Reflections Along the Way

Our house in Montana

What a week!  This section of cyberspace is not nearly adequate enough to share my experiences from the week, but I’ll try to provide a worthwhile synopsis.  Our trip started out on Saturday, June 13th, at 3:40 am with a call from Orbitz alerting us that our 6:30 flight was on time.  (thanks, orbitz…)  We flew to SLC, where we met up with Steve’s parents (Joe and Beth), then flew on to Idaho Falls, where we rented a big blue van and drove a couple of hours north to our house about 30 miles east of West Yellowstone, near the town of Ennis, Montana.  Meanwhile, Brent and Megan flew into Bozeman, where they were picked up by David and Allyssa who were driving in from Missoula.  Amazingly, we all arrived within 20 minutes of each other, but not before a small fiasco with finding the keys to the house…our first night we were all tired and drove into town (which ended up  being an hour away) for some buffalo burgers from a place called Bullwinkle’s.  On the way back to our house, along the 6 mile gravel road thru our “neighborhood”, we saw a herd of elk, several pronghorn sheep, 2 beautiful owls, and a giant rainbow.  This was only the start of all the wildlife we would see throughout the week!

The view in our backyard!

Sunday, June 14th ~
We hiked the 8600 foot Bunsen Peak today, which had spectacular views, and a little bit of every kind of terrain – starting with smooth switchbacks, some snowfields, a little bit of scree at the summit, with a burned forest area, grassy meadows, and ending with a jeep road down the backside of the mountain.  The round trip was 7 miles.  Brent, Megan, and I opted to extend the route a little bit along the way and switchbacked our way down into the Sheepeater Canyon for a view of the 150 foot Osprey Falls, bringing our total up to 10 miles on the day.  On the way back, we even saw a black bear poking around in the meadow down by the river!  It was a fantastic day out in Creation, and ended up being one of my favorite days!  And what better way to end the day than with fresh, hot, pizza!

Monday, June 15th ~
Today was a drive-a-thon…since dusk appeared to be our best chance for wildlife viewing, we decided it would be better to sleep in a little, have a nice lunch at the house, then bring a picnic dinner to enjoy in the park.  We drove through almost the entire northern section of the park, stopping at various pullouts with the binoculars to check out the wildlife.  We saw a bald eagle being pestered by a hawk (which gave great perspective on just how BIG the eagle was), a black wolf, two more black bears, and some baby buffalo running out on the plain!

Snowfields on the Bunsen Peak Trail

Tuesday, June 16th~
Today was a visit to Geyser Country.  The most exciting part of our day happened when a big black bear ran out in front of our car across the road!  We hiked a mile to the viewpoint of Grand Prismatic Spring, which was spectacular with all the different colors.  We arrived at Old Faithful about 30 minutes before the next eruption, so we sat around poised and ready with our cameras.  To be honest, compared to the other geysers we saw later on in the day, Old Faithul was kind of a let down.  (Apparently, O.F is neither the tallest NOR the most predictable, but rather is the tallest of the more predictable ones.)  After the eruption, we ate lunch at the Old Faithful Inn, which had been on Beth’s “bucket list” since she was a little girl.  Once that got checked off, we hiked around the boardwalk trails looking at all the geysers.  We were lucky enough to see several more geysers erupting, including the Castle Geyser, and the Grand geyser, which are on the “must see” list of geysers in the park. 

