Bob Marshall Wilderness: Chapter 2

Aug/ 8/ 2017

BEFORE BED LAST NIGHT:

Anonymous: “I ain't worried about my alarm, because I’ll get up at 6:30, No question.”*

(*- PROBABLY NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY ADMIT TO SAYING THIS… BUT I KNOW SOMEONE DID [I think it was someone from Montana.]) Also, this statement was paraphrased.

There was a rule we all agreed to as we laid down to sleep last night… NO FARTING! “If you need to fart, then get your hind end out of here.” I don’t think I've ever slept in a tent that was better suited for ventilation then this tent. Every night before bed, we would gather everyone's stuff together and put it under the tent canopy. You may have guessed by now, that means our tent was uncovered and all that was between us and the bugs of this world was a layer of mesh at the top of the tent. This would have been a massive plus at night for stargazing, but unfortunately, with forest fires only a few hours drive away. Most of the stars were deemed invisible to our eyes behind the smoky haze above our night time resting spots.

Once morning arrived, and everyone decided to loosen up and get our stuff out of the tent. Someone got up and headed for the tent entrance, and stuck his rump out the door and gave a fart. “OK, that's not what we meant!” Someone said.

Before our trip began Jon bought a water purifier. If you never had to use a pump for clean water before, have you lived? I submit that you have not! Let me explain how long this process took. If you need water you were gonna need to sit there and pump for a good 5 minutes. Once you had finished, you would be tired enough that you would start to drink that water… and a small tear would roll down your check once you realized that you had to start all over again.

It didn’t take long for us to seemingly see Dwylin age before our eyes. By this morning, one would think Dwylin was the ripe old age of 50. We wondered how he was going to react to walking another 8 miles today. He continued this way until we started our hike when his feet would loosen up. Dwylin took 3 band-aids and two Ibuprofen or as our friend Bruno from Ohio calls them, “Ibua-profain”.

We made our breakfast, packed up and headed out around 9:30 am for another 8 miles of hiking. We all agreed on a few ground rules as we left, we needed to drink more water, and rest more, as well as eat more during our hike. Then off in the distance, we heard a HOWLLLLL!!! but not just one, but a couple of them. Dan looked up ominously from packing his bag and said, “wolves”. Dan guessed that they were within a half-mile of our campsite. This, of course, made Dwylin, who was at least 45 years old by now, even more nervous about the day ahead.

Winding in and out of the hills and valleys we made a good pace for ourselves. We found animal paw prints and fresh scat all over the pathway that we were navigating around. The views were huge and wide and at moments there was major vegetation and steep hills. Our pace wasn’t just good, but it seemed to be absolutely spectacular. We ended up going 8 miles in 3¼ hours, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

The first couple miles didn’t have much to offer for memorable dialog, and indeed most of the hiking was that way. Each day of hiking we passed people on the trail on their way back. Every once and awhile we would get information out of them and try to figure out how much farther we had to go.

Finally, we reach that day's destination, Big Salmon Lake was here and so was everyone else! We must have seen around 20 people at or walking through this point of the trail. I distinctly remember someone with an Australian or New Zealand accent, but it didn’t take long for most of them to head on out. We had made it 20 miles by this point and it didn’t take long for the bags to come off and for some of the boys to start playing “Pocket Rockets” (Poker).

Poker is a favorite travel game for some of the boys, but playing with rocks instead of chips made the games more fun to watch (playing with only 10 rocks really made the games go faster). The baby of the group, Caleb, had never played poker before, and usually, this means quick defeat unless your name is Caleb. Apparently, it is just as effective to be lucky instead of being good. One of the early hands Caleb bet all the way through to the end with only Landon in his way. He threw the cards down certain of defeat, but everyone playing yelled in surprise. Apparently, he had a straight and didn’t know it! Which was good enough to win that game.

This was the first place on our trip that the smoke added to the surroundings. The lake is 5 miles long and was absolutely gorgeous. Most of the guys decided that the fishing on the shore of the lake was not good enough. So everyone but Dwylin got their pack rafts out and we had our first experience of blowing up the rafts. It was a surprisingly very simple process and the boys made their way around the lake to find fish.

