|
One of the Nine
|
I'm Back!!
Did y'all miss me? In case you didn't know, I left town yesterday, but I'm home now. I went on a journey that needs to be posted here on good old CP just to make me feel like I'm back in civilization. Here goes:
So my friend is getting married. He's one of my 4x4ing/camping buddies. He's even more hardcore about the outdoors than I am. So at his request, his bachelor party was to drive to some place upstream from Sundre, and raft down the Red Deer River back to Sundre.
Now, don't mistake me for one of those idiots that shows up on a camping trip with no gear and wearing white shoes. I'm on the ball when it comes to camping and rafting. Bindar Dundat. I know what to bring and what to leave at home. Well, too bad that I had a momentary lapse of mental ######ation before this trip. I showed up with a bottle of gin, a can of soup and a pack of cigarettes. And a sweater.
So we went to UofC and rented some higher quality rafts and drove to Sundre, dropped off a truck and then drove to the launch point. This trip was destined for disaster the minute I showed up unprepared. You see, between me and the buddy that is getting married, all the camping experience split up between the remaining guys is probably equal to the amount of outdoors experience that Paris Hilton has. And since I was unprepared, imagine what the rest of the group looked like.
So we launch our boats around 3pm. The idea is to get about halfway to Sundre, camp overnight, then keep on going to Sundre. 5 minutes into the trip, I had already fallen overboard. We launched the boats on a shallow, rocky area and I was using the oar as a lever to get us into the current. I was leaning on the damn thing pretty hard when the boat broke free and started going. Yeah. The boat started going and I flipped right out of the damn thing and landed in the water. Remove cigarettes from inventory.
So I crawl back in and have to put up with the harassment that I deserved for being such a bonehead and we're underway. Half an hour later, the river splits into two, and we decide to go left. FAIL.
A fricken tree had fallen over, blocking the river and all our boats crashed into the thing, one by one and they all capsized. At least everyone else was wet too, now.
Best part here is that gear started floating down the river and we had to chase it through thick brush. We did manage to get it all and we then decided to float for a bit and go find a place to camp and start a fire.
So we find a good place and we start a fire and we're all stripped down to our shorts, drying off our clothes. No, it didn't turn into a gay lovefest as Locke and troutman were not there. Just a bunch of dudes sitting in their underwear with their clothes hanging on propped up oars, drying by the fire.
After my clothes were dry, I re-robed, drank some gin, then decided to snooze on one of the rafts. I was just falling asleep when one of the other drunken idiots flipped the raft over and launched me onto the rocks. Yes, we do fool around like that, but I wasn't all that impressed on this particular occasion.
Genius move #2 was to launch the boat, by myself and go about 2 minutes downstream so that I could snooze uninturrupted. For the record, I was pretty drunk and it didn't occur to me that this would cause great worry with the rest of them as to my safety and whereabouts.
Now I'm all by myself, just around the corner from those guys and I decide to start a fire and take a nap. As I'm gathering wood, I pick up a log that (unbeknownst to me) has a fricken hornets nest growing on it. Apparently, these guys didn't appreciate being thrown in a fire and they decided to get even with me. I got stung about 8 times, all on the back of my head. Woo hoo! Are we having fun yet? Forget about the nap, it's definitely time to drink more gin!
So my private campfire is raging, the bottle of gin is flowing, and my can of soup is cooking. I'm having a great time, all by my drunken lonesome, before I suddenly realize that it's pitch black around me. Genius move #3: I haven't stockpiled any wood and there is little to none on this stupid island that I've set up camp on. Word to the wise: don't camp on an island. You WILL get wet.
Now I'm stumbling about in the dark, searching for wood, manage to find a couple pieces and I stoke the fire. It still doesn't occur to me that perhaps it would be wise to find a little more wood, for the long haul overnight. No, instead I decided to pass out in the comfy confines of the raft.
At some point in the night, I am awaken by the fact that I'm absolutely soaked because it started snowing. Snowing. In August. WTF? And not that good snow, powder that is fun to ski on. It was that wet sh1t that sticks to you and soaks you. On top of that, the fire is pretty much dead, I've got no wood, and there is no moon (or it's blocked by the stupid snow clouds) and I have no flashlight.
So off I go, to find some wood. Once I do, I'm suddenly overcome with fear (yeah, I said it) because now I can't see my camp. So I start following my drunken footprints back and finally find my camp after what seemed like an eternity. I throw the soaked wood on the dwindling fire and start blowing and blowing and blowing to get the thing going again. It took about half an hour, but I fianlly managed to get it going.
So then I flipped the raft over on it's side and used the oar to prop it up and put it right beside the fire. I crawled underneath and went fetal. It was a ridiculously tumultous sleep, lying on rocks and using a mini cooler for a pillow (and the goddamn thing was empty! Why did I even bring it???), soaked to the bone with a little tiny fire to keep me warm. Over the course of the night I had to get up three or four more times to find more wood.
You know that feeling you get when you're drowsy and you're driving? You know, you're driving along, you feel your eyelids start to close, then you suddenly awake and you're shocked that you let yourself do that. It takes about 2 seconds to get your bearings as you're scanning the road and wondering how long you let your eyes close for..... Yeah, well that was me with the fire. There was no way I was letting the damn thing go out again. Every time I'd doze off, I'd suddenly awake and start frantically looking around to see how much wood was left. What a night. Sleeping on bowling ball sized rocks, soaked, no flashlight, idiot drunk, friggin snowstorm, various cuts and bruises (including a pellet gun wound graciously donated to me by another guy that was jealous that he couldn't go. So he shot me. Yeah. Yes, I shot him back.), I'm wearing stupid thin little adidas shoes that have no tread and even less cushion, so walking on rocks feels like I'm doing it barefoot......... !@#@!*#
Eventually, day broke and I went to put on my shoes that I had propped up by the fire to dry. I discovered that not only did the snow keep them good and wet, I burned holes right through the toes and they started melting. Figure that out. They're wet - and burnt.
I put 'em on anyway and began hiking back to the other site. It was an awesome feeling treading through the water at 7am, after sleeping wet all night on rocks.
I get back to the other site to see the fire still burning but nobody around. I couldn't follow footprints because I was on the other bank and the river was pretty wide at that point. So I go back to my raft, get to the other bank and start hiking it to the highway. Along the way, I came upon a ranch with a guy with a truck. I sheepishly tell him my ridiculous story of my own stupidity and kindly request that he return me to civilization. Nice guy that he was, he fires up his truck and we start heading toward where we launched from the night before. Along the way, my buddies were heading back toward Sundre and we flagged them down. I thanked the hell out of the guy and jumped in my friend's truck. They're half pissed off and half grateful that I'm ok. They were about to go to Sundre and call the rescue team to look for me.
I guess I missed a few funny moments at the other camp. One guy put a can of chunky soup by the fire and forgot to open it. They were all standing around the fire when it suddenly exploded and covered a few of them with soup. One guy slept on his cooler. Draped over it, stomach down. Another guy tried to leave and hiked to the highway without pants. Along the way he came across a campsite and they gave him a pair of pants and drove him back to our camp on an atv.
So yeah. That's my story of being cold and wet and drunk (and don't forget stupid).
Last edited by 4X4; 08-31-2008 at 05:16 PM.
|