View from the Bunsen Peak Summit

Wednesday, June 17th~
We decided to take a break from the long drive into the park today, and everyone kind of went their separate ways.  Joe and David had to drive Allyssa back to Missoula, and went fishing around that area in the afternoon.  Steve and Brent went fishing at the Three Dollar Bridge area, right near our house, and Beth, Megan, and I spied on the boys for a bit, then went for a beautiful hike in the Beaver Ponds area.  On the way there, we saw some fantastic bighorn sheep crossing the road!  They seemed more concerned with headbutting each other than with worrying about the cars, and we sat and watched them for a long time.  We had our system worked out – I went first on bear watch, Megan went second, also on bear watch, with plans to go for the pepper spray in my backpack if need be, and Beth was on wildflower identification watch.    We were a good team and hiked a good bit of the afternoon, seeing tons of beautiful flowers, and every sign of a grizzly bear except for the actual bear itself.  (scratchings on trees, tracks, poo…)  On our way out, we noticed that some bad weather seemed to hanging out near our house, even though we had had clear skies the whole afternoon (you can see for miles and miles and MILES around out there, hence the nickname, “Big Sky.”)  The closer we got to our turnoff, the more apparent it became that Steve and Brent had gotten DELUGED at the bridge…when they weren’t waiting for us at the bridge, we hoped that meant they had found a ride back to the house, but we ran into them a couple of miles up from the bridge on the way back…we felt a little guilty about all the fun we had had while they were soaked and shivering in the HAIL by the river most of the afternoon, but the bright spot was that at least Brent caught a brown trout, and Steve caught a  big whitefish (which evidently I learned is not a “cool” fish to catch, but I was proud of Steve anyway!)

Steve's whitefish!

Thursday, June 18th~
We drove thru Yellowstone Lake today, and hiked the Pelican Valley Trail, which apparently is prime grizzly as well as moose habitat, but it was a no show for both.  In fact, we didn’t see very many animals at all today, which was surprising.  My highlight for the day was hiking to Sublime Point in the Canyon area.  Absolutely gorgeous views, casual hiking, peaceful setting – just amazing!  Afterwards we stopped for a better view of the Lower Falls on the Red Rock Trail. 

Friday, June 19th~
Today was a fishing day.  We all split up and found a spot on the river.  Some of us were more successful than others.  As for me, I caught a large stick as well as a clump of moss.  I only fell down once.    But I had a blast, and the best part was tromping thru the river with the waders on! 

In front of the Grand Geyser

Overall, it was a fabulous trip!  Seeing so much of God’s handiwork so up close and personal was amazing!  So many awesome memories and experiences.  Steve and I feel truly blessed to have been able to go there!  Thanks so much to Joe and Beth for bringing everyone out there!!! 

On Saturday morning, the time had come for everyone to leave and go their separate ways, and for Steve and me, our journey was only halfway thru!  We rented a Dodge journey and headed south to Utah! 

Steve and I had a blast today, and it was the most random day I’ve had in a long time, so I thought it was worth noting. In preparation for the upcoming family trip to Yellowstone, I decided I wanted Steve to teach me how to fly fish. Since his experience has been limited to the annual “guy’s trip” with his brothers and dad, Steve felt like he might need a refresher himself, and certainly didn’t know the good spots to go to in Raleigh. So we met up with our friends the Touseys, Tim and Jenn, and their two kids, Sam and Charlotte. Tim is an avid fisherman, and had been wanting to try out a new spot his friend had told him about in the middle of Umstead Park.
We had agreed to meet at 9:00, however, we got sidetracked by a situation that required my immediate attention. There in the middle of the road, at the corner of Lynn and Leesville Rd, sat a HUGE Snapping Turtle! Now, as some of you may know, I have had some run-ins with rescuing turtles in the middle of roads before. This turtle, however, was BIG and PISSED!!! I got out of the car and some other lady had stopped also. She tried to pick him up from the front as his mouth was wide open and he was hissing (hmmm, perhaps not the smartest move?). The turtle literally jumped at her, and the lady screamed…so I picked him up from behind (he was HEAVY!) and carted him off across the road to safety, with him scratching and clawing the whole way. He was kind enough to pose for one picture with his mouth closed.

