# Epic Fails- Grand Canyon or otherwise



## Rich

climbdenali said:


> Alright, I've read tons of the "what's the best. . ." campsite, hike, layover spot, piece of gear that you wouldn't think of for the Grand Canyon threads. Now let's hear your worst gear fail, the worst campsite you've stayed at, the worst epic bushwhacking-for-nothing hike, the worst "doh!" moment that you'd probably rather not remind yourself of. Non-Grand Canyon posts welcome, as well. Remember, none of these Buzzards will judge you!!
> 
> Years ago, on day one of a 4 day Yampa trip a buddy in a kayak floated up to me, stole an oar blade, and hucked it. It sank. He turned, shocked, and said, "Those float, right??" 1/4 oars down. Day two, I dipped my downstream oar too low- 2 down, 2 to go. Day three, instant karma after talking shit about the way someone was rowing, I put my right tube and frame under an undercut wall. Bent the steel frame, sheared off the thole pin, and unbeknownst to me, tore through 90% of the hose clamp that held the clip on that right oar. Next day, last day, at the back of the pack, the hose clamps broke the rest of the way. 3 down. No spares left on me. No one's hearing my whistle. Finally caught up, spinning around in circles with one oar. Got another oar from somebody else. 20 minutes from the takeout, not knowing you ought not go right at Inglesby, you guessed it- flipped off the big rock. Pretty humbling trip that taught me a lot- Don't let kayakers near your boat, don't talk shit, or the river gods will shit on you, watch your downstream oar (already knew that one, evidently not well enough), and for the love of God, don't go right at Inglesby!!


First run down the Green, I went right at Inglesby and pinned my cat with my 10 year old daughter. We climbed on the rock and jumped off the backside into the eddy, boat came free. I have made it a point to ALWAYS go right since then, but just paying more attention. Maybe 15 right runs, only a problem the first time.


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## climbdenali

I had wanted to go right at Inglesby the next time down, but the wind was crazy from right to left, plus the wife was about to get physically violent if I tried to take her right again. . .


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## tango

couple years ago i was guiding on the futa. standard practice at terminator rapid is to run the 1st third of the rapid, eddy left, and scout your line for the bottom of the rapid. i botched the eddy. the safety cat was low in the eddy as the paddle crew and i tried to scramble in, we bounced into him. while facing upstream my right oar went over top of the safety cat, and his oar was over my frame. we were sort of locked together and floating backwards into the rest of the rapid. 

i spun my boat counter-clockwise with my left oar to get free, realized we definitely were not going to scout on this particular day, and the safety was behind us. then i broke my left oar into 3 pieces against a boulder, and had to throw the jagged spear in my hand into the river. i said something like, "get the fuck down," we spun through the rest of the rapid somehow without flipping, as i tried to maneuver with one oar. 

we barely caught the eddy before Son of terminator. i was embarrassed. terrible line, poor recovery, safety behind us. the futa let me get away with that one.


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## floatingk

rowing the whiterock stretch of rio grande in low water. hotter than bejeebus. get stuck on sandbar, get out pull huge gear boat off and back into current, wind blows me back upstream on same sandbar....


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## Phil U.

tango said:


> couple years ago i was guiding on the futa. standard practice at terminator rapid is to run the 1st third of the rapid, eddy left, and scout your line for the bottom of the rapid. i botched the eddy. the safety cat was low in the eddy as the paddle crew and i tried to scramble in, we bounced into him. while facing upstream my right oar went over top of the safety cat, and his oar was over my frame. we were sort of locked together and floating backwards into the rest of the rapid.
> 
> i spun my boat counter-clockwise with my left oar to get free, realized we definitely were not going to scout on this particular day, and the safety was behind us. then i broke my left oar into 3 pieces against a boulder, and had to throw the jagged spear in my hand into the river. i said something like, "get the fuck down," we spun through the rest of the rapid somehow without flipping, as i tried to maneuver with one oar.
> 
> we barely caught the eddy before Son of terminator. i was embarrassed. terrible line, poor recovery, safety behind us. the futa let me get away with that one.


Ouch! As I recall that eddy is backed up by a scary boulder with a lot of water running under it.


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## climbdenali

floatingk said:


> rowing the whiterock stretch of rio grande in low water. hotter than bejeebus. get stuck on sandbar, get out pull huge gear boat off and back into current, wind blows me back upstream on same sandbar....


Doh!! Mama said there'd be days like this. . .


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## chepora

climbdenali said:


> I had wanted to go right at Inglesby the next time down, but the wind was crazy from right to left, plus the wife was about to get physically violent if I tried to take her right again. . .


Well considering how the first time went We miss you guys...come up and hang out sometime


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## climbdenali

You should come down here! Still water, and it was boating weather today. We'll go for a fishin' trip. We've got an extra room for you guys . . .


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## Hermonbird

Great Topic and I'm laughing out loud as I read these. I've had so many epic fails on river trips I don't know where to begin. I was TL and chief food packer for a 4 day Dolores trip for 20 people and forgot coffee. Yeah...forgot coffee. I got to redeem myself the next year as TL/Chief Gear Man for a 20 person Stillwater Canyon trip and forgot toiler paper for everyone. Nice!

Anybody wanna go on a trip with me? I swear I got us covered.


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## asleep.at.the.oars

Also on Stillwater: I tucked the trip's only river map into a Crazy Creek that was perched on the edge of a canoe several days away from the confluence where it blew into the river. Pure guesswork to meet our jet boat on time... Same trip I forgot to pack any type of silverware or utensils. We were carving up our disposable 2 gallon water jugs to make spoons.

I've seen this on multiple trips: no plates.


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## wildh2onriver

After loading up the flatbed at Diamond Creek, my friend put his rolled up new Hyside on top and somehow forgot to tie it down...meanwhile, my brother and I jumped in the flatbed with the driver and the rest of the group followed in the shuttle van and away we go, with us in the lead. in less then a mile Joe"s boat bounced out of the stakebed but the bowline caught somehow with the end result--his boat dragging down the road at about 30 mph.

The shuttle van behind us said they honked numerous times, tried to pass and otherwise get our attention, because of the dust plume that the truck kicked up and the noisy diesel engine and road noise--we heard and saw nothing. We made it all the way to the pavement (many miles) outside of Peach Springs when they finally got our attention.

