UPDATED Selway Trip Report - Mo Bigger Better!

[davidbob]

Big Ball's on the Selway
(sung to the tune of Big Ball's in Cowtown by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys)

"Rowing down the Selway, sleepin on the ground
Drinkin' margaritas, ice all around
Camped big at Pinchot, food won't go down
Wolf Creek tomorrow, we're gonna drown.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey, c'mere momma the panther's got me."
{Words: The Bubba Kato RBF Golden Toe Music Co.}
_________________________________________________

No western river trip starts at the launch site, and neither does this trip report. You have to get to Idaho from Arkansas first. 80% of ARG (Arkansas Raft Guides) and its affiliate, the Pete Rose “Banned for Life” Division, drove out. Members on the drive included the Cap’n, Ranger Rick, me and Marcell (who is banned but that could change). Lippo (Branson Division) flew into Missoula. The Cap’n, Rick and I got a telephone scolding on the road from Dr. Cindybob about being too cocky and hard on Marcell and Branson Boy. Her unexpected criticism stunned us all, but hit me hardest as I was still trying to recover from the salad selections at Applebees that caused me to throw a major pout (and my menu) in Pocatello the night before. We had gotten our dobbers down before the trip even started. We needed something to lift our spirits. What we needed were some new hats.

Master Hatter Roy Jackson at Jaxbilt Hat Company in Salmon, ID had just the right medicine, and didn’t seem to mind that we blocked his entire driveway with Rick’s truck and trailer. Everybody but Cap’n Tightwad participated in the straw cowboy hat buying spree, with Rick’s hat band (a red double tassel cavalry style (shown here in yellow) costing more than the hat). With our egos back where they needed to be we bought 32 blocks of ice at the Save More and additional gin, etc. at the lone liquor store in Salmon, and headed to the North Fork Store to buy quarts (because they didn’t have “40s") for the last leg of the drive.

Permit Holder Laura Timby gathered the MAXIMUM number of boaters allowed on a Selway River permit at the Paradise Camp put-in on July 9 and quickly (but thoughtfully) made cooking team assignments. (she didn’t actually use the team designations listed below – the teams just kind of named themselves (or I just kind of named them))

Team PH: Laura and Dave, Jim “Lippo," "Jim Bob," "Branson Boy," etc. Mitchell and Marcell “Marcellus” Jones
Team Eat Water: Walter and Gayle Felton, Bruce Bird and Bob Moffitt
Team Shinbone: Paul and Judy McCune, Dave Smallwood and Gil “Tin Man” Wooten
Team Big Water: Stewart “Cap’n Downstream” Noland and me (the 2 founding members of Team Big Water), plus Ranger Rick Ramsay (the addition of Rick was an obvious choice – excellence attracts excellence) and Dave Phillips (Laura’s selection of Dave for Team Big Water was not one of those excellence things – it was more of an let's-even-things-up-in-fairness-to-the-other-teams kind of thing)

ARG, no matter how hard it tries to humble itself and melt into the crowd, cannot just walk around like flatlanders when on the banks of a river like the Selway. There were the cowboy hats, the cocky catchphrases (“Bigger is Better,” "Has anyone seen my high blood pressure medicine?"), and the appearance of swagger (which was actually just us hopping over sticks, shadows and everything else slinky looking, afraid we were about to step on a rattlesnake). The presence of ARG at full strength created a palpable if unspoken tension in the camp.

The tension quickly manifested itself and things started to turn ugly: aprons surfaced featuring “ARG” inside a circle with a diagonal line across it (the universal “no” sign); the swashbuckling symbols of ARG (the pirate and the parrot) were mocked by giant blow up dolls, eye patches, hats and costumes. And how did ARG respond? By upgrading raft sizes in spite of the relatively low water to sacrifice for the common good of the group. Team PH quieted the dissension by grilling fabulous rib eyes that, along with red wine, put everyone to sleep.

Despite the water conditions at the top, ARG graciously agreed to bring 32 blocks of ice (requiring two 120 quart coolers) and two York packers full of gin, vodka, margarita mix, a margarita machine, tonic, limes, extra vodka, extra gin, an emergency supply of beer, an emergency supply of margaritas, and my emergency supply of Makers Mark. Cap’n D decided he would need to carry two coolers (1 food, 1 ice) so he supersized to a 16’ Avon; someone else also needed to carry a cooler of ice so Phillips rowed a 14’ Avon instead of a Super Puma, and Rick borrowed Gayle’s 14’ Maravia (thinking back it’s hard to remember EXACTLY why this was a sacrifice for the common good of the group, but for the purposes of this trip report this was a courageous and heroic act nonetheless). The weight of all that ice, liquor drinks, and liquor drink accessories had us discarding less essential gear (i.e. tents, warm clothing, hiking boots, camp chairs, etc.)