So with all that excitement out of the way, we met the Tousey’s and hiked down to the lake. Its kind of off the beaten path, and there was not another soul in sight. The weather could not have been more perfect. Tim proceeded to give me a wonderful lesson on the basics of casting, while Steve brushed up on his tying on techniques. While Sam was attempting to “catch a dolphin” from the docks, Steve and I found a nice little nook in the lake in the shade. Throughout the morning Steve caught 4 fish, and I caught 3! I think my favorite part was putting them back in the water and watching them swim away After lolling the morning away, dreaming of backpacking/fishing expeditions we could take, we were starting to get hungry, so we headed over to Lake Crabtree with our bikes for a nice picnic lunch by the lake. With the nice breeze coming off the lake, and our nice spot in the shade, it didn’t even seem to matter that we had no hand sanitizer to wash the fish slime off our hands before we ate We ended our afternoon with a lazy, laidback ride thru the mountain bike trails at Crabtree, but NOT before we came across another small box turtle in the middle of the bike trail. He was a scaredy cat, but we saved him anyway.

 So that was my day. Just goes to show that you don’t have to travel to some mystical, remote place to enjoy the outdoors. Keep your eyes open, and you just might surprise yourself with all the fun you can have in the little corner of Creation that you call home!

Trip Report – Aug 2-10, 2008

Getting there –
So we ran into some problems getting there…we found out the day before we left that a huge rockslide was completely blocking HWY 99 about 10 miles away from Squamish. Other than by air or water, the only way to get from Vancouver to Squamish was to drive the looooong way around, turning what should have been a 45 minute meandering from the airport up the highway into a 6 hour re-route on curvy mountain roads. We stopped at a greasy little motel at the halfway point Saturday night around midnight (3:00 AM our time), and arrived in Cheakamus Canyon just before lunch on Sunday.

Accommodations –
We camped all week at the Klahanie Campground, about 5 minutes from The Chief. It was a little more expensive than staying at the public campground at the base of The Chief, but we were happy with our decision – our campsite was a quaint little out of the way spot with very few neighbors, right next to a creek. The creek blocked out ALL the hwy noise, and we even had a picnic table to enjoy breakfast right along the water. But most unusual of all however, was the BUNNIES!!! I don’t mean wild rabbits, I mean big giant pet bunnies, running rampant everywhere! Apparently, they are all descendants from a pair of bunnies that were pets there about 20 years ago – they went missing, did what bunnies do, and now there are hundreds of fat furry bunnies roaming around, blissfully safe from predators by the Howe Sound on one side, and HWY 99 on the other!

Weather –
It was PERFECT!!! We couldn’t have arranged it better ourselves! The mornings were a bit chilly, but highs in the afternoon were mid-70’s, low 80’s. There was not a cloud in the sky until the day we left Squamish to head back to Vancouver (but it’s always better taking DOWN your tent in the rain than putting UP your tent in the rain!). There also always seemed to be a constant breeze no matter what area we climbed in.

The Climbing –
Day 1 – Cheakamus Canyon


Charlotte’s Web – 2 pitches (5.9, 5.7) Sport
A little more exciting than what we expected for a warm-up…it appeared that a bolt was missing, which made for a fairly significant runout towards the top of the 1^st pitch. We had great views of the white-capped Tantalus range at the top!
Small is Beautiful – 5.8 Sport
Bullet the Blue Car – 5.10d Sport
Amazing climb, well-protected and really fun moves! There was a weird mantle move at the start, then mostly smears and laybacks to featured slopers and sidepulls. Very technical cruxes at bolts 2 and 3. The moves were very sequency and took some time to figure out, but the route was not pumpy, so it was easy to find restful stances to work out the moves in my head first. I was really excited b/c it was my highest onsight to date!
Clear Cut – 5.10a Sport

Day 2 – Bulletheads (South side of the Chief)



Slot Machine – 2 pitches (5.9, 5.6) Trad

Our first taste of The Chief – and crack/friction climbing! WAY different than what we’re used to!
P1 – Hard moves off the deck to get established in a parallel crack system – pretty much had to hug your way up until one of the cracks ended, then jam your way to the ledge, running it out at the top through the slithery roots from the anchor tree growing down and through the crack.
P2 – significantly easier, I changed up the finish a bit, which ended up being really cool. Instead of belaying on the tree ledge left of the crack at the top, I stayed with the crack til it ran out, and then slabbed my way up to the anchors of the neighboring route.
Dora’s Delight – 5.8 Mixed
SCARY SLAB CLIMB!!!
Klahanie Crack – 5.7 Trad

