Paddle Oar Die Rafting: July 2008

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Smith River, Montana

Here are some pictures of the latest river trip that Josh set up in Montana.

I'm told that everyone had a great time. I thought I would post some pictures so you all could see just how great and wonderful it is up there.

The Picture not Taken

“Oh! Oh! There he goes!” Laughs Ryan, as he sees his beloved business partner Nathan flop out of his big red kayak. "Heheheee” The sound of Ryan’s laughter echoed off the canyon walls as we all watched Nathan as he floated down through the first and biggest rapid on our day trip through Split Mountain on the Green River.

As family and friends, we went on a rafting trip in dinosaur national monument near Vernal Utah as well a Westwater, Near Grand Junction Colorado. The trip, as always, was full of fun and stories, which can be shared over and over again.

“It’s all in the hips,” Nathan’s buddy, Aaron said, after Nathan got his composure. “The water’s a little chilly but it’s not too bad,” boasted Nathan. Then once again Ryan’s laughter would ring through the canyon as we could see Nathan’s little black helmet bob up and down through another rapid.

Luckily through Split Mountain nothing got hurt, not even Nathan’s ego. After we all enjoyed our 9 mile float down the green river and load the gear back onto the trucks it was wondered what we were going to do for the rest of that beautiful Saturday. Nathan, who grew up in Vernal, told us about a place up on the Blue Mountain that had a really gorgeous look out and we could drive up there it was only 45 minutes away. We all agreed and head out on what turned out to be an hour and half long drive down a dirt road. The drive might have seemed longer, but the entertainment of hearing Anisa curse Nathan made the drive fly by.

“He said it was only going to take 45 minutes! It has been over an hour and I’m getting hungry!”

she would screech as she shook her fist at the truck in front of us.

Nathan my not have been right about the travel time, but he was right about how incredible the view was. Anisa’s rage did become slightly subdued when Aaron gave her and apple, and we all drove to Lake Stienaker to Camp for the night.

The next day we had a lovely tour of beautiful Vernal Utah as Nathan ran us all over the countryside to see what wonders Vernal had to offer. It turned out to be some Petroglyphs and his parent’s shower, for Ansia. Finally after Lucas refused to eat a sandwich with out tomatoes we headed down a long windy highway through some mountains of Colorado to get to the spot of out next launch in Westwater.

The Highlights or our camp at the launch point for west water was the arrival of the Laidlaw family and the intense thunder storm that blew through our camp. Tents nearly went into the water and they would have if we hadn’t been holding on to them. Once the storm died down it was calm and we enjoyed a nice Dutch oven cobbler.

The next morning we launched onto the mighty Colorado River with the water flow at the “Terrible Teen” rate of 14,000 cubic feet per second. Little did we know, what was in store for us later that day. It all started with a nice float down some fast moving flat water, then all of the sudden Josh yells, “We got Rapids!” We hit the Little Dolores, Marble Canyon, and Big Hummer rapid. Then, it was Funnel Falls. After the first two rafts went through we looked back to see black bottom side of the third raft floating down the river. With more and bigger rapids in front off us we tried to pull over and save the upside down boat, but there was no place to pull over. “Quit Laughing Ryan!” shouted a frantic Logan, “It’s Not Funny! We got more Rapids!” “Skull! The next one’s skull!” Aaron shouted from his kayak.
Just moments after Aaron shouted we witnessed another raft flip over in the midst of Skull rapid. While the final raft navigated safely through Skull Rapid we noticed Matt spinning circles in the “Room of Doom.” We pulled to the side and climbed around the cliff to pick up the stranded Matt, while the other two upside down rafts floated through the remainder of the rapids. After the river calmed down and the rafts were turned up right it was a nice leisurely float in the peaceful red rock canyon to the Cisco landing, with gentle giggle of Ryan still bouncing off the canyon walls.

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Smith River, Montana

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