Boise Real Estate Report

With some unexpected difficulty, we arrived at camp at about 8:45 the first night! Joe Bump was a long mile short of our assigned camp. While I had expected a few trials the first day, the ones we got were not the ones that I was expecting. A wrap at Sulfer Slide was a distinct possibility. Getting hung up in rock garden, coral reef or any number of other spots in the first 3 miles, yes. But none of those happened. The water held pretty well and we pushed of at just over 2.00 feet. It was plenty of water and as you will see we did not fly and took everything including the new Aire Couch!

As some had never paddled or rowed before first bend was interesting but as usual, uneventful. I thought we pretty well had the first 5 miles whipped when we got to Rams horn and realized upon hitting the eddie at the bottom that I also should have warned everyone about the rocks on the bottom right. But since I have never seen anyone have any trouble with them, I thought that it was a no brainer once past the horn. Some how, the beautiful red aire 143 demo quartered into the rock and everybody on board got real big eyes, especially grandma Ellie. Heavy boats flip really slow. I will spare the rower by keeping him anonymous(Kent Barr). As Flips go it was about as easy as it gets. We lost an oar, a crate of beer, a damaged the leg on the toilet seat! If we lost anything else we still have not realized it. I paddled out and got Ellie to grab the front of my kayak and got her in to an eddy by shore. A few terse words later she let go so I could go after the boat, which was starting its journey to camp solo. Thankfully I was able to get the life line and get it to shore without to much damage to the boat, or gear. After rounding up the troops, we got her rerigged and away we went. Surely the worst was past us. But alas, Hells half mile would not keep its toungue. It was absolute mayhem. I led a perfect line and eddied halhway down on the left...... everybody decided to go right instead of making the cut back to the left. Grrrrr. I fell in line at the end of the pack after watching everybody struggle to get over the reef. I should have given a little better verbal direction before entering. Anyway to complicate things Noah was halfway out of the 2 person ik and when I reached to pull him back in, we flipped. Grrr, opps, $hxi. It is a bit of a rocky swim, lots of bedrock ledges along the sides to beat you up. Thankfully Leon helped us out and in no time we were underway again. Noah apparently felt safer on Leon's boat, cause that is were he was. Leon felt sorry for me and wanted to give me a chance to help him, paybacks and all!! So he pasted his 24 foot Aire cat sideways on the only rock in the river between hells half mile and Velvet. We did a 4 man tug of War with his cat. Velvet went great! Everybody had a good run in Velvet. Joe was getting so confident he decided to surf the hole and dropped in sideways. He front surfed, back surfed, side surfed. He was having a great time, when I noticed Tom about to drop in on his head. I waved Tom off and being the former air craft pilot that he is recognized my hand signals as go left fast. We determined later that he was unaware that joe was in the hole. Classic. About this time Joe decided he had had enough and came to join the rest of us. We wanted to camp somewere way above Joe Bump as we were tired and feeling a little abused. But as luck would have it everything was full. So left with no choice we steered a course for Powerhouse. Bill took over for Joe as his hands and arms were pretty much shot. He had a great run. I had relived Kent earlier as his hand cramped up and he was unable to row the big red machine. Running a big long rapid late in the day with super heavy boats and inexperience boatmen and women is a bad idea, but the river gods took mercey this time and allowed us to pass without taking any more prisoners. Thank you, thank you , thank you. Enjoyed a great dinner of steak, corn on the cob and onion cheese bread!

Day 2
As you can see from the photo above, I did not sleep well as I suspected the integrity of the floor had been compromised as a result of a floor that was to soft. It is hard when you go with a large group and not everyone is experienced to pull it off without some incidental contact. Thankfully there is goop 2000. Industrial shoe goo that aire wisely puts in the repair kits. We tried the tape trick that aire is famous for. but they got famous for it after this boat was made because you have to patch this type of floor with conventional material and technics, from the inside. It was wet and the difficult working conditions necessitated an emergency tape job just to get on the river. It was 11:30 or later before we pushed off and Joes little cat,which was overloed with ice was loaded way to back heavy and he fell behind in the shallow riffles immediately. We stopped to look at the ne class 2 at sheepeater and rerig Joes boat. Went more smoothly after that. Every body seemed to be getting the hang of their particular craft and we rolled pretty good down to Lake creek were we got out to scout, pretty good hole on the right at the bottom even at 2 feet. I ran first and was so heavy that I could not get pulled over. So as planned we continued on down to Pistol. Apparently all went well in Lake as everyone was right side up entering Pistol. At some point in time since I had run last the right hand low water shot has narrowed down alot at the bottom and there was just enough room to squeezed the 143 through. I waved everybody else left before I entered as I could not tell how wide it was and there is a little wrap rock that I feared someone would decie to broach on. They had no idea that the real steep but short drop awaited them on the left and everybody had great runs and lots of fun! We stopped here for lunch and were visited by an echo terrorist who kept tossing his tomato scraps in the bushes, but a smack along side the head and we got that straightened out. Even burned, what a great camp, cliffs fishing shade and sand! At 4 oclock and still having 9 miles to go, we cut the cliff jumping short and headed for camp at Little Soldier! Always one of my favorite camps there are two trees that have washed up on the beach impacting the usable area. Still a great camp.