Bob Marshall Wilderness: Chapter 3

Aug/ 9/ 17

If I were to say that all of us aged about ten years by the morning, would you believe me? I would probably say that Dwylin has reached the ripe old age of 60 by now. Looking back, the morning had a few memorable moments. Some of us went down to the lake to get water, and to collect our laundry. It is just too bad that most of the clothes hadn’t dried completely yet.

Walking back up to the camp you could see breakfast being made with our burners because you still can’t have any fires. Warm water is a must if you want coffee or Mountain Houses, and with very little heat otherwise you’ll find the propane burners to be a great source of hand warmers as well.

The realization of how separated from the world we are has started to set in. How no one can get information about us, and we have no way to find out what has happened back home. All while eating our breakfast's that won’t expire until 2047!!! I know, awkward transition…

It’s time once again to pack up and head out, but we can’t leave till we get Dwylin bandaged up. We have figured out a basic way of keeping him moving, and it only involves 4 band-aids. Along with ibuprofen, which is increasing in amount by the day. Jon has also made an appearance on the disabled list. I can’t remember if his feet got burned when he fell asleep while fishing on his boat or if he just got boring old blisters. The first story is funnier, so let's just agree to have that be the “real story”. Jon in an effort to dilute the pain of his burns had a great plan of wrapping his feet in toilet paper to create a buffer between his feet and shoe.

We started our 5 miles for the day, but before our sore feet could even loosen up we saw wildlife. I don’t know the difference between what kinds of animals we saw or didn’t see. So excuse me for not knowing what it was, and we also don’t have a picture. Either way, we soon continued on our way and headed back to the fork in the road from the day before.

We walked past two ranchers leading a bunch of horses back up the trail. This was always a treat to stare at, or maybe we just longed for the horses to take our packs and gives us a ride.

Just around the corner from the ranchers, we walked into a real problem. WATER! Water on our hike was usually accompanied by a bridge or its just a creek with rocks to walk on. Dwylin may or may not have used his bandaged feet to his advantage, and we decided to go back and take another path.

Somewhere in this area we walked up on this random cast-iron box on a tree, and Nate decided to open it up, and to our surprise, it was a phone. One that you would have needed to wind up in order work, but it looked like they disconnected the line some time ago. Nate picked up the phone and said, “Hello operator, get me the diner.” Then, if that is not enough, he continued quoting Barney Fife reciting a poem to his “Dear Lovely Juanita” into the phone.

It wasn’t more than three minutes later and we had to go uphill, and it seemed to be straight up. This was followed by what seemed to be 2 miles of being on top of this plateau surrounded by small trees that were just above your eye level. We finally cleared and could see a valley accompanied by the river again.

We thought the dust was bad on day one, but it was so much worse today. Everyone ended up spreading out of about an eighth of a mile. Matt, Nate, and Dwylin leading with Caleb and Landon somewhere in the middle while Dan and Jon fell far back for a while.

Finally, we reached an open space, and we all got back together in one big group. We stopped for a nice break from walking and someone suggested a group picture. Nate took the picture on a timer for us and it was a great picture. The way Nate reacted to getting a picture was pure comedy, and you should just ask someone that was there to describe it to you. This also ended up being the only group picture that we took for the whole trip.

In this particular area, there were some massive trees around us. Now, once again I don’t pretend to know what trees are what. (OK, so I don’t know much… hey, I know you all are thinking it) The funny thing is we kept seeing more of these trees and out of nowhere Nate said, “Cedars of Lebanon!”. Oh, Nate, so simple and yet such outstanding humor. Nate also gave one of the trees a big ole hug, and Jon eventually joined in.

We got off the path and found a perfect place to set up camp, but there was one issue. Someone else had set up for camp already and he also had horses. Now, we must blow up our rafts and go out on the river, and find ourselves another campsite. We were not out on the river long, maybe 20 minutes, and we found a great spot for camp.