His boat started out being a 14'3"...ended up with about 6' left.

Oh, did I mention he flipped in Lava and 209 and broke 3 oars? He got out of boating after that.


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## Kyle K

As a former outfitter, full time guide, now occasional guide and active private tripper in the Grand since 1976, I've run Lava many, many times. I love the right side but it's much less comfortable now that the Room of Doom is in play, after the Prospect Canyon flash of '95. Until last week however, I'd never been in it. 

I was on a private and was first boat out of six. Heading right, all looking good. Line up for the V waves, perfect... Uh oh, right V wave mellows out just a bit as I drop in and my boat doesn't even slow down... Hmmm, starting to drift right as I head for the bottom holes. We should be OK... Hit the right side of the bottom hole just as it breaks, boat stalls, surfs right up onto the black rock, still thinking I'll be OK... Nope! Big surge into the Room and life gets interesting very quickly. On my first attempt to spin the boat off the rock my right oar (upstream) gets pulled out of the lock. My fault, I tried to take too deep a stroke. The hoopie lanyard holding it to the frame actually breaks (old hoopie) and off she goes. Now I've only got my rock side oar to use. It's surging way too much to try to grab and install a spare. Plus I want out of there NOW! 

Rafts 2 and 3 pass by as I try desperately to spin us off the rock and downstream. Raft 2 actually glances off of my boat. Scared to death that he was going to hit me full on and slide under me. 

The surge in there is about 3 feet. At one point I'm thinking of having my wife and friend jump onto shore (bow is pointed at shore) but the surge is mean and it seems too risky. A good friend and the foremost guide down there once flipped in the V waves and ended up swimming into the Room, only to go deep, get flushed through a sieve and end up in the eddy below the black rock. Needless to say, that was on my mind the whole time. 

Every time I spin the boat (at the top of a surge) we slide part way into the hole and get slammed back up on the rock and into the eddy. High side! Damn, I really don't like this. Finally, on the fourth or fifth attempt I manage to get the timing right and spin the boat into (maybe onto is more accurate) the bottom hole and out we go, safe and sound. Gotta say luck was on my side as we could have flipped numerous times in there. 

As I noted, I've spent a lot of time down there, running oar boats, motor rigs and kayaks and that was the scariest place I've ever ended up. I hope I never go back into the Room!


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## climbdenali

wildh2onriver said:


> His boat started out being a 14'3"...ended up with about 6' left.


That kinda makes me sick to my stomach. What a sinking feeling that must've been.


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## floatingk

This must be the best thread ever, Im sure of it.


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## paulie

Two years ago after moving to NZ the first weekend I was here got on Whakapapanui creek with some AUCC kids. They said it was supposed to be easy grade 3 with maybe a 4. No one had done the creek but the guidebook said the same. It was pissing rain and misty as all get out so visibility was a bit of an issue. Get on, run two drops a third was borderline 4-5 ran it no issues. They took their time running it wanting safety etc... Finally re-group and I'm in the lead headed downstream. 

Anxious to keep rolling I was getting a bit loose with catching micro-eddys. Come around a corner and see what looks to be a gorge/horizon line. I try to catch an eddy on the right, missed it... shit... missed the next one.... shit shit shit... Next thing I know, I'm rolling over the lip of Matariki falls. One thought is in my head that Keck said to me before I left for here, "be careful bro shit is a bit different down there" Thinking about these words of wisdom from the Huckin duckie I peer into the abyss. I had no fucking idea how big this thing was and I thought that was the end of the story. I start to fall, tuck up, and after what felt like an eternity I go deep in the soft, soft goods. I come up and instantly get shucked to the right against an undercut wall. I fight off of it and catch an eddy below this monster. 
I rip myself out of my boat and see my new friends standing on the lip with the biggest eyes I've ever seen. I catch my breath and settle my heart down from its 300 bpm. No worries the rest of the day just mellow grade 2-3 and a great story for the pub.
Kind of an interesting way to start my adventures here in NZ!!


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## The Mogur

The year I bought my first raft and took my first Rogue trip (1975), I told stories of my adventures to anyone who was interested--or too polite to tell me to give it a rest. One couple I had known for quite awhile got excited and wanted to get a raft of their own. They got a little $30 Caravelle vinyl raft, knowing that it wasn’t a whitewater raft, but all they wanted to do was drift on “Huck Finn” water. For their first float trip, they drove to Salem (it’s only a half-hour drive). With some sandwiches and a few drinks they set out for their Sunday afternoon float to Wilsonville—a distance of nearly 50 miles on the river.

They floated lazily down the river, apparently not noticing that it took half an hour just to get out of sight of the launch ramp. After an hour or two, they decided they’d better start paddling downstream. Three hours later, they were sincerely wishing they had brought more food and drink. By the time some shade started to reach the river, they were thoroughly burned, although they didn’t know how thoroughly until later that night. With no idea where they were, but certain that the Wilsonville bridges would come into view around “the next bend,” they doggedly paddled downstream into the evening.

When it began getting dark, they finally decided that they’d better find a place to get off the river. They spotted a fisherman on shore and paddled over to ask where they were. They were at a Greenway Access park at the Marion/Yamhill County line, having floated eleven miles—a very long distance when there’s no discernible current, but still 39 miles short of their destination.

About then, a state cop appeared and told them that he was just about to lock the gate for the night. They asked him if he could take them to Wilsonville, but he said he was going the other direction. The fisherman offered to take them as far as Newberg, so they hurriedly squeezed the air out of their raft and stuffed it into the guy’s trunk. He let them out on the St. Paul highway and wished them luck. After walking for an hour in the dark, with their plastic paddles and rolled up raft, they managed to hitch a ride to Wilsonville. They got out where Wilsonville Road goes under the freeway and then made their way down to the river at the old Boone’s Ferry landing.

When they got there, they realized that their car was on the other side of the river—an easy mistake. So they blew up the raft (by mouth, because the pump was in the car they left in Salem) and paddled across the river. Dizzy from hyperventilation, they were unable to compensate for the breeze that pushed them downstream as they paddled across the river.

