. I was mildly pissed, but we were still alive, and didn't lose any of our essential-to-survival gear, so I was ok. Eventually, we got everything re-settled in the canoe and forged on down the river, with newfound respect for the current and rapids.
The day was cloudy, and quite a bit cooler than the previous day. I was suddenly not so concerned that my sunblock had disappeared from the previous day. The rest of the day was spent riding the river and looking at scenery. We did capsize once more that day, but it was in shallow water and pretty easy to recover from. Later on in the afternoon, we determined that we needed to go for another hour before looking for camp, if we wanted to cover the 18 miles necessary to get to our exit point at a reasonable time on Friday. At some point in the afternoon, it started raining. We started scouting for a campsite that would do... we needed a flat space to pitch the tent (which was also a few feet higher than the river level) and ground that would be comfortable (relatively) to sleep on. We passed several that didn't measure up for one reason or another, and finally settled on one.
Camp was made, dinner was cooked (hamburgers that we had frozen) and everything secured against rain and critters. After a change into dry clothes, we dove in the tent, and started the tent rituals that each of us maintain. Mine consists of making sure I have plenty of water, my MP3 player nearby, and using my clothes to make a pillow. Then I take out my journal and re-read the entries from previous trips, then write the day's events. After that, I take a nyquill or tylenol PM and hope that I sleep. This time, as we were writing, Chris said 'Did that woman at the outfitter write the 4th or the 5th as the delivery date for the hummer?' ... I didn't know, I didn't look at the paper... but he was convinced that she wrote the 5th. The 4th is when we needed it. We certainly didn't want to wait at our exit point until Saturday for the Hummer. So we stressed out about that all night, adding to my insomnia that troubles me on most camping trips. There were pay phones at most of the launch points on the river, and they are interspersed every few miles, so I felt somewhat confident that we'd be able to reach someone, either by calling the local police agency or making a collect call to one of our homes and having them call. It started to rain shortly after we got in the tent, and kept raining most of the night. At one point as I was dozing off, Chris jumped up, turned on the light and opened the tent. I asked him what was wrong and he said he heard running water and was concerned that the area that we put our gear in was getting washed out by rain drainage. It was dry and evidently the running water he heard was the river a few feet away from us (go figure.) Eventually I did drift off and managed to get a few hours of sleep.
Day 4 - Second day on the river: It rained all night, but had stopped some time before we woke up. We got out of the tent somewhere between 8 and 9 and made some taquitos with scrambled eggs, pre-cooked bacon, and tortillas. Possibly the best breakfast I've had on a camping trip. Usually, I have no appetite for breakfast that early in the morning and prefer to get a few extra minutes of sleep instead of preparing breakfast and cleaning up the dishes... and generally just eat a cliff bar and/or some beef jerky. After breakfast, we packed up the gear, loaded up the canoe, and launched. After just a few minutes, we made it to the next launch area (I believe it was called Ozark) where Chris got out his cell phone on the off chance that we'd get a signal. Amazingly, he got one bar and was able to call the canoe outfitters to make sure our exit date was for the 4th. They told him that they did, indeed, have the 4th as our exit date. Much relieved, we went back to the boat, climbed in, and started happily down the river. Feeling more relaxed and at ease than I had at any point previously on the trip, I started to enjoy the ride down the river.
The scenery thus far had been typical for the Buffalo River - that is to say towering bluffs on one side of the river, with expansive gravel bars or sand bars on the opposite side... and just for good measure, oak and pine forests all around. It was very pretty. After our first stop, the scenery started to change, and became more like a swamp or bayou ... no bluffs. It was dense vegetation all around, with the trees growing right in the river bank with half their root balls exposed to water. It was pretty neat - and actually my favorite part of the river I'd seen over two trips.
After an hour or so, it started to rain again, dampening our spirits considerably. We're used to rain... if you read my Boundary Waters journal, you know we spent a great portion of that trip in the rain. I'm generally ok with rain. But it was quite a bit cooler than we are used to being. I can deal with being wet, and I can deal with being cold... but being wet and cold is miserable. We broke out our rain jackets, but by the time we could get them out and on, we were both already soaked from the rain. We put them on anyway, hoping for a little bit of insulation.
