# Memorable Moments



## luckylauren (Apr 3, 2016)

It's officially the off season where I live, and now all I can do is wait for real winter to roll around and for boating season next year. (I don't have a passport to go find exotic rafting)

So y'all, I wanna hear a story. All stories! Funny things that happened in camps, oh sh** moments from the river, deep thoughts you've had while on the groover.

You see, I get bored, and would like to live vicariously through all of your hi-jinks!

I'll start with a small anecdote.

It was the fall in October, and we were working away at the Lee's Ferry Boat Ramp rigging for our trip the following day. Our group, which had arrived around 12, began rigging the only way we knew how, beer in hand.

While we were busy unloading our Utah liquor store's worth of inventory of beer and alcohol, the ranger came up to us and asked if we would prefer to do our pre-trip checkout that afternoon, rather than earlier in the morning, and we all agreed that it sounded like a great idea.

Well, we kept rigging, as did the other party set to launch the next day, and we kept drinking.

Eventually, 4 o'clock rolled around and we ambled over to the picnic area to get the low down on the check out. The ranger was thorough and pretty funny, when all of a sudden he exclaimed...
"WILL SOMEONE WAKE THAT GUY UP!"

Internally, I thought, please, please let it be someone from the other group, but alas, it was one of ours, dozing away.

After finishing up the speech, the ranger looked at both the groups and said, "Take care of each other out there, respect one another, some of you might have brought too MUCH beer," he glanced in our direction, "and some of you might not brought ENOUGH beer!" he glanced at the other group.

He was a very nice ranger, and early the next morning, he came by our camp. When he asked for me by name, I thought, "Oh Sh**, what now! The jig is up!" Instead he brought me what would become my favorite sticker- the Norovirus, YOU DON'T WANT IT! sticker.

It was a hilarious start to a hi-jink filled canyon trip, and I am counting down the days until the next one!


----------



## raymo (Aug 10, 2008)

When I was a young guide on a four day trip down the Yampa, long story short. Did you know Nun's don't dress in their Sunday best all the time, especially on river trips? Nether did I.


----------



## caverdan (Aug 27, 2004)

Almost every year I help out with a local High School, taking somewhat underprivileged kids down the river. This time we were on the San Juan. We were a couple of days into the trip when two girls came up to me and wanted some duct tape. I quizzed them as to why they needed my roll of duct tape. They said that bugs had eaten holes in the mesh screen on their tent and were getting in. They wanted to duct tape the holes shut.

Now I'm sitting there wondering what kind of bug eats a hole in the screen material of a tent. In fact....I brought my tent to keep the bugs off me at night and this new tent eating bug was not part of the plan. Naturally I needed to do some investigating into this situation before I turned over the only roll of duct tape I brought. If the bugs on the San Juan were of the tent eating variety.......I was going to need that roll more that they needed it. So I went with them to examine the damage these bugs had done. 

By the way, the school had rented brand new tents for the trip. Any damage done..... was done by them....the first users of said tent.

Sure enough...there were small holes......at least a dozen or so......in the screen mesh of their tent. Looked just like a bug of some sort had eaten little holes in it. Some holes were bigger than others......

So I studied these holes for a few seconds, up close and personal, and determined the edges of the holes were smooth. I couldn't find a single chew mark anywhere. Instead it looked like the holes were melted in.....not chewed. 

After more discussion they finally admitted that at the put in they were cold and moved their tent next to the fire, to keep warm that night. Others told me they had warned them about setting their tent that close to the fire. They didn't listen and now had to suffer the consequences of a holey tent for their stupidity. 

Needless to say, I kept my roll of duct tape and slept better at night knowing that there were no bugs on the San Juan that could eat holes in nylon.


