rivermeanderlust-blog

[rivermeanderlust-blog]

The Season of Waiting

Winter is on the way.  Here, it likes to toggle back and forth between fall and winter, and in Wyoming, winter is never really that far away, and it’s never out of season.  

Don’t get me wrong, I love winter, I really do, it even used to be my favorite season, but now I’m just not so sure anymore.  I still love winter, I promise, my snowmobile can vouch for that, but I think my boats know who my favorite is.  

Our cabin looks out towards the mouth of the Snake River Canyon and our road parallels the Grey’s river, for boating and snowmobiling our home’s location can’t be beat.  We literally snowmobile from our front yard in the winter, and our drive way is a catastrophe of rafting gear in the summer.  We always have boats, coolers, rocket boxes, and a rainbow of drying river gear on the railings.

Right now we are in the season where we are trying to organize. We are trying to organize our boats, our closets, our lives, everything, and it seems to be something that we still haven’t seemed to hit our stride with when it comes to dry land.  Our boats are bundled for a long winter’s nap under our deck, they’re as hidden from the elements as we can get without a garage at our disposal.  Our snowmobiles are perched on our lawn, looking as if they are sad tokens to a snow god forgotten, or who has forgotten us.  Inside I am here, writing about how I’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything else but this.

Thus begins the season of planning.  

I am a meticulous list maker in my free time.  At some point after beginning to date Jimmy, the desire to write in a journal every day seemed to dry up, but I have found some solace in making lists.  I write them all in upper case letters, precise and bullet pointed, in columns of like items, written in colorful felt tip pens.  Something about making lists makes me feel like I’ve achieved something and that I am doing something.  It soothes me.  

I have a master list of the things I want for rafting, most of which I have been able to tick off in the last two years.  I have a running list of things to do to upgrade, maintain, and improve the rafting collection.  I have a list of apparel that I would like to acquire for the snowmobile season.  I have a list of apparel I would like for the rafting season.  I have a list of rivers on my bucket list and a list of snowy destinations I would like to take my sled.  I have a list of things to do, buy, or fix before our upcoming Grand Canyon trip next year.  I even have a list of pertinent deadlines for the Grand Canyon, even though I am not the permit holder or Trip Leader.

Surprisingly, these lists don’t include more traditional or practical desires.  I’m engaged to be married, but there is no list for that.  No running list of to-dos for the wedding (although I am sure one day their will be).  Despite of a lack of a list, we are probably going to get married next summer, but no date has been selected, no budget approved, no dresses decided on… nothing. What we do have is a tentative plan to get married on a river.  I have a visions for this, unspoken and unwritten.  Those are lists I am saving to make in February, more important things than marriage need to come first.

Now, I am cruising every website I can think of for river trips for next year.  We have to wait until February to apply and find out about potential permitted runs we could win, so we search for those rivers that don’t currently have a permit system in place.  I call it my back up plan, in case I don’t win a permit.

And we wait.  And plan.

[rivermeanderlust-blog]