Coming to shore a quarter of a mile below the boat ramp, they waded along the shore through mud, blackberry brambles, and slime, back upstream toward the ramp. Occasionally, they came to deep spots where they had to swim with the raft in tow. An overhanging branch snagged the raft and ripped a hole in it, so by the time they got to the boat ramp, it was mostly deflated. They were so discouraged and disgusted by then that they stuffed the raft into a trash barrel. They got to their car a half-hour before midnight. Even the fast food restaurants were closed by then, so they drove to Salem to get their other car.

When they got there, they remembered that they had put the keys for it into the little side pouch in the raft they had ditched. There was nothing to do but drive back to Wilsonville and go dumpster diving. Arriving home in Portland about 2:30 AM, they took cold showers and sprayed each other with Solarcaine. The next day they had to go to work. They actually admitted to all of this, rather than saying that they had been mugged by hippies who tied them up in the sun and stole their raft. That would have been my story, if I’d done that!


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## Gremlin

Floating down upper C in July we experienced black skies, then wind, then hail followed by cold rain. We found a camp at Benches and were relieved to finally dry out and warm up. Feeling too lazy to find dry kindling, Bill suggested pouring some of his white gas on the wet wood to get it going. It lit right up but burned off before the wet wood could begin to dry out. Bill then decided to add more white gas to the smoldering flames. I guess he thought sprinkling the gas would not be the same as pouring a stream into the fire but the flame traveled up to his fuel bottle regardless. Thinking quickly, Bill turned to the river and threw the bottle probably 100 feet. It flew through the air, spewing flames as it cartwheeled across the sky, and we all held our breath as we realized it was heading directly towards our rafts. It landed, miraculously, between mine and Bill's rafts, in the water one foot from the shore. Bill walked over and picked it up like he intended that outcome. When he turned and looked at me, I was shaking my head in disbelief. We then burst out laughing!

Shortly afterwards, we heard a raft approaching with crying children. They pulled up to our camp and the father was in a panic. He had recently purchased a bucket boat and was told the upper C would be a good family outing. The raft had taken on a lot of water at Yarmony and the three kids, all still in diapers were waterlogged and screaming. With a nice warm fire now blazing in camp, we invited them to join us and warm up. My wife went so far as to help the father set up his brand new, never out of the box, TEN person Coleman tent. In the meantime, the rain stopped and his kids were walking off with our Bocce balls midgame. I later found out, when I had a mouse scurrying around, that they had gone into my tent. The father was appreciative of all our help. The mother never said a word to us.

In the morning, Bill and I contemplated how cheaply we could buy that bucket boat that was surely on it's last voyage with that frustrated family.


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## Learch

*Canoeists*

Twice in the same summer, we ran across some lake type canoeists, first on the Sandy river (Dodge to Oxbow) then on the North Santiam (Packsaddle to Mehama) We questioned them both at the put in, and both did not have any ww experience, and these were both loong lake canoes, no flotation, outfitted with Walmart's finest orange vests and plastic paddles. They were both young couples, the guy at Dodge park disregarded our advice and inquisition as to what they were doing. They shoved off with jackets strapped to their hull and managed to broach two large rocks, just out of sight of the park, approaching Pipeline (The only class III on the run) The guy gets out in 3 feet of rushing water running under the center of the boat, the boat now 75% full of water, and tries to lift up on the higher end of the boat with her still in it. ( I laughed, but was afraid he was going to entrap himself) We landed river right and offered throw ropes, but "he had this". He then got her out on the upstream side and then both tried to lift the boat, no dice. He then accepted my rope offer, I told him to 'bine off to the canoe and send her first, one at a time. ( I had 75' strung across 3-4 feet of rushing water) He goes first, and she takes up right behind him. So I had to have my dad hang on to me so I didn't float off, trying to keep them. Rescue successful, I paddled my Force XL out to the canoe, landed just below it and clipped my boat off to it. I got under the high side and lifted it solo slowly, until it came free. The wood was broken in the center of the fiberglass boat, and the hull was creased. I got it and my boat to river left (the bottom of the island) and we took off from there. I hope they had fun getting their boat back, at that point I didn't want to make it easy on them. 
A few weeks later, similar situation on the North Santiam, but this guy listened. We told them they could stay with our group for the run, and we helped them portage Spencer's and Mill city falls. They avoided Carnivore and took our advice to heart. They had planned to go all the way to Mehama, but they took us up on the offer of a ride back at Mill city with us. (It was 6 pm by then, Mehama was still 7 miles off) That couple was cool, he chose to listen to the locals, and we had a hand in making it a successful day for them. Oh, and his shuttle was a ten speed hidden under the bridge at Mehama...


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## lhowemt

Hermonbird said:


> Great Topic and I'm laughing out loud as I read these. I've had so many epic fails on river trips I don't know where to begin. I was TL and chief food packer for a 4 day Dolores trip for 20 people and forgot coffee. Yeah...forgot coffee. I got to redeem myself the next year as TL/Chief Gear Man for a 20 person Stillwater Canyon trip and forgot toiler paper for everyone. Nice!
> 
> Anybody wanna go on a trip with me? I swear I got us covered.


Hopefully it was experienced river folks, as we always bring our own stash of tp and coffee. And a water filter and backpacking cook kit.


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## Websta'

Every day that I had to guide and convince the clients that we were actually on whitewater on a river that I will not name in Montana


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## rpludwig

Years ago we carried porta potti 100 toilets. The problem was that as they got full they would build up gas and each day they would need to be burped before use. We had been on the lower salmon for five days with a group of twelve and my buddies toilet was approaching critical mass. In his rush to get thing set up in a state of turtle tail, he forgot to burp his toilet and put the goods down. He was looking directly into the bowl when he pulled the little slide in the front, the gas relieved, blowing the entire toilet bowl contents all over his face and upper body.