Walter and Gayle also graciously agreed to “go bigger” and row their 16’ Maravia in order to haul even less essential group gear (stoves, rocket boxes, the kitchen, kitchen tables, kitchen sinks, range, self-cleaning oven, solar power generator, and other inter-related parts of their kitchen system).

Dave and Laura rowed a 14’ Maravia; Paul and Judy a 14’ Aire; Marcell a 14’ Hyside; Bob and Bruce R2ed a Puma; Smallwood, Lippo and I all rowed Super Pumas; and Tin Man paddled his (ugh) kayak. That made a total of 11 rafts and 1 hard boat.

Day 1. After Cap’n D and I managed to wrestle the two coolers of ice weighing about 150 lbs apiece, among other stuff toted by everyone (stuff like rafts and things), down the launch ramp we loaded the boats and took off on Friday afternoon and headed for Waldo Bar, 5 miles downstream. The river was a little bony. There were 3 Class IIIs that were pretty routine, except for my Super Puma run through Washer Woman (that Gil critiqued from an eddy below the drop “If you were trying to find every way possible to screw that up without flipping you were pretty successful.”)

The first day was otherwise uneventful except for The Incident at Waldo Bar. Paul, perhaps inspired by ARG’s many examples of sacrifice for the common good of the group, apparently decided that a large rock at the edge of the water in front of the camp posed a risk to anyone trying to land a boat. His solution was to attack it at its sharpest point with his shin. Things like rocks and sand stakes usually win those kinds of fights. The puncture wound was bad, but everyone pitched in at this point. The major contributions were the wilderness medical expertise and experience of Walter and Laura and ice from ARG for the cold pack. ARG also set up the cocktail table. The camp soon returned to normal. If dinner was delayed it was only slightly. I saw a rattlesnake while Stewart and I walked upstream to fish. The end result was that Paul managed to land his boat on the rocks and landed himself in sick bay and on the 24 hour disabled list.

Ranger Rick and Clair (aka the TroutBitch) have a tent they call the Taj. It is a structure so massive that it is visible from the space shuttle. Rick brought a slightly smaller tent, dubbed the Tajette, that will sleep 3 and … well, it will sleep 3. After we left my tent in the truck to free up space for more ice, The Tajette became the home of Rick, Stewart and me for the next 6 nights (please remember that we are all happily married men). It was even an educational experience for Rick, as I apparently demonstrated a new method of snoring (he may be 0-1 against sand stakes at Mackay Bar, but his saw mill imitation is legendary throughout Idaho).

Day 2. Out of an over abundance of caution Cap’n D picked up Paul as a passenger. Big props to Bob Moffitt for rowing Paul’s raft and Judy for jumping in the paddle raft with Bruce. At Cougar Flats the necessity of rowing a large raft to haul all that bulky, heavy and essential group gear clashed with low water conditions in a rapid that was a better fit for a Super Puma. The big 16' Maravia high centered on a rock. I stopped just downstream and walked back a short way. Walter and Gayle weren’t able to get it unpinned despite trying every trick in the book. I threw them a rope but couldn’t pull the raft off the rock by myself. Cap’n Downstream parked on the opposite side of the river and watched with a 75’ rope from about 80’ away. Marcell, Jim Bob and Ranger Rick arrived and the 4 of us were able to provide enough hard pulls (one of which nearly cut off Gayle’s circulation) that with Walter’s leverage on an oar the raft finally became unstuck (at this point let me interject that it is simply untrue that ARG is Latin for “dedicated to the common good”). The rest of the run included Goat Creek (Class IV-) that was huge fun for all the boats (about 6 or 7 “Piney moves” that were easy enough as long as you saw what you needed to do and didn’t hesitate). We camped that night at White Tail Flats. The ARG cocktail table, complete with endless ice, Ranger Rick's margarita machine, etc., was a popular spot as Team Eat Water cooked what may have been my favorite meal of the trip – spaghetti and meat sauce.