We floated on for a bit, each lost in our own thoughts, interrupted occasionally by a small rapid here and there, where we had to concentrate. On one rapid, Chris called out "Rock ahead, we need to go left of it" ... I looked and saw there was very little room to the left, between the rock and the bank... and just ahead of the rock was a tree that had fallen across the left half of the river. I said "left? there's not a lot of room over there" and he said "too late now, we're on the rock." So I did my best to point us left. We made it past the rock, and turned back downstream, then got turned a little sideways and sideswiped the tree, which dumped the boat over, sending the both of us over the right side and upstream of the boat. The current got ahold of me and sucked me down under the boat and pinned me against the tree, for a second causing me to panic and struggle. The hood of my rain jacket started to fill up and also contributed to me being pushed downstream under the boat. Eventually, I was able to reach my hands up the side of the boat, grab the gunwale, and pull myself free and get my head out of the water. Chris had a similar struggle to get free of the boat, and nearly lost his paddle. Eventually, we worked the boat free of the tree, floated downstream a bit to find safer footing, unloaded the gear, and emptied the canoe of water.
We both took stock of our gear and belongings - I noted that my sunglasses had disappeared. So in addition to the money I had spent on the trip, I was out 400 dollars between my camera and my sunglasses.
We got back in the boat and paddled on, dejected, cold, wet, and miserable, neither of us having any fun. Chris made a flip remark about getting his cell phone out and calling the outfitter and having them bring the Hummer to the next launch area we came to, right away, instead of on Friday 40 miles downstream. I made a joking retort, and we paddled on and I thought about it for a minute and considered that I wasn't having any fun, and the point of these trips was to have fun... so I asked Chris what percent of serious he was when he mentioned calling the outfitter. He said that the more he thought about the the more serious he felt about it... and I agreed. So we paddled on toward Hasty launch area, pulled out the canoe and prayed that we'd get a cell phone signal. We did, he called, and they said they'd bring it as soon as they could. So we hauled our gear up from the bank, ate a lunch of smoked salmon and triscuits, shot the breeze for a few minutes and were suddenly in better moods than we'd been for the last two days. That convinced me that we had made the right decision. After about an hour, the outfitters had made it with the Hummer, and we were quite pleased to see it. The gear went inside, we changed into dry clothes and hit the road for home, 2 days early.
The drive home was filled with heavy rain and severe weather - with each passing minute, we were more and more convinced that we had made the right decision - as conditions on the river were only going to get worse over the next 2 days.
So... in conclusion, I'd have to say that this is the most disappointing outdoor adventure trip I've undertaken. Usually, even when things look bad, I can still say no matter how bad it was, I'd still rather be where I was than at work... but looking at this one,I would have rather been at work.
But I made it home, safe and aside from some disturbingly colored bruises and sore joints (as well as a lost digital camera and my favorite sunglasses.) On the bright side, I did get a few days to rest and recover from the cold that I had caught as a result of the cold and wet conditions. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to show of this trip, but here is a link to my photoset on flickr from the last trip we took to the same place:
http://flickr.com/photos/85964822@N00/sets/72157600217051174/
Now... on to the stuff. This spring's adventure trip was a hiking and canoeing trip to the Buffalo River National Park in the Ozark Mountains in northern Arkansas. We've been to this area twice before, once backpacking, and once canoeing. The last time was two years ago - we canoed the middle third of the river over 2 1/2 days. We wanted to see the upper part of the river this time - as that was supposed to have the best scenery on the whole river. So we planned to key our trip around the upper region of the river. It started with getting a cabin be our base of operations. This has worked well for us now a couple times - it gives us a lot of room to pack our gear. This cabin was very nice - not quite as roomy as we were led to expect from the pictures we saw on the 'net. But still adequate, and better than a motel.