Hand crack for 130 feet in an amazing setting – right beside a waterfall 6 times higher than Niagara Falls. The sound of the water was so loud it was actually difficult to communicate! A big thanks to Norbert and Manuela, and John Wilson for letting us borrow some of their gear (.5 – 1 inch camalots). This was our first pure crack climb with zero face holds, and it was crazy how physically draining this 5.7 was for both of us!

Day 3 – The Little Smoke Bluffs
We had intended for this to be an active rest day, but ironically we ended up doing more pitches today than any of the previous days! However, our day consisted for the most part of toproping easy-ish routes that weren’t very physically demanding, so it did turn out to be a relaxing day both physically and mentally.

The next 4 routes were in an area known as the Jug Slab, one of the places where Steve and I first climbed outdoors, with a guide, back in 2006. We wanted to go back and do these routes again. Ironically, we still get a little freaked on slab…I led one of them, decided my brain didn’t want to deal with slab on lead today, so we toproped the rest.
David’s – 5.6
StepLadder – 5.7
Moominland – 5.8
Hamish’s – 5.7
Laughing Crack – 5.7 Trad

This route deserves all 5 stars the guidebook gives it! It was so much fun! The crack was smaller than Klahanie (fingers instead of hand), and was angled so that a lot of it could be laybacked. Both of us decided it was our favorite climb of the day!

The Locker – 5.7 Trad
Weiner in the Bun – 5.11a Top Rope
Pixie Corner – 5.8 Top Rope

Day 4 – The Apron on the Chief
Diedre – 6 pitches (5.7, 5.6, 5.8, 5.8, 5.6, 5.8) 850 feet Trad
We hiked in and scouted out what we could from the base of this route the day before, just b/c we wanted to make sure it looked like something we could handle, considering the lack of available gear we knew I would have on the first two pitches.
P1 – Swim up a sea of granite for about 50 feet to a tree, then continue up some really polished slab past another tree (I decided the tree was on to a scoop, then easy 5^th class climbing to the bolt anchors. The initial slab was not as scary as I thought it would be, but the slight down step to the scoop took some commitment. I was both inspired and humbled by the way the parties on the next route over ran up the friction slab gorilla style a hundred feet at a time!
P2 – The infamous unprotected traverse…it’s amazing how you can just nonchalantly read over words like “unprotected,” and “50 ft traverse”, in the guidebook back home – then when we got to Squamish, it hit me – “Wait, that means NO gear on the entire pitch…” We decided if we didn’t both feel solid after the first pitch, we bail and rap off from there. But the traverse actually was really easy. Slab paddle up 10 feet, traverse on really low angle friction for 30 feet to a step down to a foot rail (the only committing move on the pitch). Then it was an easy ride along the footrail to giant slopey flakes.
P3 – The start of the corner that makes Diedre a classic! Layback crack on smeared feet (it kind of reminded me of a much steeper and mirrored version of “No Alternative” at Stone Mountain) Great mid-sized gear options, for most of the pitch I was able to keep my L hand on top of the corner while my R hand was in the crack.
P4 – The cracked thinned from hands to fingers as I worked my way up. For the first part of the pitch I had nice flakes up top for my L hand, but pretty shortly it rounded out and both hands went into the crack. Gear was good but smaller – mostly TCU’s and small stoppers. Gear stances were really awkward and I’m not used to smearing so much – I was physically very tired at the end of this pitch.
P5 – By this point the crack had thinned down to basically just seams with the occasional fingerlock just when you really needed it. I freaked a little bit about 25 feet into this pitch – the rack was cumbersome and my slings were getting wrapped around my gear…I also somehow managed to get my arm stuck in the strap of the gear sling…I was able to pull it together and keep on chugging to a small but heroic tree, which I happily slung and found a somewhat restful stance at. This pitch ended with a slight traverse out of the corner and onto the slab at the top to get to the anchors (VERY uncomfortable belay!)
P6 – The route went back left into the corner and was basically slab with very little gear. I felt like I was finally able to get the hang of the “slab paddle”, and moved really quickly up to the exit move at the roof. Right before I was able to get gear at the roof, I felt my foot slide a bit, which definitely sketched me out, but I’m realizing that one foot popping on slab usually doesn’t warrant panic mode. I got in a blue stopper and a #1 camalot at the roof (and for kicks clipped the rusty manky piton below my own gear) and did the exit move up and onto the forest floor – a very awkward move involving really high feet, pulling on a big slopey crack, and squirming and slithering my body up and into the forest above. Felt amazing at the top! I was so proud of us! We felt totally inspired in that physically and mentally exhausted kind of way
We had decided to play it by ear and see how we were feeling after Diedre – and then consider whether we wanted to keep going to The Ultimate Everything or not. After having lunch at the top of Diedre, picturing 11 more pitches and a looooong moonlit hike off 9 hours later wasn’t sounding that appealing. So we opted for the (too exposed for our taste) hike down the slab, scrambled along the trail, and navigated our way through the boulderfield til we finally made it down to the parking lot an hour and a half later. We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out by Brohm Lake and taking pictures of the Tantalus Range.

