Patrick McManus, one of my favorite authors, titled one of his books A Fine and Pleasant Misery. Here is my story of a fine and pleasant misery I recently enjoyed.
In a land that is dominated by rivers and lakes (not to mention mountains) it shouldn’t be a surprise that canoeing is a popular sport. The Grand Teton Council runs a high adventure canoe trek out of our Island Park Scout Camp. The trek starts at the boat ramp on Lewis Lake near the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park. I was recently invited by the camp director, Dan Deakin, to go with his staff on the trek to “inspect the campsites” they will be using and see how the trek operates. Since I have gone to all our other camps’ pre-camp inspections I felt like I “had” to do this one as well.
I met the group at 6:AM at Dan’s home (it’s actually owned by the Council) in Jackson, Wyoming. That meant I had to leave my home at 4:AM. And I had gone to bed at 2:AM because I stayed up all night packing for the trip. I hadn’t packed earlier because Nancy and I had been in Chicago visiting our kids and flew into Idaho Falls at 11:30 PM the night before the trek. (Do you feel sorry for me yet?)
It was a cloudy rainy morning and we drove through some of the most beautiful country in the world on the highway from Jackson to the south entrance of Yellowstone NP, but the visibility was about one mile due to the low clouds and we couldn’t see the mountains. But we did see buffalo herds, elk, eagles, and lots of waterfowl. We arrived at the Park and checked in at the ranger’s cabin to get our permits and I bought a park fishing license. From there it was just a short drive to the boat ramp at Lewis Lake. We unloaded the canoes and loaded them up with gear for the trek. Each of us had a large dry bag for our personal gear plus a few extra items of crew gear. My canoe partner was Casey and we had the crew’s food bag in our canoe.
From the boat ramp we paddled west and north across the lake to the west shore and then followed the shoreline north for about two miles to a thermal area right on the bank of lake. We rested there for awhile and warmed our feet in the hot water where it flowed into the lake. We would need the warmth for what was soon to come.
We were about 7,800 feet above sea level and it was a cold cloudy day. Much of the land was still covered in snow drifts—particularly in the shade of the large lodge pole pine groves. There were many meadows and swamps along the shore of the lake and we saw elk and lots of birds; bald eagles, loons, geese, pelicans, and other waterfowl.
After paddling another mile we reached the inlet of the Lewis River in the northwest corner of Lewis Lake. We paddled up the river and for the first two miles the river was wide and there was very little current. We stopped at Fishing Rock for lunch. I opted to fish rather than eat but didn’t get as much as a strike. It started to rain as we were loading up to head out again. The last half-mile of the river is too swift to paddle so some of us changed into swim suits to keep our pants dry. After another half-mile of paddling the river’s current started to increase and soon, even though we were paddling at full strength, we were making no upstream progress. So we went to shore and it was time to wade.
I have done a lot of crazy things in my life, and I have done my share of stupid things as well. I shattered my knee in a climbing accident, had two knee surgeries, had a hernia repair, and a handful of other physically painful experiences. Jumping into the Lewis River in early June was just as crazy, stupid, and painful as anything I have ever experienced. I went first and was quickly engulfed in freezing cold water and numbing pain. I waded and pulled the canoe for as long as I could stand it (I’d guess it was only about 100-yards) and then I stumbled out and let Casey take over. My legs were beet red and numb from the knees down. I jumped around and jogged up and down the trail to try and get the blood flowing again. All too soon it was my turn to wade back into the icy river and pull the canoe. After my feet and legs were numb the pain was dulled and I found that I could tolerate it well enough. But I kept hitting stretches of deep water and had to wade out around many fallen trees and was in freezing cold water up to my waist and that was excruciating. We traded back and forth like that for about half a mile until we reached a point where Casey and I decided it would be better to paddle against the current than to spend another second in the frigid water.