Day 1 - the drive up from Dallas - we got started later than we would have liked. I made my way over to Chris' at about 9:30, and we packed everything up and strapped the canoe on top of the Hummer. The road was hit at about 11:00, which would put us at the cabin somewhere between 5 and 6 in the afternoon. The drive up is pretty boring - 75 up through Oklahoma, then turning east at I-40 through Fort Smith, then north up through the mountains on the new I-540. Without much in the way of 'events' we arrived at the cabin within the projected time frame, took stock of the cabin and went down to check in with the operators, who also operated a livery/horeseback ride business on their expansive property. After that, the evening was spent unpacking the Hummer, taking the canoe down from the Hummer, and relaxing. Dinner was chicken fajitas, and Dos Equis with lime. The TV had no antenna or cable or satellite, so we were limited to the ancient library of VHS cassettes that were in the building... we watched Star Trek: Frist Contact until Chris fell asleep on the couch and I started nodding off in the armchair. So... we went to bed - Chris taking the master bedroom, and me climbing the stairs up to the loft.
Day 2 - the hike. I slept like crap. I'm not sure what it was, perhaps anxiety over the difficulty of this hike coming up, I don't know. I kept waking up like out of a nightmare, only I don't remember any nightmares. I MIGHT have gotten 2 hours total sleep. Chris said he slept like a rock for 9 hours straight. Breakfast was eggs and bacon and toast. We got in the hummer and headed for our trailhead, which would lead us to Hemmed in Hollow - the highest falls in the US between the Rockies and the Appalachians:
The hike was 5 miles, round trip, with 1200 feet of elevation loss down to the falls, then the same 1200 feet up coming out. Hiking down was fairly easy - only a few bits of having to boulder hop and such. The temperature was warm, and the sun was out. Not my preferred hiking weather. We made it down to the falls in quick time, relaxed for a bit, decided we needed to actually stand under the falls for a bit. The water was quite cold, and the rocks were very slippery, so it was difficult to make the stand under the water short. I got totally soaked, which was quite exhilarating, and cooled me off quite nicely. Then we settled down to eat our lunch we packed (roast beef sandwich and water from our Camel Bak backpacks.)
After a bit of relaxing and chatting with another couple guys who hiked up from the river from their canoe, we hit the trail back up. And up. And Up. Did I mention up? This was not as grueling as climbing out of the Grand Canyon from the Colorado River for two days was on our trip a couple years ago - but it was similar in spirit. It was quite a bit warmer, but the elevation wasn't as high, and we weren't carrying 40 pound backpacks. After about 15 minutes of climbing out, I started to feel poorly. I had to sit down and rest every 15 minutes or so. One of those sit down breaks, I started feeling like I needed to throw up. Some of you who know me, know that if I see, hear, smell anyone throwing up, or if I even think about it too long, I will hurl. So after pondering it for a couple minutes, I did, in fact revisit my lunch. After which, I actually felt MUCH better, and just so I'd have SOME sort of fuel in my stomach, ate about 4 peanut butter M&Ms, drank some water, and carried on. The hiking went much better and faster after that, and we eventually made it back to the Hummer, where I was very pleased to have the air conditioning on full blast. The rest of the day was spent driving to Ponca, where we talked to the outfitters who would be shuttling the Hummer for us from our entry point to our exit point a few days later. We talked to them, got a recommendation for an entry point, bought a Coke, and went in search of a gas station that actually had gas.
When we had fueled up the Hummer, we headed back to the cabin, relaxed for a bit, watched the end of the Star Trek movie we didn't see the night before, then started packing for the big canoe trip, and prepared dinner. Dinner was gigantic T-bone steaks, roasted garlic, and grilled squash. The movie for the night was The Mask of Zorro. I was ready to turn in at about 10:30, so climbed up the stairs and turned in.
Day 3 - first day on the river. Breakfast was frozen waffles. Having already packed most of our gear, all we needed to do was throw the suitcases in the Hummer and hit the road. I was anxious to get underway, as I thoroughly enjoyed our ride down the river two years ago. We drove down to Steel Creek to put in, and unloaded the gear, put it in the canoe, parked the Hummer, and hit the river. We could already tell this trip would be different... the water was a lot swifter and more active than the section we did the last time. We made our way through several mini-rapids, with minimal issue. After a couple hours, Chris kept getting anxious about each rapid, and after one rather lengthy and difficult one that we navigated with relative ease, I said 'Dude... we have nothing to worry about.'
Yes. I know.