Now while everyone one was out in the lake fishing, Dwylin stayed by camp to “heal his joints”. Dan kept looking into the shore and noticed that Dwylin, who we thought was going to swim and heal up, was just standing waist-deep for at least a half-hour. (Dwylin may or may not have been afraid of the cold water, but who's to say.) In due time the fishermen got back to shore, but they couldn’t see Dwylin anywhere. Then they heard a voice from somewhere saying, “Did you catch anything?” Looking around, all that could be seen was a lone head protruding from the water. It was indeed the head of Dwylin. The water was a lot warmer then the river was the night before, but all in all Dwylin couldn’t stop shivering. By the time he got out of the water, our best guess is that he was in the water for a good hour.

Talking and laughing helped the evening progress nicely. Otherwise not a lot of other memorable things happened to my knowledge, I’m afraid. As the evening continued no one could decide if we wanted to use the tent or not. Finally, three hero’s stubbornly decided to set up the tent, but there was literally only one place we could put the tent. Everyone got in and went to bed, and let it be known, the only thing harder then the ground we slept on has to be concrete!

Bob Marshall Wilderness: Chapter 1

Aug / 7 / 2017

BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!! was the sound that most of us are greeted with at 4 AM Monday morning. Most of us just pressed our snooze button until 4:20 AM when Dwylin woke everyone by walking out of the restroom. It wouldn’t take long after that until the entire group would get up and get ready to go. It was around 5 AM when we all hopped in our trucks and left for our 2 and a half-hour drive up into the wilderness.

Most of the guys weren’t hungry, because we had enjoyed a massive meal the evening before. It also didn’t help that we never saw any breakfast places after leaving the gas station. That was our first mistake because most of us started our hike on basically an empty stomach.

The drive up was filled with dirt roads and great scenery and one random guy in the middle of the road wearing PJ’s and “SUNGLASSES”. Please keep in mind that this was still around 6 AM and with almost no sunlight. If you want to read into the situation, go ahead, but we never stopped to ask him any questions.

Finally, we ended up reaching our parking area where we left behind our trucks and head out on foot for 25 miles and 5 total days in “The Bob”. Remembering that we’re heading into a “WILDERNESS”; all seven of us grabbed hands and each of us said a prayer. We started with Matthew went around the circle and ended with Dwylin praying. After that special time, we headed out… after Nate told everyone that they should stretch.

We made it around a mile and a half and something started to happen that we didn’t expect. No one told us that the path was going to have that much dust. Most ended up walking beside the path instead of on it. Another observation was shouted out by Dwylin, from the back of the group… Dan! I was promised minimal hills.” Dan just laughed, as we continued UPHILL.

Probably a half mile later we came upon a sign, welcoming us to the park. Part of the sign was missing, and Dan said that he’d almost bet anything that it was a bear. This experience was followed by Matt taking out his knife, and carving something into the back of the sign… L+M inside of a heart.

(If you're not aware. Matt is getting married to Linda Miller just 2 weeks after our trip is over… and he is very happy about it. In fact, he ended every prayer on our trip by jumping in at the end of the prayer, and saying out loud “thank you for making Linda so awesome”. Even if he wasn’t the one that was praying.)

We continued on seeing great views and soon enough hiking up and down. Every once and a while we had to cross a creek and hope we didn’t fall in or at the very least get our feet wet. Wet Shoes + Wet Socks = Blisters or in reality Loose Shoes = Blisters.

We kept on hiking, making good time, as far as we could tell. Making it about 8 miles before the heat started getting to us, and it got to Dwylin first.

(Lets go back two or three years before this trip. There was a forest fire in the valley we’re hiking in now. Many trees are standing but very charred and with no comfort of shade. We came to learn very quickly that direct sunlight gets very hot very quickly, and without sunlight, it gets chilly very quickly. On the bright side, however, if you still have sunlight. You can dry your clothes on rocks quickly, because of the lack of humidity.)