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## climbdenali

On a different Yampa trip, we thought it was the kayakers' turn to empty the groovers. We sent our buddy up the hill with the two boxes, and went about cleaning, drying and rolling the boats. Hour or so later, we're about loaded up, and somebody says, "Has anyone seen Dan with the groovers?" About this time he comes stumbling down the hill, looking pretty green. "I'm sorry guys, I can't do it. I got one done, but I can't do it," he says as he chirps in his mouth. I walk up to empty the other one so we can go home, and I can't find the supplies- no RV hose, no hose for the water, nothing.  So I come back down, and ask the kayaker where the pickle jar is. He knows nothing about any hoses or parts, so I ask him how, in the name of a giant box of poo, did he get one of them emptied without the hoses. He proceeds to extend both arms out, holding an imaginary rocket box, and starts shaking said box up and down over an imaginary pit toilet.


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## Rojo

*Groover-bomb*

One time,,, We deduced that the air cavity in the full groover was feeding oxygen to the poo reaction and decided to carfully fill the headspace with water, eliminating the air supply in an effort to avoid the daily burping rituals.
Later that day, understanding that H2O has lots of available "O" component and realizing the error the "Captain of the shipt" admitting defeat and proceeded to burp the bulging rocket box. That days rapids had not been gentle and the agitation and sun's heat had produced a well-mixed, highly pressurized foamy soup. Great care was taken to release the latch just slightly,... before the big bang. Some had even ran down to the small eddy beach at Grapevine thinking a tube had popped. The secret was out and the cover was blown literally, and like a Claymore mine everything within 30' and 180 degrees was covered with an estimated gallon of poo-goo. Soap and buckets prevailed, but fits of laughter continued through the night.

Luckily this was before the days of the dreaded Noro-virus and the only result was a great story, and a greater appreciation of chemisrty.
I believe it was later on that same trip that I forgot the fiberglass custom molded groover seat and we had to resort to our wobbly backup standard seat.


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## Claytonious

*Poop*

I was guiding on the Deschutes river in Oregon. I had a father and his two sons in my boat, probably 14 and 15 or so, teenagers, not little kids. One of the kids asks to jump in the water and go swimming. We were in some flatwater between class II-III rapids so I say sure. He hops in and is just floating around. We were getting pretty close to the next set of rapids, so I yelled at him to swim back to the raft. He just kind of nodded, but continued floating. I figured he was peeing and just had stage freight or something so I let him stay there for a little while. Now we were really getting close to the next rapid, so I told him he needed to get back in the raft right away. He was a couple feet from the raft, but still would not come up to it. Finally we paddled up to him and I grabbed him by the shoulder straps and basically pulled him on top of me. It was at that point that I noticed that "mud" seemed to shoot out of his shorts into the water. After a second I realized that the water was probably 20 feet deep right there and the bottom was not muddy. Then his brother says "dude is that poop, did you poop your pants?" The other brother kind of sheepishly says "yay, I had to go REALLY bad". The silly thing is, there are outhouses like every mile along that river and we could have stopped at any time. 

We made him jump back in and clean all the poop off himself, then paddled to shore and splashed down the raft.

It sucks to be pooped on, but I had a story for the next couple of years to tell custies.

Any of you ever been pooped on by a client?


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## David L

I was starting to feel bad that I couldn't think of a good story, until I read these last few.


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## slickhorn

We've sure had some good ones! 

Dad has managed to get to the putin various times without the tent. Without any lifejackets. Once ... without the boat itself! I've shown up with no seat in my ik several times, which requires some creative rigging.

But for full on epicocity, I think our best adventure was on the Jarbidge. 

This was over July 4th, and it was easily in the 90s. We were wrapping up the JB Falls portage and the raft with the pump and big repair kit and pin kits was downstream in an eddy, but out of sight/earshot. 

4 self support IKs decide to run that last little ledge in the falls. First boat goes, and promptly wraps. Full symmetrical wrap. Took 4 people and a z-rig to even budge the boat. It took 2 hours to get the boat unwrapped, due to poor anchors, bad technique, and generally half-assed rescue skills. Once that boat was freed and the paddler had all his gear drying in the sun, we got to deal with issue #2.

Shortly after the wrap occured, the second boat entered the water, lightly bumps a rock, and pops -- an 18" tear in a tube after not bleeding off pressure in the heat. Paddler has diarhea and is frantically trying to handle it, a trashed boat, and a bench covered in nothing but poison ivy. It took another 90 minutes to get the damaged boat repaired. 

Luckily I had a small pin and repair kit with me, but I had to lead both activities, which really slowed us down. But a decade later, that patch is still going strong. The raft sure was confused when they waited for us for 4 hours! 

We made Cave Draw before dark and earned our beers that day. We were pleased, if nothing else, that we handled it ourselves and didn't need to be bailed out.


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## Rojo

*Shuttle from Hell, Litererally*

Three vehicles from Snake River put-in to Heller Bar sounds easy enough, but our planned shuttle rep was Sue at Scotty's General Store. Apparently that may say enough as I have since talked to many people that have had problems with Sue. Hopefully the situation has improved since this catastrophic shutlle back in 2008.
After stopping at Scotty's and passing the vehicle/trailer inspection (watch that the brakes don't heatup on the descent down into the canyon or else let them cool sufficiently), we arranged our shuttle for the two rigs and stated that the tandem axle trailer would have a small SUV loaded, I think it was a Montero. I'll say that we never intended to hide the third vehicle and having a trailer of adequate size to haul one of our own vehicles and save a third shuttle fee seemed innocent enough. At that point Sue flipped out screaming something about inter-state vehicle transport and she refused to shuttle our group even if we left the trailer empty and paid for the third vehicle to be driven. We had just spent two days driving up from New Mexico and as the only shuttle service for the Snake River stretch she had us over a barrel and made it clear that her intentions were to leave us stranded and cancel our trip.
After several frantic calls from a local outfitter we found our savior in the form of All-Rivers Shuttle Service based in Whitebird. Understanding our predicament they agreed to run our shuttle even though it was not their standard "territory".
My story should have ended there as We launched from the put-in site below Hells Canyon Dam and had a great trip until days later, within site of the take-out at Heller Bar. Two members of our group had passed on the last nights river camp option and planned to go on around the corner to the take-out and start home early. After dinner we walked down from camp along the old runway to pick cherries and I had sickening vision of all three vehicle key sets locked up in my vehicle. Sure enough the next morning we pull around to the take-out and start de-rigging on the rocky beach. I was unable to find our vehicles but did locate our two now-grumpy party members who had slept at the boat ramp, or at least spent the night there with their de-rigged boat.
More frantic calls, and walking to every river based business at Heller Bar, and brainstorming all sorts of options. Turns out that All-Rivers dropped two drivers at Pittsburg landing to hop on the regular scheduled tourist jet-boat upstream to the Dam. But without the keypad access code and the planned hide-away key they were forced to hop back on the jet-boat and re-direct their return ride from Heller back to Pittsburg. All-Rivers Shuttle Service, being the saints they are, already had the company owner enroute to pickup three drivers for the one-way trip back to the put-in, where the Montero was able to continue back to Montana, and the remaining two of us raced back to Heller to load up and start our all-night two-day trip back to NM.
After costing everyone a boring day sitting at the take-out I tried to redeem my actions by making Ladder Golf sets for everyone for Christmas that year. Most have forgotten and one member has even passed (R.I.P. Larry), but I will never forget that shuttle event.