Within an hour of my confident proclamation, we were dumped by a stealth rock at the end of a particularly swift rapid, into a long, narrow, deep section. Chris looked to be struggling to touch the bottom or pull the boat or keep it afloat. I knew that none of these were going to happen unless the river let us, so I just concentrated on hanging on to the boat and my paddle, and told Chris to take it easy, just hang on to the boat. He said that we needed to get the boat over there (pointing across the river) ... I said, "there's no way we're pulling this canoe full of water against current across the river to that shore. just let the current pull us to that outcropping over there." As we rode the current, Chris got a panicked look on his face and reached down below the water and pulled out his digital camera from his pocket (which was in a ziploc bag.) It had almost fallen out of his pocket. I was similarly panicked, reached down, felt my pocket and made sure my camera was secure (it was still there.) Eventually, the boat saw fit to make its way to shallow territory, we got out of the water so we could unload the canoe, empty it of water, and proceed. I reached down in my pocket, pulled out the ziploc bag the camera was in, and noted with extreme disappointment that in addition to my camera, there was also a significant amount of water in the ziploc. So... my new digi-cam that I loved was toast. I was mildly pissed, but we were still alive, and didn't lose any of our essential-to-survival gear, so I was ok. Eventually, we got everything re-settled in the canoe and forged on down the river, with newfound respect for the current and rapids.
The day was cloudy, and quite a bit cooler than the previous day. I was suddenly not so concerned that my sunblock had disappeared from the previous day. The rest of the day was spent riding the river and looking at scenery. We did capsize once more that day, but it was in shallow water and pretty easy to recover from. Later on in the afternoon, we determined that we needed to go for another hour before looking for camp, if we wanted to cover the 18 miles necessary to get to our exit point at a reasonable time on Friday. At some point in the afternoon, it started raining. We started scouting for a campsite that would do... we needed a flat space to pitch the tent (which was also a few feet higher than the river level) and ground that would be comfortable (relatively) to sleep on. We passed several that didn't measure up for one reason or another, and finally settled on one.
Camp was made, dinner was cooked (hamburgers that we had frozen) and everything secured against rain and critters. After a change into dry clothes, we dove in the tent, and started the tent rituals that each of us maintain. Mine consists of making sure I have plenty of water, my MP3 player nearby, and using my clothes to make a pillow. Then I take out my journal and re-read the entries from previous trips, then write the day's events. After that, I take a nyquill or tylenol PM and hope that I sleep. This time, as we were writing, Chris said 'Did that woman at the outfitter write the 4th or the 5th as the delivery date for the hummer?' ... I didn't know, I didn't look at the paper... but he was convinced that she wrote the 5th. The 4th is when we needed it. We certainly didn't want to wait at our exit point until Saturday for the Hummer. So we stressed out about that all night, adding to my insomnia that troubles me on most camping trips. There were pay phones at most of the launch points on the river, and they are interspersed every few miles, so I felt somewhat confident that we'd be able to reach someone, either by calling the local police agency or making a collect call to one of our homes and having them call. It started to rain shortly after we got in the tent, and kept raining most of the night. At one point as I was dozing off, Chris jumped up, turned on the light and opened the tent. I asked him what was wrong and he said he heard running water and was concerned that the area that we put our gear in was getting washed out by rain drainage. It was dry and evidently the running water he heard was the river a few feet away from us (go figure.) Eventually I did drift off and managed to get a few hours of sleep.
Day 4 - Second day on the river: It rained all night, but had stopped some time before we woke up. We got out of the tent somewhere between 8 and 9 and made some taquitos with scrambled eggs, pre-cooked bacon, and tortillas. Possibly the best breakfast I've had on a camping trip. Usually, I have no appetite for breakfast that early in the morning and prefer to get a few extra minutes of sleep instead of preparing breakfast and cleaning up the dishes... and generally just eat a cliff bar and/or some beef jerky. After breakfast, we packed up the gear, loaded up the canoe, and launched. After just a few minutes, we made it to the next launch area (I believe it was called Ozark) where Chris got out his cell phone on the off chance that we'd get a signal. Amazingly, he got one bar and was able to call the canoe outfitters to make sure our exit date was for the 4th. They told him that they did, indeed, have the 4th as our exit date. Much relieved, we went back to the boat, climbed in, and started happily down the river. Feeling more relaxed and at ease than I had at any point previously on the trip, I started to enjoy the ride down the river.