----------



## Domar Dave (Feb 4, 2011)

I had the dubious distinction of being the "Lower Gorge ranger" for Grand Canyon National Park in the summer of 86. The NPS set me up with a double-wide trailer in Meadview and a Boston Whaler motor boat to patrol from Pierce Ferry up to Separation Canyon. One evening, commercial boatman, John Weisheit, knocked on my door and said he had an emergency. He was working for Georgie White and said the entire group was camped on Scorpian Island and nearly out of beer. Georgie was the legendary "Woman of the River" who had helped to pioneer commercial baloney-boat trips in the canyon. She was also known to be batshit crazy. She had insisted that John hitch a ride with a passing trip, get himself to Meadview, and hitch a ride back with a beer supply. I agreed the situation was dire. We got in the park ranger truck and went immediately to the Crow's Nest bar and loaded up with multiple cases of Coors (Georgie's favorite). We then launched the park ranger Whaler and headed Code 3 to Scorpian Island. There was 80-year old Georgie in a leopard-skin bikini regaling her guests with river stories in front of a roaring, and sloppy campfire. In appreciation of my contribution, I was invited to stay awhile. The evening was long and intoxicated. Georgie's ability to consume cans of Coors was amazing. At one point she delivered a long tirade about what a pain in the ass the National Park Service is. Some of it was actually justified. In the morning, I was still there. The first thing I saw was Georgie in her bikini cooking breakfast, with a can of Coors in hand. It was not a pretty sight.


----------



## raymo (Aug 10, 2008)

*Domar Dave;*

Domar Dave, that story is way to cool and also to meet Georgie White Clark. I have read quite a bit about her, what a great river runner. I never met her, but would of loved to. I guess she liked Rock and Roll music as it came out and so did I and still do ( I know that has nothing to do with rafting, just through that I'd throw that out). Thanks for posting your story, I really enjoyed it. Great detail.


----------



## Domar Dave (Feb 4, 2011)

Georgie was a legend for her personality, her river running skills were the subject of debate. Her "G-Rig" pontoon boats were the largest craft on the river and she was known to just drive over everything possible. She once purposefully hit the Ledge Hole in Lava and one of her passengers was killed. On the other hand, back in the 40's she swam the canyon in a life jacket and was the first woman to row the canyon, in a small military inflatable. She also crossed the USA by bicycle. 

By the way, a couple details in my story may be fuzzy. I said she was 80 years old at the time. That was a guess based on her appearance. If her bio is accurate, she would have been 75 in 1986. I have been told that her "leopard skin bikini" was actually a one-piece leopard print leotard that she wore on every trip. Either way, she was a very baked brown, leathery, flamboyant, larger-than life character who was the star of her show. She created a character and played the role for the rest of her life.


----------



## raymo (Aug 10, 2008)

In one of my English classes, I had to write a paper and I chose Georgie White as my person of interest to write about. Georgie's river running techniques do not surprise me, from what I have read and explained by you. Her leopard skin river attire, she wore every river trip is funny. I think I used the same clothing for weeks on end also, I'd wake up in the morning and they would be rigging and walking around the boats before I even got to put them on because they did it so often.


----------



## Quiggle (Nov 18, 2012)

I was trip leading a two day trip in California. At lunch on day two I had a lady that needed to go #2. This was an established camp two day so we didn't have groovers and gear boats. I did have a small amount of TP in my personal dry bag so I offered it up and a small zip lock bag ( the half sandwich size). I instructed her to walk up the hill at least 100 yards find a protected area, dig a hole, fill the hole and put the toilet paper in the zip lock bag to put in trash and then wash her hands. I was mid way through prepping lunch when her friend came running back with said bag since she was embarrassed. She handed me the bag, and sure enough there was no TP in the bag, just a turd. I have no idea why I accepted the bag, and didn't tell her to put it in the trash. Yes a turd in a small, snack size sandwich bag. She must have had great aim, or she had a helping friend?


----------



## Elvez (Mar 29, 2005)

In college, I got a job with a local company that sold whitewater gear and quickly got into kayaking myself. I spent all my extra time and money on boating, and at one point early on I'd swallowed enough runoff to catch giardia. It took me a while to finally go to the doctor and get the meds to kill it, and in the meantime I'd lost at least 15 of my then 150 pounds of bodyweight, and I looked like a fucking zombie. I was still going to work though, picking orders in the warehouse, holding myself up by leaning on the wheeled cart and sort of shuffling around in a daze. One of the sales people, Robin, was giving a tour of the place to a group of her clients. They walked by and she introduced me, telling them I was one of the local kayakers and yadda yadda. They said hello and the group moved on.
(From here this is all third-hand info, told to me by another co-worker.) When the tour group moved on, one of the guys asked Robin, "What the hell is wrong with that guy?" Referring to my general state of emaciation and obvious misery.
She said, offhandedly, "Him? He's got gonorrhea." As the shock washed over their faces, she tried to reassure them by saying, "Oh, it's really common with the kayakers around here..."


----------