Day 5 – Cheakamus Canyon

With all this low angle slab and crack climbing, our forearms weren’t getting their fair share of pump, so we decided to get steep again and went back to Chek!
Unknown – 5.6 Sport

Flaming Arete – 5.7 Sport

Master of My Domain – 2 pitches (5.7, 5.9) Sport
Steve led the 1^st pitch, which was a funky pitch with kind of rolling, slopey terrain. I took the 2^nd pitch, which was loads of steep fun – big move to jugs, with lots of smears. The crux was pulling the roof at the start. Nice hand/finger crack towards the top.
Giddy-Up – 5.10c Sport
Hard boulder start, felt a little stiff for 10c. I don’t remember a ton about this climb, but I know the start took me two tries, and I ended up hanging at least one other time towards the top.
Return to Sender – 5.11d Top Rope
Currently Coagulating – 5.11a Sport
I was a little disappointed that I let myself get sucked in and off route, and ended up clipping to a bolt on a neighboring route. It was very difficult to get back on track, and I even ended up placing and hanging on some gear (on a well-bolted sport route…). When I finally worked back left and got my feet up, I realized the move wasn’t that bad at all – had I stayed on route and not let my fear get the better of me I possibly could have held on to finish clean.
Creepy Crawlers – 5.11a Sport
Hard and sequency up to the crux bolt, which was a very tenuous and DESPERATE clip – I managed to get the draw in, but couldn’t get the rope in, so I had to downclimb and hang for a bit. The crux was super committing and a bit touch and go, but finally it backed off towards the top. I felt much more solid and in a much better mental space on this climb than the last one. This was Steve’s favorite route of the day.
Low Impact – 5.10b Sport

Day 6 – Murrin Park

We spent the morning toproping in an area known as Up Among the Firs, then after lunch we went down to gawk at the Petrifying Wall, a very intimidating and aptly named wall that is home to some of the hardest sport routes in North America.
Road Rash – 5.10d
Collet a Day – 5.8
Zeasi – 5.7
Nostalgia Ain’t What it Used to Be – 5.8
Chokin’ a Grogan – 5.7
Pleasant Pheasant – 5.11a Sport
This route was one of the highlights of our trip! Considered a classic at the grade, my best flash to date also happens to be the “warm-up” for the Petrifying Wall… J I was glad I got some beta from the folks that were finishing up as we showed up – otherwise I might have gotten sucked in off route or at the very least, way more pumped trying to figure stuff out. Even with their beta – the route was sustained and pumpy! It was definitely a test in focus! It felt really good to get this one completely clean, after some of the issues I’d had at Chek the other day! (See Video)
Elastic Man – 5.11c Top Rope
Since the anchors were the same as Pleasant Pheasant, I decided I may as well toprope this one. It consisted of huge power moves off of delicate crimpy rails – relentlessly tiring!