The scenery thus far had been typical for the Buffalo River - that is to say towering bluffs on one side of the river, with expansive gravel bars or sand bars on the opposite side... and just for good measure, oak and pine forests all around. It was very pretty. After our first stop, the scenery started to change, and became more like a swamp or bayou ... no bluffs. It was dense vegetation all around, with the trees growing right in the river bank with half their root balls exposed to water. It was pretty neat - and actually my favorite part of the river I'd seen over two trips.
After an hour or so, it started to rain again, dampening our spirits considerably. We're used to rain... if you read my Boundary Waters journal, you know we spent a great portion of that trip in the rain. I'm generally ok with rain. But it was quite a bit cooler than we are used to being. I can deal with being wet, and I can deal with being cold... but being wet and cold is miserable. We broke out our rain jackets, but by the time we could get them out and on, we were both already soaked from the rain. We put them on anyway, hoping for a little bit of insulation.
We floated on for a bit, each lost in our own thoughts, interrupted occasionally by a small rapid here and there, where we had to concentrate. On one rapid, Chris called out "Rock ahead, we need to go left of it" ... I looked and saw there was very little room to the left, between the rock and the bank... and just ahead of the rock was a tree that had fallen across the left half of the river. I said "left? there's not a lot of room over there" and he said "too late now, we're on the rock." So I did my best to point us left. We made it past the rock, and turned back downstream, then got turned a little sideways and sideswiped the tree, which dumped the boat over, sending the both of us over the right side and upstream of the boat. The current got ahold of me and sucked me down under the boat and pinned me against the tree, for a second causing me to panic and struggle. The hood of my rain jacket started to fill up and also contributed to me being pushed downstream under the boat. Eventually, I was able to reach my hands up the side of the boat, grab the gunwale, and pull myself free and get my head out of the water. Chris had a similar struggle to get free of the boat, and nearly lost his paddle. Eventually, we worked the boat free of the tree, floated downstream a bit to find safer footing, unloaded the gear, and emptied the canoe of water.
We both took stock of our gear and belongings - I noted that my sunglasses had disappeared. So in addition to the money I had spent on the trip, I was out 400 dollars between my camera and my sunglasses.
We got back in the boat and paddled on, dejected, cold, wet, and miserable, neither of us having any fun. Chris made a flip remark about getting his cell phone out and calling the outfitter and having them bring the Hummer to the next launch area we came to, right away, instead of on Friday 40 miles downstream. I made a joking retort, and we paddled on and I thought about it for a minute and considered that I wasn't having any fun, and the point of these trips was to have fun... so I asked Chris what percent of serious he was when he mentioned calling the outfitter. He said that the more he thought about the the more serious he felt about it... and I agreed. So we paddled on toward Hasty launch area, pulled out the canoe and prayed that we'd get a cell phone signal. We did, he called, and they said they'd bring it as soon as they could. So we hauled our gear up from the bank, ate a lunch of smoked salmon and triscuits, shot the breeze for a few minutes and were suddenly in better moods than we'd been for the last two days. That convinced me that we had made the right decision. After about an hour, the outfitters had made it with the Hummer, and we were quite pleased to see it. The gear went inside, we changed into dry clothes and hit the road for home, 2 days early.
The drive home was filled with heavy rain and severe weather - with each passing minute, we were more and more convinced that we had made the right decision - as conditions on the river were only going to get worse over the next 2 days.
So... in conclusion, I'd have to say that this is the most disappointing outdoor adventure trip I've undertaken. Usually, even when things look bad, I can still say no matter how bad it was, I'd still rather be where I was than at work... but looking at this one,I would have rather been at work.
But I made it home, safe and aside from some disturbingly colored bruises and sore joints (as well as a lost digital camera and my favorite sunglasses.) On the bright side, I did get a few days to rest and recover from the cold that I had caught as a result of the cold and wet conditions. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to show of this trip, but here is a link to my photoset on flickr from the last trip we took to the same place:
http://flickr.com/photos/85964822@N00/sets/72157600217051174/
posted by Jeremy at 5/05/2007 12:03:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home