We were pretty close to the outlet of Shoshone Lake and the others in our group were still wading up the river. We paddled far enough that we could see the lake. We could also see the rainstorm that was blowing south towards us, the whitecaps on the lake, and the waves breaking on the shore. We paddled back to where the others were getting into their canoes and told the trek leaders that the conditions looked pretty exciting on the lake.
Our group consisted of eight staff members, including me, in four canoes, and seven members of Venture Crew 500 from Soda Springs, Idaho, in three canoes. I was concerned that the Venturers would soon be suffering from hypothermia after wading up the chilly river and then being hit with a rain storm. Once we entered the Lewis River we were in a designated wilderness area and no fires were allowed. A nice warm fire to warm us up and dry out our wet clothes would have been the perfect solution while we waited for the storm to pass. But we were in a National Park and we had to abide by their rules. So, instead of a fire we all stood on the shore of Shoshone Lake and did what I call the Hypothermic Dance. We were all standing in a clump jogging in place and looking pretty stupid. Soon the storm reached us and, for a delightful change of pace, it started to hail. Fortunately it passed over quickly and the lake calmed down enough for us to jump into the canoes and paddle like madmen to the first campsite. The paddling served to get our blood flowing again and stave off hypothermia.
The National Park limits groups to eight or less so we had to split our group in two. We decided that we needed to get Crew 500 into dry tents and warm clothes as soon as possible so they got the closest campsite. The rangers of our country’s first National Park in some of the most awe inspiring scenery on earth selected inspirational names for their campsites. Crew 500’s campsite was named “8S1 Outlet” which is just to the east of the river’s outlet. We helped the crew get their tents set up and made sure they changed into dry clothes. Two of the crew members and their leader were well into stage 1 hypothermia and on their way to stage 2. They brought out their camp stoves and started warming water and cooking their dinner. Once we were satisfied they would be okay we headed back to our canoes and across the outlet to our campsite.
We paddled about a half a mile west to “8Q9 Channel” to make our camp. Most of the campsite was buried in one to two feet of snow so we had to pitch our tents under large pine trees where the snow had not accumulated. We could look back across the outlet and see Crew 500’s canoes on the beach near their campsite. We quickly set up our tents and changed into dry clothes and then cooked our dinners. Each canoe pair also cooked and ate together. We were testing out some dehydrated trail meals that had been purchased from BSA’s Philmont High Adventure Base. Casey and I had chicken and rice, green beans, and dried pineapple chunks. It was very good, but we were so cold and hungry that I think warm buffalo chips would have tasted good.
Another staff member named Corey and I went fishing in separate canoes after dinner. I used every fly in my box that I thought might look tasty to a trout but after an hour I hadn’t even had a single strike so I decided it was time to get in out of the cold. About a half-hour later Cory came back with two nice lake trout. He was using spinning gear and lures so you can’t really count that as fishing. After some good natured ribbing about my fishing skills, and an hour’s lesson on BSA trekking rules, I decided to call it a night and crawled into my tent.
Just about the time I got settled in and ready to sleep it started raining again. For some reason I can’t recall I had opted to bring the smallest of our tents which is a little dome tent. It’s great for backpacking—in good weather. It is 6-feet across and I am 6’1” tall. As the rain fell I was entertained by watching the water leak through my tent along the seams and I remembered that I had made a mental note to apply seam-sealer to the tent the last time I had used it in wet weather. Well, my mental notes are as good as the paper they are written on and I knew I was going to get wet before the night was over. Fortunately I had wrapped my sleeping bag in a garbage sack so I put that under the top of my sleeping pad in an attempt to at least keep my head dry.
Even though I was only operating on one-and-a-half hours of sleep in the previous 48 hours it took me a long time to fall asleep. I never sleep well in a strange bed and even worse when I’m camping. I’d just drift off to sleep and then wake to what I thought was a woman talking. After several times I realized it was someone in the nearest tent snoring. Sometime during the night the rain turned to snow and I could hear the difference in the sound on the top of my tent. Several times I woke up and knocked the snow off my tent. I’m not sure why, I just did.