OK, you're up to speed. We finally, for the first time that day, rested and snacked on some bars that we had brought with us. After that, we started walking again, but the damage had already been done! Some of us could immediately tell that our strength and stamina had taken a hit. We ended up stopping about 3 times by the time we got to the rangers station 2 miles away (10 miles total for the day). After resting in the grass by the ranger's cabin we figured out that we needed to go at least 2 more miles for a good camping spot, but we weren’t getting any closer by just sitting around. To make matters worse, Dwylin’s walking had already started to slow. Everyone knew why he was having trouble... BLISTERS.

Two miles later we started to receive hope… campsites! It sounds like rest to me! The only problem was that we had to find a spot cleared enough for a tent. Boy, were we ever happy for deciding at the last minute to bring that tent along. Between our tent and the water of the river was a valley of slippery rocks, maybe 30 feet of it… but if you asked the guys with blisters it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. Every step onto a rock you thought was secured and firmly in place, was instead a cruel joke, probably God’s way of making us more thankful for the river that we eventually got to.

Everyone got to the river at some point and got their feet wet, either cleaning their hair or to get below the water to shock their aching joints and sore shoulders (the water was FREAKISH-LY COLD). Afterward, some of the guys went fishing, and others got camp ready, and because of how dry Montana has been this summer, there was Stage 1 Fire Ban. Basically, that just means that no one is allowed to have a campfire, but propane fires are allowed for the time being (no sparks to set pine needles aflame). It didn’t take long after that for our “Mountain House” meals to get passed around. If you don't know what those are… Google it! Amazing for camping trips!

The evening basically ended with us back down by the water, skipping rocks, but of course, it turned into a competition. I believe one time, they had to skip the rock only once across the river, but the rock thrown could not skip past the halfway point of the river… you know stuff like that.

The exact time people started heading for bed escapes me at this moment, but there was plenty of daylight left. That didn’t matter to anyone, because we hiked 12 miles in 8 hours. We were spent and we still needed to walk 8 miles the next day and another 5 or 6 after that. This, however, concludes our first day of hiking.  Until we begin again, you'll just have to sit and wait for it!

Bob Marshall Wilderness: Prologue

Aug / 3/ 17 - Aug / 6/ 17

MONTANA'S FLATHEAD RIVER… That is our adventure for this year. A wild 1-week hiking/pack rafting trip that includes 7 friends and 25 miles of hiking back in a wilderness with everything we could ever need, well anything that we were willing to carry that is.

We cannot start this story without going back to Thursday, August, 3^rd. The night before our adventure began, when Dan and Dwylin drove out to Bass Pro Shop to purchase some of their final supplies for this adventure they were embarking on.

On our shopping list

1. Mummy Sleeping Bags 2. Fishing Supplies 3. Clothing 4. Fly Fishing Rod (One would argue that 2 & 4 should be the same thing but you’ll see by the end of our adventure… It most certainly was not the same thing.)

The two of them didn’t get home until roughly 10:30 pm, both with the intention of traveling down to Fort Wayne, IN to the airport to rent an SUV for their trip the following day. Now due to some poor planning, Dwylin had to get up at 4 AM Friday morning to pack his backpack and be at Dan’s by 7 so they could drive an hour and a half down to the airport.

Once they got to the airport they discovered very quickly that something was a rye. The big jumbo SUV they expected to receive had been replaced by an SUV with little legroom, and almost NO trunk space. Not ideal when you have 5 big hiking packs to take with you. Going back to the desk for a second try, we learned that was the only SUV or van that they had left. So the two of them headed back north to Dunlap, IN to an Enterprise for a vehicle. While we didn’t get the vehicle we wanted… We received a huge blessing we never expected. We ended up renting a bright red 2017 Ford F-150 Crew Cab, with plenty of legroom for even Landon, a lengthy 6’4”, in the back seat.

