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This is an e-mail I sent to a friend on a recent trip I just did:
How'd your trip go? You have no idea how much I had wished I had bailed on these guys and done the W.F. with you Here is a synopsis of the trip:
They told me they'd pick me up in Boise at 7:00 a.m. and showed up at 10:30 - this set a precedent for the entire trip. When they showed up, I was surprised to see that three of them were 60 or 70 years old. I don't have anything against the aged running rivers but I knew the Three Forks section was pretty tough and at these flows a long, cold swim could be in the best boater's future.
We left on Easter Sunday and it was snowing in Boise and continued to snow all the way past Jordan Valley. We tried the Three Forks road but it was too muddy and we began slippin' and slidin' immediately. So we decided to go look at the North Fork to see if it was still high enough to run. When we got to the N.F. put-in, the creek was about 6 to 12" lower than when we had run it last week. I tried, as well as several others in the group, to impress upon the rafters that this was a tight technical creek and lightening their loads was critical. Since the shuttle people were waiting on us (because we were running 3.5 hours late), they were a little hurried and the only thing they downloaded was one of the propane bottles. The four tables, bocci ball, hand wash, huge kitchen box, extra kayak, blaster (i.e. propane waster), and many other extra items, all stayed on the rafts.
There were eight people on the trip and actually six of them were pretty cool, however, there were two who proved to be the bane of this six-day ordeal: Dumbass #1 - the trip leader who was a shouter, couldn't or wouldn't rig is own boat, needed help with everything, would ask people for help and then let them do all his work and was slower than shit. Oh yeah, and he couldn't row a boat if his life depended on it. Dumbass #2 was 70 (yes, that's right 70), couldn't hear without his hearing aid which he didn't wear on the river, was very unpleasant, and was almost as slow as DA#1.
Seeing as how we had 12 miles of difficult, tight, technical creek running with heavily laden boats, we put on at the crack of noon Monday to cold temps and lower flows. The first couple of miles is pretty scenery and swift water but after that it steepens and tightens. At the first significant rapid, the two heavy boats were bouncing off boulders and getting hung up. While the rest of the group stayed upstream to help unstick DA#1, I went downstream to check on #2. As I rounded a tight corner I found the boat plastered against a mid-stream boulder with him and his 60ish year-old passenger on the top tube of the boat. So, I hiked upstream to make sure none of the other boats came down since they had the entire creek stopped up with their raft - I was imagining a rap on top of a rap - ohhhh the horror. Anyway, I was able to make it the half-mile upstream to where the rest of the group was still busy getting DA#1 unstuck and prevent any more boats from coming downstream. We were able to unstick DA#2 but it required a Z-drag, which made for good practice.
We continued on in this same manner - me out in front watching these boats bounce, get stuck, and then climbing out of my boat to offer what assistance I could. We made it downriver this way for about 5 or 6 hours and decided to camp. I figure we had gone about 4 or 5 miles. My concern only continued to grow; thinking we'd eventually get the boats so stuck, these guys would have to hike out.
The next day was pretty much the same except this time we managed to put on at the crack of 1:00 p.m. and it was DA#1's turn to wrap his boat. We were able to make it about 6 or 7 more miles and then had to camp again. Mind you, the N.F. had taken us two hours the week before and we were at two days and still had about 6 miles left and some tough rapids yet to run.
The next day, after much prodding and helping, we were able to get DA#1 and DA#2's boats rigged and ready and put-on at 11:00 - yeahhhhhh! We made it out of the N.F. around 3:00, ran The Ledge rapid without incident and then camped below.
One thing I forgot to tell you - the boat DA#1 decided to strap to his raft was a brand spankin' new Diesel 75 - never been on the water. With all the bumping and bashing, two of his grab bars were ripped from the kayak. Yep, tore the damn things right off. I'm not sure what the story is with these but I'm going to ask around and see if anyone else has had problems with them. I would think they would be able to handle extreme loads but maybe the pulling action of this was too sudden rather than a steady pull.
The next day we had Half Mile and Widowmaker. Actually, one boat flipped in a huge hole at the bottom left on Bombshelter. The hole was a sleeper and despite the fact I was on the shore jumping up and down like a monkey and trying to tell them to pull right, no one pulled hard until they saw why, but by that time it was too late. They all ran the hole but only one of them flipped.
When we had run Widow a week earlier, it was so high (17k), it was flushy and pretty easy, so I had been telling these guys the worst is behind us. When we arrived this time, the flows were 10k and this was a totally different rapid. My heart sank to see that the big wave we had run one-week earlier was now the biggest must run hole I'd ever seen. To make this story a little shorter, everyone except DA#1 made it through upright, however, he wasn't even rowing his boat. He refused to run this rapid alone, so one of the other trip members had to run it in his boat, hike back up and take DA#1's boat down with him riding as bow fluff.
After his flip, his raft took a rough ride downriver and the remaining grab bars on his kayak were torn off and a couple deep creases were put in the bottom. So, this boat hadn't even been paddled and all of the grab bars are gone and the structure compromised.
We made it to Rome but because of all the earler incidents we were a day late and are met by the Malheur County Sheriff because the shuttle company had reported us overdue. After telling him everyone was accounted for, he left us with a "goodluck" - if he only knew.
We had planned to pick up two more passengers here but the female had a complete meltdown because of a practical joke. Dan (my buddy from Mexico and the person who invited me on this fiasco) took a picture of my ass with her disposable camera. So, she decided, after all her bags are already on their way downriver, that she isn't going and she is leaving Dan on his own to find his way back to the 1200 miles they just driven. The complete story is way too complicated to tell via e-mail and will have to wait for another time. Suffice to say this girl was a nut job and she totally screwed Dan and the rest of the group.
We ran out of propane a day later (good thing we saved the weight and used that stupid blaster so much) so the rest of the cooking was done over a fire.
To cap things off, our tow across the lake got all screwed up, so we ended up rowing 12 miles of lake to get to the Leslie Gulch takeout.
I barely touched the highlights (or lowlights as it were) of this trip. It was definitely the weirdest trip I've ever been on...without a doubt.
See ya,
Tim |
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Strangest river trip I've ever been on - NF Owyhee to Leslie Gulch New 
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