Day 3. Paul was back at the oars of his raft. Ham, a Class IV rapid at the end of the section, had bigger rocks and drops than Goat Creek, but maybe not quite as many. We camped that night at Tony Point.

Knowing we had a layover day tomorrow and 4 Class IVs coming up the day after that, the cocktail hour the first night at Tony Point was particularly liquid. I don't think anyone would disagree that I contributed mightily by accomplishing the rare happy hour equivalent of hitting for the cycle (margaritas, gin and juice, vodka tonic, and the very finest box red wine available at ANY* supermarket in Salmon, ID).

* also the only supermarket in Salmon, ID.

Team Big Water demonstrated how it earned its reputation as a well oiled river trip cooking team machine. The sautéing (Ranger Rick), grilling (me), dutch ovening (Cap’n D) and flunkying (Phillips) was seamless. I also dressed for dinner. It was a magical night. I napped awhile before going to bed and kicked a rock on the way to the tent to see if they were getting any softer and exact a little retribution for Paul. Little did I know this would be the last time on the trip that my feet and the rest of me would be on speaking terms.

Day 4 (1st layover day). Tony Point is just upstream from the Moose Creek confluence. There is a Guard Station nearby, and there is a fire tower “close” at Shissler Peak (a/k/a Mt Olympus). How in the world I let the Cap’n talk me into blowing my first layover day plan of sitting around and counting empty beer cans by going on a hike with 3,000' of elevation change will haunt me the rest of my life. I had purposely left my hiking boots behind so I couldn’t be lured into such lunacy. Walter and Rick laughed at me. I laughed at me. But I went anyway, along with the Cap’n and the other dupes (Laura, Bob, Lippo, and Marcell). It was warm, humid and starting to rain, so I wore shorts, a short sleeve cotton shirt, 10 year old running shoes that I converted to river shoes, and a Gore Tex rain jacket. I would have dressed differently had I known Shissler Peak (Motto: “If there’s no snow here, there’s snow near here”) was located in the Himalayas. Laura said a ranger lady told her it would take 3 hours to peak out. Cap’n D said it wouldn’t take that long. It took longer (maybe because of the monsoon that hit shortly after we took off).

It seemed like the 5 miles of trail to Shissler Peak spanned at least a couple of time zones and involved several climate changes. After we punched through another glade of chest deep, wet, cold, sticky, trail blocking, vision obscuring, impossibly snarled Amazonian like vegetation I looked up and saw another glade of chest deep, wet, cold, sticky, trail blocking, vision obscuring, impossibly snarled Amazonian like vegetation. I remarked to Lippo, "this just keeps getting better and better." Lippo responded, "Why am I doing this?" Me: "I don't know about you, but the only reason I'm here is that I'm an idiot." Finally, after taking 15 minutes more than the ranger lady said it would take, we summited. Everything I had on was soaked to the skin. My feet and hands by now were blocks of ice.

Ranger Tom was surprised to see us, noting that most visitors pick different weather conditions to attempt the ascent. We were hoping that our blue lips and chattering teeth would score us an invitation to join him in the tower (that doubles as his living quarters), but he didn’t take the hint. We stood on the lee side of the building eating anything we could find that might raise the thermometer reading in our bodies to near room temperature. We didn’t stay on top long for fear the next climate change might involve a blizzard. I had foolishly offered to carry the backpack earlier in the day when I thought we were going hiking instead of mountain climbing. Before we started down Cap'n D took me up on the offer. Soon after that my right foot went all Dr. Strangelove and decided to try and kill me. I’ve had a nasty lingering case of plantar fasciitis over the past year. Part of the treatment was orthotic inserts in my shoes. They seemed to work exceptionally well going up. Going downhill? Not so good. My right foot was on the mountain side of the trail. Unless it landed perfectly flat it tried to roll to the left, the left being the Precipice of Certain Death side of the trail. I was afraid to remove the inserts for fear I wouldn’t be able to put those soaking wet shoes back on my frozen, swollen feet. I limped down, at one point doing another painful imitation of Paul attacking a rock.

Back at camp I tried to convince Walter to use the sat phone to call a med-evac helicopter, reasoning that psychiatry was a branch of medicine and I must have been crazy to ever agree to go on a hike like that in the first place. I settled for a margarita instead, and parked under the parawing to watch it continue to rain on all the stuff I’d hung out to dry earlier in the day. Phillips, who demonstrated his superior intellect and good judgment by staying in camp to finish a book on Lincoln, read aloud a passage about Marcellus E. Jones, a yankee officer who fired the first of over a million shots at Gettysburg. My right foot stopped yelling “Mein Fuhrer!” and started saluting Marcell. We don’t know why. Team PH cooked. The grilled pork chops were outstanding, but when I at first ate and then started to believe I was enjoying sautéed vegetables I knew the "hike" had left me delusional and that the state of my mental health was continuing to seriously deteriorate.

