Friends of Ace

here are some pictures of my rafting trip...I had a GREAT time

lol yeah I have quite a story about that trip that I will tell but first let me narrate the pictures for ya.

first picture-top left
this picture is at 5:00am in Paxon Lake after a 250 mile all night drive and an hour of sleep after which I had to unpack the raft and air it up and load it. I couldn't have slept anyway I was too excited to be there.

the next picture is lookin back after an hour of rowing across the lake, still have another hour to go to get to the head waters of the upper Gulkana River. this is a 4.5 mile open water row with no keel to keep you straight so it was probably more like 5+ miles in a zig zag across the lake lol

the next three pictures are of the beginning of the end for my back that day lol....the water was extremely shallow and swift so I was really pulling on those oars but with a loaded boat and very little water for the oars to bite into it was tough going. Not to mention that I spent a lot of time dragging the raft (loaded with around 500 lbs + 150lbs for the raft) through an inch or two of water. There was 3 miles of that, after a 2 hour 5 mile row WHEW It was time to camp and SOON!!! I am in so much back pain at this point that I can't even sit right and all I can think is I have to stop and rest my back to get ready for the next 2 days of rowing, of which there are 8 miles of rapids to look forward to tomorrow. UH OH is all I am thinking...where is my vitamin I (I = Ibuprofen). 13 miles today total
...next year I am doing more heavy deadlifting and heavy sled dragging to get ready for this trip...

the last picture on the top right is the start of the second day. My back was miraculously feeling no pain at all...must have been the car ride, no sleep, rowing, and dragging, just taking its toll on me that day because after about 12 hours of sleep I am revved up and ready to go. Its a good thing too because I have a really long day ahead of me to be on schedule to make my flight to Vegas for the class....22 miles to go today

bottom left is where the excitement really started for me and my dad....
the canyon rapids (class 4) followed by 8 miles of class 2 and 3 rapids.
well to go through the canyon you have to dock and portage all your gear around so the raft is light enough to maneuver through the chute that is in front of the 4 foot water fall at the end of the run through the canyon. So now that I've said what should be done comes the part of what really happened.....dramatic pause .....lol OK so we pull up to the site where the portage trail begins and these two borough of land management girls tell us to go to the next one because they have their canoes there...my first mistake was listening to anyone else when I am responsible for my raft and passenger(dad).... Well we got to the next spot and my dad all of a sudden doesn't want to get his feet wet or something because he doesn't jump out and tie us off, and we float right by the docking spot!!! So I throw his life jacket at him and yell "put the fishing gear away and pay attention because we have no choice now we are going over the falls with a full boat!!!! Hang on!!!" lol now it gets interesting. I hit the stern of the boat on a boulder and it knocks me off of my butt onto my back with my legs straight up in the air, I let go of the oars and my dad grabs my hand and pulls me back up......I go to grab the oars and low and behold where did the left oar go?!?!? UH OH one oar, class 4 rapids, a narrow chute, and a 4 foot water fall WITH ONLY ONE OAR....oh crap it's gonna be a yard sale at the bottom of the run if I don't do something!!! so the only option I have to salvage this rapid run is to put in at the side of a 12 foot river bank with one oar in rushing water that is who knows how deep.... Somehow I manage to get my end(stern) of the raft near the waters edge and jump out into chest deep water(3 feet from shore) grab a algae covered very slippery boulder and a D ring on the stern of the raft and yell at my dad to tie us off. He does and then its a race against the rivers current to catch up with my very necessary oar that is going down the river without me. I get on shore climb the river bank in thick brush and run as fast as possible ducking and dodging trees and fighting the underbrush that is so thick I can't see 5 feet in front of me. I run probably a half or three quarters of a mile like this only to not catch our very necessary oar.....and no spare. So here we sit in the middle of the run of rapids tied to a 12 foot bank with one oar and still have nearly 30 more miles to go with 8 of those being the rapids in front of us. Here is another UH OH moment lol. So life goes on and I have to deal with this as we are not able to just call for help. Well I need time to figure this out and clear my head after that little fiasco. So I start to unload the raft and try to figure out a way to get through the rest of the canyon. I get it unloaded and haul all the gear down and around the falls when someone asks me if I need and oar because he had a spare. This guy is my new hero lol. So he loans me a $300 oar on good faith and I take off down the falls load the raft and start the smaller class rapids when I find my oar hung up on a rock. Because the oar that I borrowed was different and wasn't made for the type of frame that I was using, I was V-E-R-Y HAPPY to get my oar back! After that, the rest of the trip was uneventful and relaxing....

The last picture is where I pulled the raft out and finished my 50 mile Alaskan float trip adventure.

lessons learned:

train to drag your raft

tie off your oars so you don't lose them

carry an extra oar..because you never know what might happen

and most of all stay calm and deal with whats at hand because the rest is irrelevant till you get to it
(this is a very important lesson to learn and every one should learn this because life is a lot simpler with this in mind)

lol it was an adventure!!!