In retrospect, as this is my worst personal river travel tale, I feel very fortunate that we have never had any serious accident or injury.

Now raft flips, poor weather, and drinking stories, that is an enitrely seperate affair.


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## richp

Hi,

I didn't think I really had one to share, until that last post reminded me of the time I arrived at the river, unloaded everything, and then discovered that I'd left the tubes for my cat in the garage.

FWIW.

Rich Phillips


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## wildh2onriver

6-7 years ago rigged for a Yampa trip, we stopped at a liquor store off the interstate in Rifle to supply our boat with beer. I had all my pfd's strapped together for my family of 4 plus 3 more for some other passengers, which I pulled off the cooler that was in the back of my truck with a topper. I put them on my trailered boat to load the cooler with the goods and ice and must of forgot to replace the pfd's, because they weren't there at the put in.

$1200.00 worth of top of the line jackets, knives, storm lighters, etc, gone. The next morning we were able to rent more from an outfitter, so the trip was saved. Someone told us that same day that they'd seen a car go by with a pile of pfd's strapped to the roof...


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## peakone

I've bought three tents, but never owned one - all replacements to the owners...two blew into the river, one was buried so deep I thought I lost it only to find it late in the trip covered in mold... 

Back in the day, I broke the lantern glass on night 1 of 18 - no replacement glass...

During a challenging cooking session, I threw some bacon grease into the river - it coagulated all over my friends drag bag. Thus his oar grips became slippery...resulting in a dynamic flip before the V wave...

Me and a girlfriend were doing deeds in a little pool/grotto above camp. Came back down to find the crew pumping water fed from same pool/grotto...

Could go on and on...too many to list...funny post!


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## Dave Frank

I used to store all my river gear in a the 12' cargo trailer that I am finally selling. It was great, you just hook it up and go to the river. All my river gear would be in it and I could decide at the ramp what all was coming on the float.

One day I embarked for a Westy with only one rider and figured I'd load the raft in the pick up and leave the trailer at home.

When I got to setting the boat up I was missing one piece of gear: the frame.

As much as he wanted to, Kyler couldn't find find any regulation prohibiting launching without one, so off we went with a pile off loosely tied gear and the boat Jury-rigged as a sweeper set up. No big surprise, but did not perform well like this.

I knew I had a friend coming down from the upper canyon who would be stoked to pass of all his gear and frame on to my boat so he could paddle guide his. Fortunately this came to fruition. As a bonus, I got to use the de-rigged boat as a sleeping pad.


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## colorado_steve

2 years ago the lower dolores was very windy. we took off from bradfield bridge on a 2 day trip down to the dove creek pump house. when we got to camp that afternoon the wind was really starting to pick up. when we were unloading boats a 30' pine was blown off the top of the canyon and fell all the way to the river landing across from us (pretty cool to watch). This was going to be my first trip with an umbrella for shade on the boat, but i could not use it much due to the wind. The umbrella was standing in its holder on my boat but not open when a HUGE wind gust came through the canyon flipping a lightly loaded paddle boat onto my heavier gear boat. Snapped my umbrella in half and threw pfd's into the river and trees nearby. I was pretty bummed about the umbrella as it was brand spankin new


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## The Mogur

Avoid reading this one if you have eaten recently or plan to do so in the immediate future (like anytime in the next week).

I was leading a Rogue trip for a group from Seattle, and I had a rookie guide named Stanley running a 14-foot gear boat. In camp at Mule Creek on our third night out, one of our guests, Rita, was drinking a soda from a private stash that she had brought along. In the kitchen area, as we were wrapping up the dinner dish line, Rita took a swig from her soda can and immediately threw up all over the beach as she rushed to the riverbank.

The third guide, Alan, and I ran to her aid, along with a couple other guests, as she heaved into the water. Once she had ejected everything from her stomach (a cachew chicken stir-fry, as I recall), Rita began to feel a little bit better. She said that something vile had gotten into her soda. Now, I have seen yellow jackets go into beverage cans, but that seemed an unlikely explanation. So I walked back to see what had happened.

I found a soda can that was nearly empty sitting on the sand next to the chair where Rita had eaten dinner. I poured it out and found nothing in it but Sprite. Just as I was starting to believe that she must have swallowed an adventurous slug, I spotted Stanley carrying another Sprite can. He seemed to be heading out of camp, up in the direction of the outhouses. I asked him about the Sprite, because I knew that he hadn’t brought any along.

He stammered and looked evasive as he tried to tell me that Rita had given him one. All the while, he was trying to keep the can out of my view. When I made him show it to me, everything became clear. He had been using chewing tobacco, and had grabbed the empty can to spit in. Rita had the profound misfortune to pick up the wrong Sprite can.

If there had been any way to throw him out of camp right there, I’d have done it. I told him not to use me as a reference if he tried to get a job as a guide with any other outfitter. Then I told Rita that it must have been something like a slug in her soda, and I told her that she could take her next trip with us at no charge. Believe it or not, she actually did come back for another trip. Stanley did not.


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## Dave Frank

Here's another poop one:


No Groover

You guessed it, the Red trailer was involved in this snafu as well. On a MFS trip in ’04, the Red Trailer hauled most of the gear to Idaho. My groover lived in the trailer, but someone else had brought theirs too. While checking in the day before, I showed the Rangerette the required gear, including my eco-safe system, still in the trailer. Further discussion of whose was to come on the river never happened.