We landed at our newly appointed campsite, and it seemed almost perfect. There was sand for our tent to rest on and some great scenery to admire. So the guys started to eat our snack food, like crackers, bars, and Jon got out the summer sausage (remember that, it will come into play in our next post.)

Our five-mile hike didn’t take long at all, about two and a half hours if I recall correctly. Which isn’t bad compared to 12 miles in 8 hours.

Being that we found our camp, roughly around 1. That meant we had plenty of time to waste the day away. Fishing is what most started doing, and we spread out over the river. Dan got his fly fishing rod out, but *SPOILER ALERT* we never caught a fish during the whole trip with that thing. Nate ended up catching about 60% of our fish, and that became a joke of ours. How does Nate always catch fish?

Once everyone got back to base Dan couldn’t find his sandals and those are a premium relic around here. Some of the guys got a plan to go back and find the sandals and raft back down the river. Just before they left Dan found his sandals in his bag or somewhere, and the guys were too excited and left anyway.

Dan, Dwylin, Landon, and Jon stayed behind and cooked some fish. One problem for Dwylin was with how stiff he was, there were very few places for him to sit down. While trying to figure out the best way to sit down, Dwylin spun once and then a second time. Reminding the guys of a dog getting ready to take a dump.

While waiting for the others to return, we found a squirrel that required our attention. The first one escaped our rocks, but we ended up with a good laugh. (Later that night Matt hit a squirrel out of the tree with a rock.) Once again while sitting there doing nothing Dan and Jon saw a cave across the river as well as a big rock that they wanted to stand on. So they went across the river and Dwylin and Landon stayed back and began pumping for water.

As Landon and Dwylin were watching everything Dan and Jon were going up on the hill. We noticed that they were on all fours trying to get over some loose rocks. (We don't have any good pictures of that though, but we do have a video!!!)

At the same time when Dan and Jon reached the top, Caleb, Matt, and Nate, who had just returned from rafting, headed up the cliff as well. Later Jon showed us some pictures from above and showed us what needed to be crossed if you wanted to go up on top of the rock… NO THANK YOU! When Matt got up to the top he thought this to himself, “Hey, maybe this wouldn’t be a good idea. I mean, after all, I am getting married in 17 days.” (This is just a paraphrase of Matt's thoughts. No one actually knows what Matt was thinking at the time, but we’re pretty sure Linda was involved somehow.)

The five of them were on the other side of the river for maybe an hour, and it didn’t take long for us to hear roaring laughter and loud banging. Oh boy, what could they possibly be destroying now? Rocks! Apparently, it's fun for the soul if you roll a rock down a hill and try to jump out of the way while being 25 miles away from the nearest car… but don’t take my written word for it. Watch it yourself, we have a video right here.

Once the five began to cross the river they discovered that there were some fishermen that had passed by our camp to fish and we all got to experience the loud banging and laughter of our rock rolling friends from across the river. Our boys discovered that the water was much colder than before, and some of the guys were hiking up their shorts. One could almost say that they had very colorful speedo’s on, but why would they want to draw that attention upon themselves.

As the crew came back across the river. Dwylin was hard at work setting up his phone for a nice sunset video, and it only took 5 minutes to set up some rocks to a good enough point. So that the phone was in a proper angle, but… First, our fishing friends came back and stood right in front of the camera, and once they left Dan walked over to Dwylin (RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA) and sat down. By now the fishermen had passed and the video attempt had become a joke as Matt and Nate began showing off their stretching skills to the camera.

Some of the Magnificent Seven went into the tent to start playing pocket rockets as the sun got lower, but the game didn’t last long. It was noticeably the coldest night of the trip already. The sun hadn’t even completely fallen yet. Dwylin whose joints had began to seize up once again got up to head for the tent, and let out a groan for every step. Dan uncaring, but more than willing to comment on age, said that he’d hate to see Dwylin when he gets old.

Lets just end this right there, as we begin to fall asleep in the Arctic Circle of the Montana Wilderness. What will the next day bring? I’m sure it will bring HURLS of excitement as we head down the river.