[End of Part One. Part Two – (“We’re gonna try to run THAT in THESE little boats?!”) to follow]

[lbaker]

I have never met you or your "team" but that is one of the funniest TR I have read in a long long time, even tho it did hamper me from swallowing my supper at times, can't wait for the next installment.
Leigh

[wet 2 woody]

Very entertaining indeed...................Looking fwd t'wards the "rest of the story".

[Tim Eubanks]

Did anybody do a back flip off a raft at the end? Way to go, Tin Man. I'll paddle anything with you, DVB, and Branson Boy.

With any luck, I'll be a permit holder some where next summer.

[davidbob]

With any luck, I'll be a permit holder some where next summer.

Tim Man - No back flips. We're too OLD.

If I draw a permit next summer and you want to row you're in.

Leigh - did you snort or did you just have trouble swallowing?

[davidbob]

The river really picks up at the Moose Creek confluence, which was right across from our camp at Tony Point. The addition of the water from Moose Creek almost doubles the volume of the Selway, and substantially changes the character of the river.

It’s an easy hike down the Selway Trail from camp at Tony Point to scout Double Drop (Class IV), Wa Poots (Class IV), Ladle (Class IV+), and Little Niagra (Class IV) that are all within about a mile of each other. Several from our group made the hike and the report was that Ladle might be a problem, particularly for the larger rafts.

Day 5. After a day and a half or so of rain and clouds the weather turned gorgeous and stayed that way the rest of the trip. We packed up at Tony Point, put some air in our tubes, and made sure everything else was tight. Everyone flopped over Double Drop, made the moves at Wa Poots and then parked the rafts in a huge eddy above Ladle to scout. The river spreads out across a huge entry at the top and drops through a jumble of rocks with no clear line through them, then necks down at the bottom. Somebody, Smallwood I think, found a thin thread through the boulder choked right side that looked pretty doable with a couple of the right moves at the right time in a raft with smaller tubes. As it turned out we all made that line with no problem except for Phillips, who tried to move to the center a little sooner and got stuck for a few seconds on a rock before freeing the boat and pushing into the main channel. Lippo ran safety sweep, reasoning that if he could climb Mt. Olympus without oxygen, then being the last raft down a Class IV+ was no big deal (although he did remark just before the summit of the mountain climbing expedition that when he got back to LR he was going to join the country club and take up golf).

Little Niagra was no big deal and incredible fishing was the story of the rest of the day, the 4 Class IVs sort of obscuring the 5 Class IIIs (Puzzle Creek, No Slouch, Miranda Jane, Meeker and Osprey) that were spread out over the next 3 miles. Everyone who fished caught dozens. I was catching them like crazy until an oar handle pulled out from its resting spot under my leg, popped up and knocked my rod in the water in a deep hole. [Note to Chiolino – the RBF goober move was alive and well in Idaho that day].

We camped at upper Pinchot and planned to do a second layover day there too. You could hear Wolf Creek, the biggest rapid on the Selway at this level, from camp. We made the mistake of walking down to look at it before dinner the first night. Wow. From river level you see a horizon line and then …. nothing. The Selway disappears. My first thought was “We’re gonna need more groover capacity.” Some of the water spreads out across a couple of hundred yards of rocks from the left side to center right, but most of the current bends to the right and sweeps along a wall on the river right side, ending in a huge, powerful pourover hole off the right wall. Wolf Creek had it all: raft flipping holes, exploding waves, laterals, reversals, a raft flipping wall on the right that all the water piled into, and that channel-wide smiley face recirculating pourover hole at the bottom. The over analysis phase of big water scouting began immediately. Cap’n Downstream found a line for the Super Pumas very quickly (it would up being the line for all the rafts except Walter and Gayle). But first we had to spend a couple of days fretting about ….