While setting up camp at Sheepeater, someone hurriedly opened every rocket box on the trip only to discover that none were intended to receive the brown.

After a quick discussion and some finger pointing, someone’s box got downgraded from charcoal to poop. No seat. Groover name fully understood by all.

Two days later, despite solid efforts with the stick tamper, the first box started to reach capacity. As we were setting up gear at Cow camp, we discovered someone’s forgotten lunch pit stop: a rocket box with a home made wooden seat and only one fresh deposit. Not many groups would have been nearly as pleased to find someone else’s $hit in camp, so it was definitely win win.


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## JustinJam

I finally got my first real raft this summer and a buddy and I took it out on Cataract. Great trip, handled the talked perfectly. Leading up to the confluence we planned the trip around the full moon so we could make better time through the night without a motor. Around 11 that night the whiskey Camelot big time. My buddy took a turn rowing for a couple hours and I figured there wasn't anything he could hit so I kept right on drinking. After a few he asks me if the moon was in the right place. I startling around at some familiar surroundings and realize he had been rowing upriver for two hours! Not really epic but funny as all hell.


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## Junk Show Tours

On the 3rd day of a Middle Fork trip, we stopped for an impromptu safety meeting. A kayaker friend paddled up to my raft and grabbed onto the side. After discussing safety for ten minutes or so, we decided to head downstream. My friend that was in his kayak asked me to hand him his paddle. Only thing was that he had never actually put his paddle in the raft. I said I don't have his paddle, and he looks around and he didn't have it. Thank goodness we had a spare! We found his missing paddle later that day in the eddy below sunflower hot springs.


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## Avatard

wildh2onriver said:


> After loading up the flatbed at Diamond Creek, my friend put his rolled up new Hyside on top and somehow forgot to tie it down
> 
> His boat started out being a 14'3"...ended up with about 6' left.


If that was an Aire 143 i'd like to see how their no fault warrantee would have remedied the situation


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## slickhorn

Some pretty clear fault in that sitch!


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## Avatard

slickhorn said:


> Some pretty clear fault in that sitch!


Shouldnt matter right? If its your fault you pay the freight


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## slickhorn

Now I want to try it. donor boat? 

Had a frind's Lynx blow a sewn seam on Hells Canyon last week. Aire put two new boat panels in for $250 (WAY out of warranty). Can't argue with that....


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## The Mogur

I am always suspicious when someone offers a substitute for real food and says, “It tastes just like” so-and-so. It all started back when margarine manufacturers claimed that their yellow-tinted Crisco tasted just like “the high priced spread,” meaning butter. But actually, it tasted like Crisco. Do they think we have no taste buds?

During a Rogue trip, one member of our party, who was a vegetarian, offered me a sample of his specially prepared tofu, with the assurance that it tastes “just like bacon.” This was intended to cause me to see the light and convert to vegetarianism. Well the tofu *did* taste just like bacon, in the same sense that a strip of wet cereal box cardboard tastes just like bacon. But of course, he’d have never conned me into trying it if he had told me that it tastes just like a wet cereal box.

These days, I take no chances. If I want something that tastes “just like bacon,” I fry up some bacon. And I don’t eat snakes that “taste just like chicken,” either.


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## tmaggert

My summer break in 2011 started with a Desolation and Gray Canyon’s 6 day (planned to be 7 days) raft trip. The first couple of days were great weather and despite it being mid-May we were jumping in the river enjoying the heat. On day three the weather started going south on us. The clouds rolled in and some light drizzle appeared in the sky. However, when we got to our layover camp, Flat Canyon (mile 62.8), it was sunny and we were able to setup a dry camp. Then it got WINDY. I have never experienced such bad wind in my life. It was hard and constant for the entire time we were there. At one point, I refused to get out of my tent because I was tired of the wind.

The rest of the trip on the river had crummy weather but not as windy. We decided to skip our second layover day and takeout early since the weather wasn’t spectacular. When we got to the takeout one of the trailer tires was loose and had almost rubbed through the lug. We took the trailer into Green River, UT (12 miles) and got new lugs put on. Levi and I returned with a functional trailer and we rigged everything and were about to leave when another group showed up to the ramp.

This group came in joking around and looked like an absolute shit-show. About 10-15 minutes later the other half of their trip came in and were less jovial and appeared to be shaken up. I watched them carry a passenger off the raft like you would a handicap person. Being a guide I’ve taken people down the river who needed assistance, so at first I wasn’t concerned. Either something was said or caught my eye that something wasn’t right. I had completed my Wilderness First Responder training in January and spoke up. I used the, “Hello, I’m WFR certified do you guys need medical assistance?” They said they did and explained what happened. The woman had fallen or been knocked out of the raft and they believed hit her head on a rock. I immediately stabilized her spine (to prevent any further possible spinal damage) and lowered her to the ground and began my assessment. The patient started off responding and quickly wasn’t even responding to sounds. Big problem!

I had a buddy call the ambulance all while the other group leader was questioning if a ambulance was necessary. While this was going on I started to prepare her to be moved so we could expedite her time to the clinic then hospital. Green River is a small town of only about 750 people so their facilities aren’t exactly setup for more than a simple fracture. We used a NRS camp counter as a backboard, a PFD as a neck collar and all the straps we could find to stabilize her. Then she was loaded into the back of a large van (seats were removed) and we started back to the clinic in hopes of meeting the ambulance. Legally I had to stay with her until higher care was obtained but would have even if not required by law.

Just after we started driving the patient started to seize. Then about one third of the way a black Mazda with its hazards on blew past us. Next we then saw a black Ford Explorer coming at us with its hazards on and flagged it down. The cars ended up being volunteer EMTs who heard the call on the radio and knew they could beat the ambulance. At first the EMT was upset we had moved her but then eased when she saw the backboard and that I was WFR certified.

The first EMTs called dispatch and told them to have an IV ready and get Flight-for-Life on its way. When the ambulance arrived they loaded her into the back (still on the NRS counter). I then drove one of the EMTs cars to the clinic and waited. The my other group members went to eat and I stayed.