Conclusions –
What a great trip! It was really fun going back to the area where we first were exposed to outdoor climbing (on the rest day from a ski trip!). It was nice to reflect on all the things we’ve learned and been blessed to have experienced since then. We were a great team, and worked hard and gave it all we had. It was amazing to be able to explore the different types of climbing that we are not exposed to back in the southeast – I think it will only help us improve by adding different techniques into our arsenal.
So we weren’t able to climb to the top of The Chief – and it doesn’t seem to matter! We came there not even sure we could make it to the halfway point. I think physically we could have continued on to The Ultimate Everything the day we did Diedre, but we would have been racing against the sun to complete the climb, and hiking down in the dark. It’s crazy how much more it takes out of you, both physically and mentally, climbing on terrain that is unfamiliar. Had it been another 1000 feet of bolted face climbing, the route would have gone no problem. I think we probably could have made it if we would have forced it, but I don’t think we would have been able to relax and enjoy it – and after all, we were on VACATION!!! We did manage to make it to the top of the Chief – after finishing up at Murrin Park on the last day, we decided to hike up the trail to the First Peak before dinner. It made both of us a little jealous to see several climbers topping out while we were up at the summit, but it didn’t make us regret our decision. We both knew that we couldn’t have asked anything more of each other, that we had pushed ourselves to our limits all week without pushing them too far.
We both feel very blessed to have been able to do our favorite activity 6 days in a row in an environment that is filled with such beauty and wonder! It was like we were living in a wilderness playground all week! We worked hard, learned a lot, had loads of fun, and have a hundred snapshots of memories in our head we can conjure up over the next few months whenever we’re stressed – what more could you want out of a trip?!?

If you haven’t had enough pictures yet, click here.

Saturday, December 30, 2006
Well, everything was a bit touch and go there for a bit, but we finally got a wilderness permit out of Flamingo and set off this morning. We opted for the South Joe River chickee, based on availability and the weather…

The first part of our journey was along a canal for just over 2 miles. The water was nice and flat, mangroves on either side. We saw a few wood storks and lots of herons and egrets. Then we got to Coot Bay…Coot Bay lasted for just under 3 miles. My first thoughts were surprise at how open it was. We had both assumed we’d be travelling through little canal-type terrain. We entered the bay and could not even see the opening we were supposed to be aiming for on the other side. All we had to navigate with was the nautical map, which we both have zero experience reading, and Steve’s GPS to help us out with direction – oh and a few buoys every now and then too…we managed to get pretty good at positioning our boat so that we were in line with the waves, we were actually surfing at times (which is kinda fun til you realize your in a canoe, not a raft, and that your entire backpack with all your gear is in the canoe with you, getting soaked)…

Our next segment was a short little creek that connected Coot Bay to the bottom of Whitewater Bay – which is HUGE! Every where we looked we saw water, water everywhere – we had no choice but to just head for where we expected the next opening should be. We stopped and tied our boat off at the next little section of mangroves, but since the mangroves don’t really count as land, had to stay in our boat and carefully get into our packs to get our lunch out…

We did some serious surfing in very open water for about 6 miles or so, and then came our turnoff. The minute we turned off we were on the wrong side of the wind for the first time of the day – the last half mile was quite intense. The wind blew us into the mangroves, then back out, and back in again – our tracks on the GPS looked like a pretzel, so we christened that section of river “Pretzel Pass.” We were both stoked to come around the corner and finally see the chickee, but we soon found out that the hard work was only just beginning…