…. The dwindling ice supply and scurvy. At the top we had so much ice we bathed in it, made jewelry out of it, lit cigars with it, stuffed our Paco pads with it, traded it to the natives for large tracks of prime real estate, and made an ice sculpture of Tin Man in honor of his selection by the ARG Whitewater Wives and Gauley Widows Auxiliary as Whitewater Mr. Husband of the Year (Ranger Rick is still p.o.ed about that). Now we were running low (it was almost as if it was melting or something). We decided to use half of what we had left on night 5 and save the rest for night 6, our final night on the river. We also started to worry about the possibility of a scurvy epidemic because we were out of limes. Our back up anti-scurvy protection was to keep drinking lime juice rich margaritas, but we were running low there too. ARG, however, famous for its meticulous planning and prioritizing, had that emergency supply. Or thought we did. After nearly emptying the margarita machine we panicked when we located the plastic jug with the emergency margarita mix but couldn’t find the emergency tequila bottle. Looked everywhere for it. High and low. Looked in the same place more than once. The same York packer 3 times. Enthusiasm turned to disenchantment. Disenchantment turned to panic. Panic turned to a search for the guilty. The search for the guilty turned into punishment of the innocent. Punishment of the innocent turned into reward for those who played no part. Then we realized we had poured the tequila from the glass bottle into the plastic jug container when we were still at the Paradise put in, and that for the last half hour Rick had been carrying the plastic jug with the fully mixed emergency margarita supply in his hand. No matter. Crisis averted. But we could still hear Wolf Creek around the corner.

Team Shinbone cooked everyone a hot, steamin’ bowl of Wolf Brand chili for dinner. Smallwood’s Dutch oven cornbread was the perfect complement and good enough to be a meal in itself. We opened another box of red wine and waited for a star to pop out before turning in, while listening to the soft, faint sounds of Wolf Creek in the distance.

Day 6 (2nd layover day). About 2 ½ miles below Wolf Creek there is another rapid called Jim’s Creek, or Tee Kim (Class IV-). Although several people hiked down there, they didn’t bother to ask me (for that they have my undying gratitude). Back at upper Pinchot bar, the kitchen was cleaned up after breakfast and the contest for the most worthless layover day boater was on. The competition was fierce. Phillips is a veteran layover day camp slug. Ranger Rick can be a model of unwasted energy. I drank 2 warm beers rather than walk 50’ to the boat to get cold ones. You get the idea. The most effort we expended was moving our chairs to stay out of the sun.

Many of us also had appointments to get our nails did at Gayle’s Selway Spa & Riverfront Salon. Rick and Marcell got an electric shade of blue. I got Kelly green (in honor of the Pointer head cheerleader uniform Dr. CindyBob wore in ’70-’71). I believe Tin Man got his did in Razorback Red. Lippo got purple with an overlay of blue and a hot pink special “K” on his big toe for his main squeeze. Gayle really takes pride in her work. My not-yet-fully-recovered-from-the-Mt.-Olympus-hike right foot was so impressed with its new cuh-luh that it stopped saluting Marcell and offered to buy her a drink at happy hour.

We did amble down to Wolf Creek late in the afternoon to see if the water had dropped and check out what appeared to be recent big cat tracks in the sand at the lower end of the bar. While we were on the trail above the rapid a commercial raft group (4 16’ rafts plus kayaks plus a ducky) pulled up and joined us to scout. Then they ran and couldn’t have goobered it up any more if they had tried. A kayaker flipped in the top hole, tried several times to roll but couldn’t, and swam the rest of the rapid including the big hole at the bottom. One raft tried to back down the left run of the right side and got stuck on what we came to call the Razorback rock. Another raft tried to push forward down the same line and got stuck. One raft rowed to the entry point with the ducky and ducky pilot on board, then the ducky guy pushed the ducky off the raft and the ducky drone ran free by itself the full length of Wolf Creek, without flipping or getting caught in the bottom hole. At that point I felt reasonably certain that I couldn’t screw things any worse than the commercial group did, and none of them died. I relaxed and returned to camp to determined not to let the remaining ice go underutilized on the last night of the trip.

Day 7. The consensus was to never camp and layover 400 yds above the biggest rapid on a river if there were other options. By the time we launched several of us were ready to just run the darn thing and get it over with. Walter had yet to scout Wolf Creek so he and several other boats landed near the trail and they hiked up to take a look. The rest of us stayed in our boats in the pool and headed for the horizon line.