Off-season

It has begun.  It is fall in the Tetons, and while the cottonwoods are slow to catch on, almost all the other leaves in the Jackson Hole valley are finding themselves new shades of yellows, oranges, and reds. It’s the time of year where most of the skids are waxing their skis and cleaning their boats for storage.  Many have purchased their ski passes for the winter back in August, and are traveling to the deserts of Utah to climb, camp, or bike to chase a couple more weeks of summer. I’m no exception to this law of seasonal employment.  Recently, a group of friends, tried to chase after an extra week of summer by heading west into the heart of the Frank-Church Wilderness in Idaho, going for a 6 day long river trip down the Main Salmon. Days before we left Jackson, the weather was beautiful in town.  60 and even a few 70 degree days graced the valley, but the weekend before leaving, the weather began to change.  Snow was forecasted for the mountain tops, rain in the valley, and that storm front was moving east, coming to us after making a pit stop in the very heart of Idaho where we were to depart. No amount of page refreshing the NOAA website would yield a better forecast.  It seems that instead of chasing down summer, we would be rowing headlong into fall.  “It’s okay,” we said.  Most of us were just excited at the prospect of exploring a new river, some excited for their first multi-day river trip ever, and one excited to go on their first multi-day trip in at least a decade. Upon our arrival in Salmon, ID (a town I could easily see myself retiring in) our group took a quick vote, and we all decided that we would rather brave the comfort of a Super 8 for one last night, rather than camping near the put-in, which was our initial plan.  It rained all night, and the clouds lingered on the surrounding mountains for a majority of the next morning.  We lingered around the continental breakfast, drinking their coffee, and staring at the weather channel, hoping for improvement.  The good news, we wouldn’t be getting snow at the river level, the bad news, we weren’t going to get much sun. We stopped and finalized our supplies, some groceries, propane, beer, and a wicked bottle of Idaho Silver vodka.  Then we were off to North Fork, to meet with the ranger on duty.. The ranger was sweet and informative.  I had never thought about what river etiquette might have to look like with jet boats moving both up and down stream, but she was patient with our group, and informed us of the necessary moves to make when we would eventually encounter that situation.  She also informed us of the abundance of poison ivy (a theme that developed in the spring when most of us took a trip together down the Dolores River in Colorado and Utah) which she stated would be around every camp, at the hot springs, and scouts.  She also lamented the fact that we didn’t have a dog with us to scare the bears away (alas other rivers with less forgiving dog rules have me convinced I will never have the time for a fido friend). After confirming our numbers and that we had all the required gear (next time we need a shovel bigger than a garden trowel), we were off down the dirt road towards Shoup, past the confluence of the Middle Fork, and arriving at the Cache Bar boat ramp usually reserved for people taking off the Middle Fork.   We patiently waited for a group of forest service folks to take out before bringing our shitshow down the the river.  I’ve had a fair amount of experience rigging boats, and yet I feel, no amount of rigging experience can expedite this process.  Finding homes for all of the gear can definitely become taxing.  We also don’t tend to be the crew to pack light.  Cases of beer are dutifully duct taped together, food stored in rockets, and dry bags lined on shore.  Eventually, as the sun began to wane and a new onslaught of rain began to fall, we ended up just throwing all of the beer in the back hatch of our tiniest boat (Miss Frizzle reporting for duty), with all the chairs on top.  We gravity rigged the rest (or rigged to party), to float off the ramp and to the little beach we would call home. The next morning, launch day, altered between rain and almost sunshine.  We re-rigged the gear that had been casually thrown in boats, and figured out homes for the rest.  After a quick team meeting and a 10am beer start, we made our way to the boats and pushed away from our faithful cars and into the unknown. It may not seem a big deal, but this trip I finally had faith in myself to bring my friend Sarah on board.  We have been friends for closer to a decade than not, and the ideas that I might possibly ruin our friendship over our silly adventures have terrified me for years.  Twice, I pawned her off onto more experienced oarsmen’s boats, and now, I felt I could bring her on board.  What she might not have realized at first though, is besides our paddle cat, my cataraft would be the splashiest ride in the group, the waves, coupled with the rain, left her wet every afternoon by the time we got to camp. Every afternoon, it seemed the weather had a special treat of a rain storm before we got to camp.  So every camp’s first task was to set up the party tarp, and try to get a fire going to dry out our soggy socks and our soggy souls.  Luckily, we had prepared for this weather, and an awning for the kitchen to keep the cooks and food dry too.  In hindsight, I am grateful for the fact that the rain at least stayed rain and did not turn to snow or hail. The Main Salmon is so beautiful, and even through the misery of rain and hangovers, I could absolutely appreciate our surroundings.  Granite walls which are black and polished smooth, Ponderosa Pine trees towering higher than almost any tree in Wyoming (my favorite of the pine trees), water clear enough to see the bottom, and friends to indulge and endure all of it together.   The rapids flowed by, giant marker rocks and holes in the bigger rapids, and big wave trains in the smaller rapids.  Scouts were spicy between crawling on that same smooth granite, and trying not to use the poison ivy hand holds, it wasn’t necessarily easy going.  Black Canyon, Bailey Creek, Big Mallard, Elkhorn, and Vinegar Creek rapid were all fun and spicy rapids.  Vinegar Creek was arguably the most technical, if only for the reason that we didn’t scout it and the only clear notes were, DON’T HIT THE BIG HOLES. POSTLUDE I never could have predicted this is where I would end up.  Enjoying the miserable weather of spring and fall river trips.  Rolling cam straps and collecting a mountain of adventure gear.  Tossing buckets of money into being an owner of 4 rafts (although only 2 of them are totally ours).  And maintaining an on going list of things to continue purchasing to make the dreams keep coming.  I never could have guessed that this would become a passion.  Collecting sand in sleeping bags, dry bags, socks, pants, buttcracks, and loving every second of it.  Losing my hairbrush EVERY FREAKING TRIP.  Packing more clothes than necessary and not wearing half of them.

This is my dream.  This is passion.  This is what I live for!

My boating family means a lot to me, and even though I manage to find a way to be the hottest of messes, I think that mostly they love me back.  I am counting down the days until permit season when I can hopefully get the band back together.   Alas, next year, we are splitting our time, some doing a spring Grand Canyon trip and some doing a fall Grand Canyon trip, and that future is unknowable.  I only hope that they look forward to our next trip as much as I do!