The trip that pulled in was a rehab facility group of young (18-25) adults. They were doing their second day of two on the daily section (about 12 miles long). They hit Swazey Rapid and lost over half the passengers on the patients raft. Which was surprising because I thought we could hit any rapid on that section sideways without any issues. It turns out that only one member of the group had any river experience and it was as a passenger (rehabbing) over ten years ago. He was ‘guiding’ the other raft.

I spoke to a couple of the rehabers and their councilor while we waited. They were mainly from various places in Utah with a couple of out of state. I did my best to recommend that they never try this again without a guide and the councilors should have medical training over basic first-aid and not be a jerk about it. I don’t think they really got the message. During this time we were informed that the patient had become responsive and was able to move all her extremities (not paralyzed). They then put her in a drug induced coma in preparation for the helicopter ride.

After about forty-five minutes the Flight-for-Life helicopter arrived and she was taken to Grand Junction for more advanced care. I collected all of our gear, said goodbye to the rehab group and got the facilities information. As we were leaving the doctors came out and congratulated me on doing a good job. They had one critique, don’t be hesitant to cut off clothes. The patient was hypothermic and just adding clothes on top without removing her wet ones wasn’t enough.

I waited a few days and sent them an email about the patients condition. All I got in response was, “This is ______ the clinical director at steps recovery center. _______ is doing well. Her cat scan and mri were both negative. She has neck pain still but is doing well. I was talking to ______ about being 1st responder certified. Any suggestions?” I told him how I received my certification and never heard anything again.


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## lhowemt

Mogur i don't know what text you use but it's always blank on my iphone (white screen)


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## The Mogur

lhowemt said:


> Mogur i don't know what text you use but it's always blank on my iphone (white screen)


Very strange. This happens when I copy the text from a MS Word document and paste it into the edit panel here. It initially comes up black, which is impossible to read against the dark blue background, so I go back to edit and make it white. On your white screen, the white type doesn't show. I was not aware that the iphone display would be different from the on-line display. Maybe someone knows how to make the text visible both ways.


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## glenn

Just remove text color formatting.


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## climbdenali

We did a Deerlodge to Hite trip, and had good friends who were willing to pick us up at the end of our 450 mile epic, so we didn't have to run a stupid-long shuttle. Since they were doing us a huge favor, I wanted to make sure we were there on time, so we planned on arriving the afternoon the day before we were to meet them. Well, they thought the same thing, so that afternoon that they arrived, we floated under the bridge, and apparently they had seen us float beneath them. Somehow, and quite unfortunately, they didn't recognize the boat. So, we arrive at the Dirty Devil takeout, and I mosey up a little ways, and don't see them. No biggie- I wasn't expecting them til morning. So we cook dinner on the ramp, and camp right down there by the boat. Next morning, we get up, and assumed that they were on their way in from CO, and when they got there would drive straight down to the beach, so we wait, and wait, and wait. All the while, they assumed that when we got there, we'd walk up to the parking lot. Around lunch time (about the same time we ran out of beer) I decided to go walk up to the airstrip on top of the hill to see if I can get any service there. Lo and behold, the shuttle team's lounging in the parking lot, wondering why the hell we're half a day late. You can imagine the consternation on both sides of this waiting game. And to think, all I'd have had to do was walk another 30 yards to have found them the day before. . .


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## carvedog

My first Middle Fork trip. Very overloaded 16 foot bucket boat that I managed to get down to below Pistol without calamity. Came to a little split in the river that everyone went right. I decided ( now that I was an awesome boatman) to go left. 

Which was fine except that there was a log, about 6 inches in diameter, all the way across the river horizontally about two and a half feet off the water. It would clear the bow but not the massive gear pile behind me. I had my passenger duck and I decided that I could push the log up over the gear pile under the net in back with my feet as it went over the row compartment. 

Well it did. Kind of. Only the log slipped in between my legs and took me with it up and over the back of the gear. I managed to grab on to the netting before it dropped me in the river. But I was dragging my knees on the bottom of the river, one sandal ripped off and thoroughly banged up. One of my more epic fails. Didn't involve poop either.


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## 2kanzam

Years ago I had just bought a new tandem ducky and wanted to do an easy scenic float that included just a couple small class II-III rapids in the upper reaches of a river that I was familiar with. A longtime friend of mine, however not much of an outdoorsman, kept asking me to take him on this beautiful float, so I agreed.

After an absolutely brutal drive setting the shuttle, we get to the put-in and I go through a thorough safety briefing. Then we get into the pool at the put-in and I show him basic paddle strokes and we practice some maneuvering/ferrying and other basic skills/tools he may or may not need for our 15 mile remote run. 

An hour later we set out. Well not far into the run I begin to realize he has no natural instinct on the water….in fact he seems a little freaked out by moving water. As I shout commands to paddle, stop, back paddle etc, he is just not responding to me at all. Everytime there was a little hydraulic that needs punched or rapid we needed momentum for he would freak out and just hold his paddle up over his head! Considering he is so uncomfortable I take it slow and pull over here and there to make sure he is enjoying everything.

We round a corner that reveals a spectacular sheer bluestone cliff (Hence the river’s name “Bluestone”) that signals the beginning of “The Gorge” and we are just kinda floating along taking in the gorgeous scenery (I admit I got distracted). The main flow of the water ran over a small bolder drop beside another large dry bolder so we followed it. As soon as we came over this, the biggest rapid of the run, I saw a new fallen tree whose view was obstructed by the dry bolder…and the flow was going right into it. I quickly lined the boat up for a backwards ferry to the river right and yelled “BACK PADDLE HARD” just as we practiced at the top of the pool 1 mile upstream.

So, what did he do? HE THREW HIS PADDLE AWAY!

He weighs a lot more than I and I just could not fight the flow with all our weight in the boat by myself, we were going into the strainer. The main trunk of the tree is only an inch or two above the water and we could have leaned into it to just stall on the trunk and then push back off of it. We had also practiced leaning downriver into midstream boulders during our practice session, So I told him “Lean into it!” as we approached. 

So what did he do? He immediately jumped out on the upstream side of the boat to scramble to shore, dumping me and the boat under the strainer!!