The birds woke up at about 6:AM and so did I. Someone kept throwing snowballs at my tent and I thought it might be the trek leader’s way of trying to wake me up. It was a beautiful clear morning with two inches of new snow on the ground. I put up a clothes line and hung up all my wet clothes to dry out. My tent had collected an impressive amount of water inside during the night so I hung up my sleeping bag as well. The top was dry but the bottom was wet. My clothes that were dry when I went to bed had conveniently soaked up the pond forming in my tent. I realized—too late—that I could have kept all my dry clothes in my dry bag during the night but I wasn’t thinking too well on sleep deprivation and frozen brain cells.
No one else was awake so I grabbed my fly rod and went out in the canoe to catch some breakfast. It was an incredibly beautiful morning. The lake was glass smooth, the air was clean and fresh, and there was not another soul in sight—it was great to be alive! The only sound was the plop and splash of melting snow falling off the pine branches on the shore and the edges of the lake where the trees leaned out over the water. I drifted around the bay and tried several different flies but the fish were not interested. During the night there had been a hatch of small black gnats and there were thousands floating on the water but not a single fish was rising anywhere. So I used nymphs and wet flies and fished deep but never got a strike. We were supposed to be ready to paddle by 8:AM so after about an hour of fishless solitude I paddled back to the campsite to pack up my gear and get ready to go.
As I walked back to my tent I kept getting hit by clumps of melting snow falling off the trees. That’s when I realized what I thought were snowballs earlier were just wads of snow hitting my tent. When I got to my clothesline I saw that my damp clothes and sleeping bag were now drenched by melting snow falling on them. I took everything down and moved my clothesline onto the beach away from the trees and melting snow. By then the rest of the crew started crawling out of their tents to face the day. It was sunny and clear but in the trees it sounded like it was raining hard from the melting snow and everything was soaked. Pretty soon our wilderness camp looked like a Gypsy camp with clothes and bags hung everywhere.
I took down the bear bag and cooked breakfast (oatmeal, hot chocolate, and granola bars) and filled my Nalgene bottle with hot apple cider. Then I fried up the two fish Cory had caught the night before. I simmered them in wild chives and apple cider. About that time Crew 500 showed up ready for the day’s paddle but our group was nowhere near ready to go. We quickly packed up and loaded our canoes while Crew 500 ate Chef Clarke’s Trout al la Yellowstone.
We paddled along the southern shore of Shoshone lake for about three miles to the “Narrows” and crossed over to the northern shore. The lake has an hourglass shape and the safest place to cross is at the Narrows where the lake is only about half a mile wide. Several people have been killed on this lake when they got too far from shore and were caught by one of the sudden storms that often blow through. Shoshone Lake is the largest wilderness lake in the US and since it is at a high altitude the water never gets much above 40-degrees. If a person ends up in the lake they can quickly die of exposure. To prevent this from happening our treks always hug the shore and “sprint” across the Narrows when the lake is calm—usually in the early morning.
Our next campsite “8R1 Windy Point” was at the west end of the Narrows. Our trek leader, Chris, decided the staff group would set up camp there. We set up our tents to let them dry out and since it was a beautiful sunny day I put up my clothesline and hung up my wet clothes and bag to dry. We then got back into the canoes and paddled another mile and a half to the second campsite “8R4 Flat Top” (the campsite names were improving) where Crew 500 would be spending the night. As they set up their camp we made our lunches and relaxed for awhile.
After everyone had eaten and cleaned up we got back in the canoes and headed for the western tip of the lake to visit Shoshone Geyser Basin. It was another mile and a half paddle with the sun shining and a light breeze blowing from the west. The Geyser Basin is an area of thermal vents and geysers much like you see in the Old Faithful area but this is wilderness and the only way in is by foot or paddle. There are no crowds, no boardwalks, no danger signs, and no fences. There is a trail that winds through the area and we were able to see lots of neat thermal features. Casey was acting like a kid in a candy store and he told me he had just graduated with a degree in geology and plans on being a volcanologist. He took photos of everything you might expect and lots of things you wouldn’t, such as rocks, plants, pinecones, and mud.
