Fall Picnic

More Fishing Pics..

Back from the 2nd annual float down the river...

 It's a 7 day float down the river in the dingy (no motor).  Basically a relaxing float, fishing, floating, chatting, floating, more floating...  but for some reason the guys really really enjoy it.  Even when it's freezing cold and raining.   David went with his friend Jesse this year (there is only enough room for 2 with gear).

 They caught grayling, lenok (asian trout) and taimen if that means anything to you :)   We are going to eat some of it tonight...looks good to me.

 Jesse's hand and a bear's paw...thankfully no real danger :)

 Free little cabin to stay in for one night..anyone can use it, the idea is to enjoy the noodles and salt or whatever supplies are in there and leave some yourself.  good idea.  and nice to not have to set up the tent for one night...

There are lots of stories from the trip..including just the drive there in a combination of different vehicles...but here is one part of the story told by David:

Other than the danger of bears or popping the dinghy on an unseen branch or rock there is really nothing to this trip except one little part about 300m long (out of 300km!) it is about a class 4 rapid, well two rapids close together. Last year we carried everything around the first one and ran the second but after having looked at it for a long time and successfully running the second one we figured that we could have run the first one too if we would just stay to the left side of the whole thing where it wasn't quite so extreme. So this year we decided to run them both. When we got close we got out of the river to take a look at it and plan our route. But we were looking at it from a bit up stream figuring we had a good enough view. We took off all excess clothes (it was cold and rainy so we still had quite of bit of clothes on) I took off my hip waders and put on runners and Jesse took off his shoes and just wore socks and we packed it all away in our "water proof" duffle bags. We knew we were going to get quite wet with all the splashing and wanted to have dry clothes and footwear to put on after. We put our life jackets on for the first time during the trip and as we got into the boat Jesse said "Let’s make a memory David!" Well... we were about 40 seconds into the rapids when a huge hole appeared in front of us. We had seen the boulder to the right but because we were a bit up stream we hadn't seen the huge hole; it was probably six or eight feet deep and of course that made an even huger wall of rushing water gushing up out of the hole. We went down and as we were coming up the far side the boat flipped to the left. I was thrown over out of the hole and Jesse was thrown face first into the boulder (that was unseen under the water and creating this whole thing). The boat, our two water proof bags, our container of food, our fishing rods and our duffle bag with tent and other odds and ends was all sent rushing down the rapids with me and Jesse not far behind. I could hear him gasping for breath (caused mostly by the bash he took to the head which I didn't know about at that time). He got out of the river pretty quick with his paddle still in his hand and when I looked back and saw him crawling out of the river I was reminded that I also should get out or I would be going through the next set of rapids body surfing style, so I dropped the bag I was trying to rescue and my paddle and swam for shore. Only I had shoes on so when I got out of the water I starting running after the boat and bags that were caught in a little swirling eddy close to shore. We figured they wouldn't hold there long and would soon be pulled back into the current and be gone for... ever? We were still 125km from home which is a two and a half day float and I don't know how many days walk but neither would be any fun without dry clothes, dry sleeping bags, a tent and food.... or boat!

Anyway, in the end we were able to rescue the boat and two water bags with our clothes and sleeping bags (which turned out not to be water proof!) and food container. The bag with the tent, boat pump, gas bottles for our stove, and Jesse's ThermaRest mattress was gone down the river somewhere along with my paddle. It was challenge getting out of that area of the river with only one paddle but we made it. Jesse had only a little cut above his eye and a minor concussion:), I had some scraped knuckles and a bruised bum and our pride was a bit hurt. But we had definitely made a memory! About half an hour down river, we spotted our black duffle with tent etc. and the sun had come out and warmed things up. We found a place to stop and hang everything out in the sun and breeze and in about 2 hours it was all pretty much dry. Another 30mins down the river we found a Russian hunting cabin to spend the night in.

We are now home safe and sound... very thankful for His protection and little blessings like finding our tent and for sunshine just at the right times. We never did find my paddle but Jesse carved a pretty good one out of a plank of wood we found at the cabin. We left some cans of meat and other food items as a thank you.

back to me:
David told me about all the thoughts/worries/horrors that went through his mind from the moment he flipped till they were both safely on shore...pretty crazy how much can go through your head in a few minutes!  But even after all that, I'll still let him go next year...but I think they will walk AROUND the rapids next time:)

Sock Coffee

We didn't want to go the whole trip/yurt stay without real coffee...but we forgot our filter.  Thankfully my socks made the perfect filters.   We might start using them at home:)

Josiah Elliot