This trip was the definition of “change” and “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes!” We started out on a high note…as in high pressure on the barometer. The sun was out. The birds were chirping (except for the ravens. ..they don’t “chirp”). All was lookin’ good! We loaded our volunteers and Terry gave her welcoming speech. I fired off the engines and we were off to Halls Creek, a whole hour away. We looked around for a suitable parking place, made a couple of false landings and then settled on a spot on an island with “marginal” anchor holds. (Remember this. It will come into play at a later time) We set a “water rock”, a rock that marks the lake water level so you can monitor how much the lake rises (or drops) over a certain period of time. We then had lunch and set off to pick trash.
The picking was uneventful and the bags of Styrofoam, water toys, plastic bottles and the like started piling up in the boat. Of course, as soon as we started running around Halls in The Eliminator, we found several really nice places to park the boat, but we stayed put on our little island. Dinner was beef stew followed by a nice shower, a relaxing drink and an early bedtime. It’s hard to go to bed around 9:30 or 10:00 when it’s still light. Usually, you are so tired you don’t care. I’m usually asleep within 45 nano-seconds after getting into bed.
The next day started. It was a beautiful day!
The first thing was to start the generator and plug in the coffee pot. The second thing was to walk the dog and the third thing was to finish getting ready for the day. By that time, the coffee is usually ready. With luck, I can get three cups down my throat before it’s time to leave for work. During my second cup, I usually listen to the weather radio for the forecasts. The weather-guessers out here are far better than those at home. When they predict wind out here, you can bet on it. Unfortunately, they predict wind fairly often this time of the year.
Tuesday’s wind was predicted at 15-25 in the morning and 20-35 in the afternoon. ..not exactly “nice”, but do-able. Winds on Wednesday were forecast to be 25-45 in the morning and 35-50 in the afternoon with gusts to 60 or 70! I had to wait for the radio to complete the forecast so I could listen to it again to make sure I heard the numbers correctly. Unfortunately, I did. We did a full day of “Tracking” to get in as much work as we could before the fecal matter hit the air conditioner.
With a day and a half of hard-at-it Tracking,
we got about 75% of Halls Creek cleaned up. We had a slightly unusual find that afternoon. I was on shore with two of the volunteers and Claudia was running the Eliminator with the other two volunteers to “leapfrog” around us to a new spot. As she was going by a houseboat named “Diane”, a cute little three year old girl who was floating on a raft while holding a tether to the boat, lost her grip and started floating out into the channel. Her mother started swimming after her but the wind was winning and she was getting further and further away from the boat. The mother yelled at Claudia who spun the boat around and pulled alongside the little girl. The volunteers pulled her into the Eliminator and then picked up her raft. They found out her name was “JC” and that she was three years old.
She wasn’t afraid at all and was given the chair of honor in the boat as the Eliminator returned to her houseboat. We logged an additional 35 pounds of floating vegetable matter and one water toy into the trash log before turning her over to her relieved parents.
That evening, after a glass and a half of wine and listening again to the forecast, I made the executive decision that we would pass on any more cleanup in Halls Creek and would move the boat to the Halls Crossing Marina for safety. Remember the aforementioned “marginal” anchor holds? I didn’t want to test them in 70 mph gusts. I was more than reasonably certain they wouldn’t hold. So, the next morning I made a phone call to Halls to make sure they had a place for us. Receiving a “Sure, come on over!” answer, we packed up and headed for Halls as the winds started to increase. We got to Halls about 9:00 and tied up right in front of the Harbor Office, the General Store and Snack bar, which, as we found out later, had great soft-serve ice cream.
We got in about four hours of cleanup before we got chased off the lake and back to the boat by the winds. We buttoned up the boat and hunkered down for the night, fortified by six delicious vanilla-chocolate swirl cones.
It was one hell of a night. We put all the fenders we had, plus a few “borrowed” ones, between the TT and the dock. In the morning, they were all blown…flat as pancakes! We later found out that Bullfrog had been hit by rain, hail and winds that broke the docks apart. One employee jumped across a seam just as the dock separated and made it, albeit unsteadily, to safety. The winds, as predicted, had subsided to about 15 mph and we prepared to take off for our “play day”. At the request of the N.P.S., we headed downlake to the Alice J Arch where the volunteers cleaned up the nastiest fire pit to date. They took two full bags of trash out of the ring.
The area was also covered with graffiti which will be cleaned up later by the NPS boat “True Grit”. We then hit several canyons as we headed back uplake. When we got to Annie’s, we found the water right up to the slot canyon we couldn’t get into last week. I wedged the runabout between two rocks and we bailed out to explore. It was fabulous, beautiful, neat, cool and a full 10 points on the “Whoopie-o-meter”. Even Gizmo loved it.
After Annie’s, we again headed northeast to the 109-mile mark to see Tapestry Wall and the dinosaur tracks followed by the double arch at the entrance to Knowles Canyon. We then moved to Smith Fork Canyon where we found a pair of nesting Peregrine Falcons, which was WAY, WAY cool!
We watched them while they watched us. After about 15 minutes, we left them in peace and returned to the TT.
Friday soon arrived…our last day. We did a quick two-hour stint at cleaning up the marina by the fuel dock and launch ramp. The back bays had collected a bunch of debris and we filled several bags along with some loose trash.
We then returned to the TT. Claudia took the runabout and headed for the pump-out dock while the volunteers and I brought the TT and the Eliminator. Leaving Claudia and Gizmo to pump and clean the TT, the volunteers and I took the Eliminator to the launch ramp to unload.
The rest was basic…we brought the volunteers to the main dock where they packed up and departed and Claudia and I then fueled and cleaned all the boats and put them away for a four-day “off duty” stretch. A nice hot shower at the RV and a great salmon dinner at the EDR finished off the evening. Trip #9 in now in the history books.
The end!
1 comment:
Hey you guys, what a grea job you are doing and seeing some of the greatest spots on earth besides! Annie's looks intriguing! -Vivian
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