After about an hour of hiking around we had smelled enough sulfur and went back to the canoes. We paddled back to Flat Top and left Crew 500 there and we went on to Windy Point. We finished setting up our campsite and started cooking our dinner. Casey and I had dehydrated pasta primavera with corn, banana chips and cheesecake. (Not all together.) It was all very good. After dinner Chris taught a session on trek leadership, which I listened to from my tent. There was a light rain during the night but I had used my dry bag and the garbage sack to keep my sleeping bag away from the tent walls and so they kept (mostly) dry and I slept a lot better.
The next morning we got an early start and hustled through breakfast and breaking down camp so we could be ready to meet Crew 500 on the lake at 8:30. I was ready to go at 8:AM so I fished until the group was ready to go. I had no luck. (I’d given up on skill since I was clearly lacking in that area.) This was to be a full day of paddling as we were going to return the way we came all the way back to the boat ramp in one trip. The lake was dead calm so we crossed the Narrows first thing and then followed the southern shore back to the outlet. Along the way we saw many waterfowl and passed by a family of otters swimming in the lake.
We gathered near the outlet for some instruction by Chris on river running and whitewater paddling. Chris told the group that he would take the lead because he knows the river very well. He told us to just follow him and go where he goes. Chris’ canoe took the lead, followed by the three Crew 500 canoes, then Casey and me, and then the two other staff canoes. Our plan was that if any of the crew canoes got into trouble we would be behind them to help rescue them. The river flows straight for about 100-yards and then takes a sharp bend to the right. Right in the middle of the bend is a fallen tree that juts out about half way across the river. As Casey and I came to the bend we saw Chris’ canoe wedged perpendicular into the tree and the second canoe, as instructed, following straight into them. We yelled to the second canoe and told them to go to shore but the current pushed them parallel into the tree right behind Chris’ canoe. The other two crew canoes were able to get around the tree and to the opposite shore. We stopped about fifty-feet upstream from the second canoe on the same side of the river. Chris and Nathan were struggling to free themselves and their canoe from the tree.
River runners call these fallen trees sweepers because they are like giant brooms that will sweep you overboard. Often boats will be capsized by the current against the sweeper and pinned underwater by the power of the current. If the boaters do not escape they can be pinned in the boat or branches and either drown or die of exposure. Chris and Nathan were able to move their canoe carefully under the tree while they climbed over it. Fortunately this was a very old sweeper and most of the branches had been broken off over the years. But the second canoe was still wedged up against it. I told them to be careful because the current would flip their canoe if they leaned too far into it. They slowly pulled themselves along the tree across the current and several times they came very close to capsizing but we would yell to them and they would level out their canoe. After a few tense minutes Cory jumped out of his canoe, waded across the river, pulled them off the sweeper, and rescued them—what a hero! Why didn’t I think of that?
Once we got around that first bend and past the killer sweeper the rest of the run was pretty easy. There was only one short stretch that had any real whitewater. There were several other sweepers, submerged trees, and rocks but the river was fairly straight and it was easy to steer around the obstacles. Since this is a wilderness area the Park Service doesn’t maintain the river or cut the sweepers. I think a little chainsaw action or one stick of dynamite would make that first bend in the river a lot safer. All’s well that ends well but it was touch and go for a few minutes. I’m glad Cory was daring and jumped in and pulled the canoe off the sweeper.
When we caught up to Chris I told him that the old French Canadian trappers used to call sweepers by their French name embaras, which is French for embarrassing. Chris agreed they were well named. He said that he had never seen the river’s current that strong and it pulled them right into the sweeper before they had a chance to steer around it. I’m grateful no one got hurt and nothing got damaged—except Chris’ pride.
