Mark started out calling me a rent-a-guide. This was generous. By the end, I think that even he realized I was simply a parasite: I relied on him to keep me safe on the river; I relied on his wife to feed me; and I relied on The Kid to do all the dirty work around camp.
Speaking of camp, our first one was at the take-in. It was not necessarily notable except for the swarms of mosquitos. I'd like to blame Mark and Kristi for those since their trip planning and execution was otherwise flawless, but I think Titi's explanation was best: They came with her from Minnesota.
After a couple of long hard days on the creek, softened only by a small ration of beer, wine, and gin, we made camp above Triplett. This is where the fear and loathing began. The roar of Triplett in our heads all night left us queasy (or was that the roar of half a dozen martinis and an after-dinner romp through Zimmy's psyche?). Then, after a nail biting run that almost sent me for a swim in Triplett's first pour-over we fetched up on the shore above Hells-Half-Mile. It was here that I was reminded of an important life lesson: You can always make things worse, but you can't often make things better.
We watched another group float through Hells and I realized that a lot of fancy maneuvering was completely ineffective and might send me over Lucifer backwards or upside-down. And so I thought, "To hell with it, I ain't going to try to pull in behind this or that pour-over or try to dodge this or that lateral, 'cause that will only make things worse. I am going to paddle straight down the tongue, straight into the pillow on the right side of Lucifer, and, if I have to swim, hopefully it won't be until after that." And, I didn't. Swim, that is. So, I think that means that I can paddle as good as Lannom (
http://searching4whitewater.blogspot.com/).
As for sleeping, however, I will never match Mark. He claims to have slept soundly--after half a dozen mixed drinks by Ms. Mayhem--on a matrix of box elder roots approximately three inches in diameter. Oh, and did I mention that it was raining, which is why he was under the tree?
When we arrived at Jone's Hole for our last night, the rainy weather had set in for good. We could tell because Kristi set up the Moss (and because the dime sized hail was painful). While the light was beautiful, the storm put a bit of a damper on our dress-up party. Rich didn't find the child's-size grass skirt to be quite the thing for a September hail storm, and JR's boa couldn't stand up to the rain.
The rain at the put-out was worse yet. This is because I unwisely paddled Split Mountain and arrived at the ramp soaked to the bone. If it weren't for the warming effect of cleaning two groover boxes, I might have been hypothermic. Actually, Rich helped me with the groovers and it is a good thing he did: I think Kristi was feeding us glue all week . . . let's just say that it was a sticky job.
I didn't arrive in Escalante until about 11:30p. I was tired, but it was a good tired. Another great week on the creek.
We sold our house in Escalante. We had to move out by the end of November. It was a horrible amount of work. Too much crap. I was so tired of it by Sunday that I decided to run to the top of Antone Bench via the Roundy Trail. Well, run isn't really the word. It is about a 1600 foot rocky vertical slog to the top of the bench. I wasn't running so much as sweating and complaining and feeling sorry for myself. There was snow under the pondos on top of the bench and the wind was cold. I went over to the east side and looked out over the canyons of Mamie Creek and Death Hollow. It was a spectacular view all the way to the Henrys. Since it gets dark early in late November, I had to turn right back around and get off the bench before 5 pm. I didn't want to be scrambling down the trail after the sun set. Whew. Then it was time to turn in the keys and say goodbye to the Escalante house.