The Cap’n ran first, hit the slot we’d scouted, didn’t get stuck and disappeared over the first drop. Then Ranger Rick, then Smallwood, then me. Miraculously, everything happened according to plan. Over the first skinny drop, graze the Razorback rock with the left tube, hit the green water, push to a sweet spot downstream of an exposed rock and between a lateral wave pushing you left and an exploding wave on river right, then push like hell for a tongue on far river right or at least to the right side of the big smiley face bottom pourover hole, straighten up to go over the drop, catch an eddy and grab a beer ("Gentlemen please! Rest your sphincters!"). It’s a little hard to describe the power and momentum of the water and the speed with which everything happened. You only had time to make maybe 2 oar strokes in any given section of a long steep rapid. I had to switch to my spare oar in the eddy below because somewhere in the rapid my right oar blade twisted about 20 degrees or so, and I can’t remember hitting a rock or anything else except water with it.

Paul ran next and got pushed into the moving eddy above the Razorback rock which in turn deposited him on the rock. After a few rocking maneuvers he managed to free the raft and finished the rapid okay. Lippo got stuck in the same place as Paul but stayed put a little longer. Tin Man decided to put his kayak in the eddy below the Razorback rock to see if he could help but about the time he was committed Lippo was able to push his boat off the rock. The raft blocked Tin Man’s path to the eddy, forcing him into the upper hole that flipped the kayak the day before with the same result. Unlike the first guy, Gil rolled up on his first try and both he and Lippo were fine after that.

With one exception all the other oar rigs followed the same line and did fine. Walter ran the meat and let it eat. The big hole in the upper wave slowed him down and almost held him for a split second, but he used gravity and the momentum of the raft to set him up for a clean finish.

Bob and Bruce had a very good left to right run until they pushed to the rock wall on river right above the bottom hole. Their momentum took them into the wall. The raft didn’t flip but Bruce couldn’t stay in. During the over analysis phase (another reason not to layover right above a rapid like Wolf Creek) several people observed that if you started down the left side and did all you could to get to that wall on the right the water wouldn’t let you get there, so it’s easy to see how the R2 managed to tangle with the wall. Ranger Rick made a perfect rope throw to Bruce from the eddy below the big hole and Bob got the raft into an eddy on the other side. Wolf Creek got Bruce’s hat and our respect but that was all.

[At this point I have a confession to make to my RBF brethren. I was really pulling for both Tin Man and the other yakker to make their rolls. I don’t know what came over me and I felt guilty on several levels for feeling that way, but I did. First, the RBF’s main purpose in life (other than getting up at the crack of noon to paddle the Mulberry) is hatin’ on kwakheads. Second, I looked inside a kayak once and it was all dark and scary in there so I’ve never actually sat in one, and the RBF strongly believes that we should fear and despise anything that is different, strange or foreign. Third, I’m legal counsel to the RBF, so the milk of human compassion doesn’t exactly flow through my veins. Kenny may have to deprogram me when he recovers from his second surgery of the summer (the RBF’s bionic man now has a new knee to go along with his new hip).]

The last rapid of significance was Jim’s Creek/Tee Kim, a tricky Class IV-. Walter was ahead of me. He hit the wall and bent an oar. It’s the only human produced sound I’ve ever heard on whitewater that was louder than Marcell’s voice from a paddle raft. Several other boats got a little wall action too, although Cap’n Downstream read the water better than anyone else, entered at the top from a different angle, and ran the drops with what looked 5’ of clearance.

All that was left was a few miles of slower water, an uneventful breakdown and pack up, and a stop to gawk at Class VI Selway Falls.

Many thanks to Judy for all the overtime she put in washing dishes. Many thanks to Gayle for putting up and taking down the kitchen every day (and making our toenails look pretty). Many many thanks to Bob and Bruce, who had groover duty. Many thanks to Laura for bringing together a group of experienced boaters who knew the rules of camp etiquette (and even followed them some of the time), putting together an outstanding trip, and putting up with ARG.

And I’m never ever going mountain climbing disguised as hiking with Cap’n Downstream ever again (unless he gets a permission slip from my right foot’s psychiatrist first).

[lbaker]

Thanks for the vicarious adventure!!!! As for the trouble swallowing, I guess you could say that I just had a little trouble keeping the food in my mouth while laughing my self silly. I guess if this keeps up I'll have to get a plastic keyboard guard
Leigh

[Rotifer Thalweg]

[Kenny may have to deprogram me when he recovers from his second surgery of the summer (the RBF’s bionic man now has a new knee to go along with his new hip).]

He's not bi-pedal, or uni-peedal, he's multi-metal. (mumble mumble scratch)