Dwylin drove back home to finish packing and to pick up Landon while Dan drove the truck back to his house soon to be followed by our Ohio boys Nate and Caleb. Finally, we were able to get everyone together and set out for our ultimate goal… Montana.

I guess now would be a good time to tell you our differences between last year's Alaska group and this year's wilderness group. This year has 5 familiar faces Dan, Dwylin, Jon, Matt (who flew to MT early to play in a basketball tournament with Jon) and Nate, while adding an additional traveler Caleb Hostetler from Ohio and Landon Miller from Indiana.  Most have probably noticed that Jared isn’t among the list of people, because he is in Ghana, Africa for a year… but he was very missed.

We headed out closer to 1 pm instead of our initial intent of 10 o’clock, but we still left just the same. We headed out through Chicago and on up to Minneapolis and on west. Trying to pick up our rafts in Browning, MT we headed through what seemed to be endless miles of empty roads. Devoid of all life except for the fields beside us and the many eyes in those fields staring back at us!

When the morning came, we wanted some food so we settled with a small restaurant called The Hitchin’ Post in Malta, MT. A good amount of food, but seemingly a bit on the cold side. That aside it was a welcome break from the travel. Just a little later we were able to stop and pick up our pack rafts from the Browning Indian Reservation and headed on to Plains, MT through Glacier National Park.

While well worth the visual experience, but we’re still unsure if it was worth the $30 price tag to drive through the park.

We finally made it to Dan’s parent's place around 4 pm on Saturday. Matt and Jon pulled in from their basketball adventure and Jon was shocked to see that Nate showed up, simply because no one told him that he was coming. A great evening commenced with Dan and Jon’s family with some great conversations and outstanding food. The evening ended with Dan taking the guys on a ride around the block in his old 1979 Ford F-250 pickup, a fun way to wind down the evening.

Later, Dan and his dad were talking about ranches and evidently, they were the only ones interested in the conversation, because it didn’t take long and everyone was asleep.

We woke bright and early Sunday morning ready for cereal and in anticipation of hearing Dan give a devotional at church. We were blessed to be a part of their fellowship meal at the church and devoured some outstanding food. We then headed back to Dan’s parents to pack and head up to Kalispell to get our final supplies at Walmart, and then spend the night at Dan’s sister, Sara and Verlin’s house. We packed up and now we sleep awaiting tomorrow when we leave bright and early to head out for our hike.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to write a new account every couple of days… stayed tuned.

North By North Eastern?

With only one week left until our big hiking trip in the Bob Marshal Wilderness.  I might as well officially put up our videos for our quick week long trip to New Hampshire on the blog. 

so there isn't any journal style blog just two videos, so think of this as a highlight VLOG...

Enjoy!

Part 1

Pennsylvania

Part 2

New Hampshire

I have noticed that on YouTube our 3rd Alaska Video isn't up... Well we finally fixed it, but the music for Chapter 9b will no longer be available but I have made a new video to replace it!

I never liked the song, In fact it was my least favorite video because of the song.
so now enjoy the new version which is much better in my opinion.

Chapter 9b:
Manifest Destiny
(Alternate Version)

1 Year!!!

Amazingly, it has been an entire year since our trip to Alaska and so much has happened since then. Jared is living in Ghana, Africa for a year, Matt is getting married in a month, and Dan is still single... 

It's crazy how many people have decided to go up to Alaska since our trip. I know of at least 3 different families that decided to make the trek up there. 

Some sad news: One of our friends from Ohio went up to Alaska with his family, and stopped in Watson Lake to find our sign. If you don't remember, its this sign.

We were informed by our friend that our paddle was no longer present in its rightful spot!!!!!!

and NOWHERE insight, and never found.

Thanks to our friends for giving us the last laugh. If nothing else we can be remembered.

Some of us guys from the Alaska trip just finished a week-long stay in Pennsylvania and the great Northeast...

Soon we'll be embarking on a hiking trip to Montana... coming up August.

a blog update and videos for the first trip are coming and hopefully another for the hiking trip.