The rest of the run was uneventful. I asked Casey to paddle us while I fished the river. We proceeded that way until we floated to Fishing Rock. I didn’t even have a strike but it was a pleasant day and a beautiful river to be fishing in. I kept my line out and trolled as we paddled down the rest of the river and out into Lewis Lake. It started raining lightly as we got onto the lake and we stopped again at the thermal area on the northwest part of the lake. We all got out and put on our rain gear and then started on our last leg of the trip.
We passed another armada of boats on our way. They were heading north as we were going south. It rained lightly off and on for the rest of our trip down the western shore and our final sprint across the southern tip of the lake to the boat ramp. As we got closer to the ramp we could see and hear the vehicles on the highway and we knew we had left the wilderness behind. It’s always a bittersweet moment for me when I have been on a backcountry outing and start to approach civilization again. I think I know how John Colter felt after crossing the continent with the Corps of Discovery. As they were heading back east and approaching the settlements along the Missouri River they met two trappers heading west into the high country. Colter asked and received permission from Lewis and Clark to go with the trappers and he was discharged from the Corps. He had seen enough of civilization and wanted to live free in the mountains. But they didn’t have flushing toilets and king size beds back then, and Colter didn’t have a wife at home.
It was back to civilization for us. We reached the boat ramp without incident. We unloaded the canoes, put the gear, paddles, and life jackets in the vehicles, cleaned off the canoes (as required by invasive species laws in this part of the country), and started driving back towards Jackson. I was following Dan who was driving the truck pulling the canoe trailer. We hadn’t gone a mile when the trailer full of expensive canoes suddenly started swerving all over the road and swaying so badly that I thought it was going to tip over. Dan slowed down and pulled over. It turns out that the nut holding the ball on the truck’s trailer hitch had stripped lose and fallen off. The only things that were holding the trailer to the truck were the safety chains.
We pulled off the road to let all the impatient tourists in their motor homes pass us in their rush to get through all that gorgeous country. We hooked the trailer onto my Envoy and I pulled it back to Jackson. On the way we saw deer, elk, lots of buffalo, and a bald eagle. After we left Yellowstone NP and entered Grand Teton NP we came around a bend and saw several vehicles pulled off the road and some stopped in the middle of the road. That usually means there is a large animal in the area so we slowed down to look. (Not that we had any choice since the road was blocked.) Sure enough, there was a moose feeding in a pond on the west side of the road. As I was waiting for the road to clear I noticed movement to my left on the east side of the road. There was a large bear ambling along the side of a steep hill heading the same direction we were. It was about one-hundred yards away from us passing in and out of trees and brush so I couldn’t tell if it was a black bear or a grizzly. It was dark brown and looked quite large and I’d guess it was a big male black bear.
I wish I had a video camera—not for the bear, but for all the tourists with their binoculars, spotting scopes, cameras, and huge telescopic lenses taking pictures of a moose as a bear walked right past them on the other side of the road. As we passed the crowd Chris leaned out the window and asked in a loud voice, “What are you looking at?” Several people excitedly pointed and answered, “There’s a moose right there in the pond!” Chris replied, “Well, you’re missing the bear on the other side.” That started a near panic and rush to see the bear. It’s too bad it passed behind a low hill about then.
It was an hour’s drive through some of the most incredible scenery on earth. This time we could see the Teton Range as we drove through the valley. There were still lots of clouds but they were dancing in and out of the tops of the peaks and giving the view a dramatic backdrop. We passed the National Elk Refuge on the way but all the elk have moved up into the high country. We arrived in Jackson and drove to Dan’s house. I dropped the trailer, unloaded the crew gear from my vehicle, and headed home. To cap off my wilderness adventure I stopped by Wendy’s and bought myself some fast-food to ease my transition back into civilization. As I drove and munched on hot french-fries I pondered on the fine and pleasant misery I had just survived and enjoyed, and the pleasures and dangers of modern society.
.JPG)