After crashing directly into the chickee, we tied off our canoe and threw our packs onto the platform. The wind was blowing so hard, it seemed impossible to get anything out of our packs, let alone set up our tent. After about 30 minutes of just sitting there being pelted by the wind, we realized that the wind was not letting up, and that we would have to somehow figure out how to get our tent up without it flying off the chickee (without stakes, mind you, since we were on a platform in the middle of the river). You would have thought we were 300 feet up in the air the way we clipped and slid all our gear through carabiners to keep it safe, but after an hour and 15 minutes we got our tent set up somewhat securely, but totally concave on the windward side. This included a lot of Steve engineering all sorts of meanderings with the rope and me doing a lot of laying down on tent parts to keep stray parts from flapping…

We are a bit worried about the wind situation tomorrow. It will be blowing against us the entire way, and the measly half mile that we endured that today did not go well at ALL. I spent a whole lot of time praying for the wind to die down or for us to be stronger than the wind. I kept singing that Isaiah 43 song to myself – “the wind and the waves will not overcome you….” I know that God is in control and that he will take care of us, but we are both anxious about what tomorrow will hold for us. Only time will tell.

Sunday December 31, 2006
…We put in at exactly 630, which was our goal. We both had headlamps on, but within minutes it was light enough to navigate without it…We made it down the Joe river and through Whitewater Bay slowly but steadily. The wind picked up a lot out in the bay, and it was painfully obvious we were so much slower today than yesterday, but the waves weren’t very big – yet…

The current was very fast in Tarpon Creek, forcing us to move at practically a crawl…we entered Coot Bay around 1000. We’d been paddling as fast as we could already for 3.5 hours (yesterday we made the whole trip in 4).What we saw at Coot Bay was beyond discouraging…

It looked like the ocean at low tide. The waves were easily swelling to 2 feet, and many had whitecaps. I said a quick prayer and kept paddling. It seemed as thought we had entered the bay at a good angle, hitting the waves head on rather then sidways – this makes for much harder paddling, and the person in the front (me) catches air and gets drenched on every wave, but you are not a slave to the wind and don’t have to worry about waves crashing into the boat. Like i said, it SEEMED as though we had entered the bay well, but as we all know, first impressions don’t usually last. Within minutes, we were helplessly smacked into the mangroves on the outside corner of the bay. We tried again. We got several yards out into the bay, but the wind found the side of our boat again. We were both paddling as hard and as fast as we could, trying just to hold our ground until the gust stopped, but we were rapidly approaching the mantroves again…

It was at this point that I started to wonder what would happen if we couldn’t make it – would we have to call the rangers and wait by our boat with our tails between our legs and they came to tow us out with a powerboat, only to charge us who knows what and look at us like we were foolish enough to even attempt such a trek. Or would we have to get out of the boat and walk in the 4 foot alligator water with our packs on for the remaining 6 miles?

I started to get a bit frustrated with God – actually lets be real, I felt a bit pissed off, and a little bit confused and hurt in and indignant but vulnerable sort of way…An “I trusted you and thought you were going to take care of me” type of feeling….I had offered up such sincere prayers yesterday, with every belief that God would follow through. I’d felt a peace that everything would go smoothly – that we’d wake up to find that God had stopped the wind with a word, or give us superhuman strength to deal with it. Well, so far, none of that had happened. At this point, we’d been paddling literally as hard and as fast as we could, we were just a little over halfway, and were spiralling out of control towards more of those stupid mangroves.

Out of a solid mix of exasperation and pure exhaustion I cried out in my mind, “I prayed and had real faith that you would be here for us – if your presence is here, I haven’t felt it yet…you could snap your fingers and stop all of this insanity right now if you wanted to, but it doesn’t seem like you want to. We physically cannot do this on our own, and we are depending on you – where the heck are you?!?” The wind threw us easily about 30 more feet – any gains we had acheieved before were now lost. I braced myself and got ready to duck before the impact, when all of a sudden our boat turned.

I don’t see how it turned. It certainly wasn’t b/c we suddenly paddled harder. It clearly wasn’t b/c the wind let up. It was like all of a sudden, what we were doing was enough. Our boat was in correct alighment with the waves, and we started moving forwards. So slowly that for about 30 minutes I went back and forth trying to decide if we were going forward or staying in the same spot.

For about 45 minutes from the time our boat was turned for us, it was silent except for heavy breathing and an occassional groan. During this time I felt like a machine. My memories of this section are a blurry haze of paddling to the right until i was exhausted, switching to the left until i was exhausted, etc etc…eventually we saw the opening for the canal. I turned to Steve and said, “I think we might make it.” It seemed as though the imminent concerns had passed. At that moment I felt very small – I felt a bit silly for having doubted God, as I pictured him turning to our boat and giving it a little breath in the right direction to straighten us out…

So with the canal about a mile away, and my faith restored, we realized we were in a section of the bay where the sea grass came to within a couple of inches of the surfact of the water. Supposedly the water was 3 feet deep in this area, but it was unnerving paddling through it, b/c it appeared as though we were going to ground ourselves any minute – plus the drag the seagrass creates on the boat is needless to say unhelpful. But here we are, trudging along at a snail’s pace, when all of a sudden there was a huge implosion/splash/glugglugglug kinda noise RIGHT beside our boat. If it had been any closer it would have been under our boat. Clearly we had disturbed some sort of very large creature that had been lurking in the sea grass. Steve and i looked at each other with huge eyes and “what the crap is in the water” faces, but the distraction was just long enough for the wind to get us out of alignment and overtake us again – so try as we might, we were tossed helplessly into the mangroves yet again. This time i had to lay flat on my back so as not to get hit by the overhanging branches with all sorts of crazy spiders on them ( later we found 3 big spiders on the boat, and 2 small spiders on me, and a small infestation of microscopic spiders in my pack…)

We took a small break to catch our breath for the final push to the canal and also discussed the Loch Ness Monster encounter. We decided it had to be a manatee, based on size and location, which is pretty neat really – i wish it would have occured at a more opportune time so we could have stuck around and watched it for a while – and exchanged apologies for scaring each other

After a few minutes we pushed off, determined to make it to the canal. At this point there were several powerboaters that appeared to be watching us from the middle of the bay, as well as a couple of hopeful canoers that seemed to be having second thoughts about heading into the bay. We finally made it into the canal w/ only two minor incidents – Steve almost fell out of the boat (I’m still not sure what happened – if he had, he most certainly would taken me and both packs out with him), and the wind took one last shot at us and we had to precariously maneuver through several large chunks of dead trees before finally skidding haphazardly into the canal…

The last hour of this epic journey was so peaceful and relaxing it made us forget the hour and a half struggle of man vs nature we had just endured, as well as the 3.5 paddling marathon before that that had started in the dark. (Our trained-wrecked muscles were there to remind us the next morning though.)..

In the canal, for the first time since yesterday the current was in our favor, albeit no more than a slight breeze. We casually drifted along, paddling every now and then, just long enough to keep up the momentum, laughing about the manatee incident, the one-liners that were exchanged during intense moments, and just enjoyed being out on a boat in the Everglades. The canal was a great way to end our adventure…We saw 3 gators, 2 were lounging in the sun, and one was actually swimming not too far from us! We also got really close to several wading birds, before they would fly away honking at us

…All in all, I’m pretty proud of our accomplishments. I think we did a great job reading the map and navigating through the open water. We didn’t give up, and we made smart decisions. Things got tense at times, but we didn’t lose it with each other. When things seemed impossible, we kept going and didn’t freak out or give up….So, all that being said, looking back now i’m realizing that just b/c you can’t always FEEL God’s presence doesn’t mean he’s not there…That was quite an experience. Some parts are in the like category, and some parts are in the dislike category, but all in all it was a crazy experience that we are both very glad to have had together.