I hung on for dear life while being swept under the tree…boat is pinned under it, water is 47 deg at best. I finally shimmied up the tree trunk to shore with paddle in hand. After sliding up and down the tree several times trying to unpin the boat, I finally started taking the bags and everything I could off/out of the hull to reduce drag. I was going to deflate it and unwrap it from the limbs. I had the rope tied to a stump, then around a tree and then in my hand when I had him do the final unwrap. The boat went free…then ripped that stump out of the ground, I tried to hold on in vain until I had to let go or be dragged in. 

I lost the brand new ducky on a river I have canoed before. It was only a 1 mile mile hike back to the car, but if we had dumped literally 3 feet farther downriver (or missed the catching the strainer) we would have entered that gorge and had a 14 mile hike out on the wrong side of the river with no trail. It was humbling, embarrassing and I learned a lot that day.

Wow that was long….sorry about that!


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## NorthernAZ

How does "no one runs the next rapid until we all scout and evaluate as a group" sometimes turn into a five duckies in a blender yard sale? That's how it typically goes for me.


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## Tom Martin

*Success is built on any failures...*

Success is built on many failures, in all things. So in a recounting of the river failures one has had, where to start? And what is the "worst"? Was it the time we ate ourselves out of food on a long science trip in Grand Canyon and had to beg for food from every passing trip... 



or the time a few of us had backcountry permits to backpack many miles away from the river with the permit holder's approval. As we set up our high spike camp for the night, the permit holder stumbled into our backpackers camp and refused to head back to the boats. It rained that night and 4 of us stent the night in a tube tent. The next morning at first light he headed back to camp, finding it devoid of people on his arrival. They were all out searching for him...


or the time i had just finished my cold cereal to turn and see a fellow boater fish a dead mouse out of the box milk container I had just used in my cereal... 



then there was the throw bag toss in which i threw the whole bag, including the rope end i was supposed to be holding on to. It was a good throw, and the guy in the water caught the bag.... 



or the time i put my expensive digital camera in a hatch of the GEM with someone else driving. He flipped us in a lateral moments later and the camera was ruined as the hatch leaked... 



then there is the time the permit holder rowed right past the camp we all had arranged to take with all the other trips around us, resulting in another cook-in-the-dark night after an additional 10 mile row... 



or the time I set my bedroll down and went to sleep, only to have the rising river wake me up as it rose in the night and washed me out of my camp... 



or the mouse (they have very cold feet) that joined us in our tent about midnight one cold winter trip... 



or the tick that embedded into the middle of my back one night (removed with a little application of Sherry to get it very drunk very quickly)... 



or offering to let a Ranger at Phantom Ranch row the GEM to Pipe Creek. He had never rowed before and we went sideways over the rocks along the shore on river left below the Silver Bridge. The loud rock impacts caused the most amazing fracture patterns in the epoxy on the inside of the boats floor... 



or the time we took Grand Canyon National Park to court over their poorly crafted river management plan and our "friends" in other boating organizations joined the litigation against us. Our loss in court resulted in the very same issues still unresolved... 



or the time i was laughing so hard I walked right off the boat into deep water. Sure was glad to be wearing my life jacket, and when i spluttered to the surface, everyone was laughing! 



Have fun, whatever you do!


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## Gremlin

...or the time I got to camp, changed into camp clothes that I planned to sleep in, and went back down to Supercat to have cocktails on the boat. When I made the move to step from the cooler to the front crossbar, I missed and fell through the empty front bay, landing with my ribs on the crossbar and my lower half in the river. I had to were my wife's pajamas the rest of the night.


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## Mike Hartley

A good buddy of mine (who will go unnamed) showed up a put-in with his daughter and 15' raft only to realized that they didn't have a pump. Most would have gone home. Not my bud. While said daughter laughed hysterically the indomitable dad blew the raft up - BY MOUTH! I’m sure the tubes were a little squishy but they did the run none the less.


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## Pro Leisure

I'm reminded of my first multiday trip on Deso/Grays. Not really an epic fail, but more a lesson on recovery and what can happen real fast if you don't keep it tight. On our second night our TL declaired we were camping on an open sand bar and so we all pull up and start to unload. People started to set up tents and get camp situated. All of a sudden we hear a slight roar getting louder and louder. Eventuall we see some flying sand and trees swaying violently. Then it was upon us before we knew it, a huge blast of air from down canyon in the late afternoon. Peoples shit started flying everywhere. Tents, footprints, hats and everything else that was loose and light wieght. We had also just set up and EZ-UP tent that had been anchored weakly in the sand. It took off like a rocket about 50 feet in the air and then came crashing down, smashing it to pieces. Almost all the boats were weakly secured to shore without a sand stake and started to blow off into the current. And then it was gone, not even a slight breeze left. All in all there wan't much damage except for the EZUP, one tent and a few other misc. things that completely blew away. The boats didn't get far before they were caught and people were able to collect their things that blew 100 yards down the sandbar. It was definately a lesson learned. Deso winds can catch you when your not ready for them.


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## wildh2onriver

Or, the time I awoke and realized my boat was gone--the river came up and I had forgotten to tie up. Or, the time I watched my boat cruise by while I was sipping on a margarita at camp on the GC. My passenger had unclipped it to better access some water jugs. I learned to never clip a bowline on with a carabiner. So many failures, but some memorable times.


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## Tom Martin

Hi Wild, on the other end of that, we "found" a boat with a carabiner for a bow line below Lava, right side up and full of brew, with sat phone, poly-pro, major first aid, you name it. When its owner came along, we traded the boat for a pint of cooking oil. Everyone was very very happy!


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## wildh2onriver

Tom Martin said:


> Hi Wild, on the other end of that, we "found" a boat with a carabiner for a bow line below Lava, right side up and full of brew, with sat phone, poly-pro, major first aid, you name it. When its owner came along, we traded the boat for a pint of cooking oil. Everyone was very very happy!


Great story that bookends mine nicely! In both phantom boat incidents, I was able to recover them within a short distance of camp. We found a boat once below Separation, tied it off and left a note, never heard back from the owner(s).


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## pinemnky13

I apparently peed in my significacnt others closet, thinking it was the bathroom. 
ooops... I guess its better than pooping in a shoe


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## Schutzie

On a trip we knew we were getting rain, but I just did NOT want to put up a tent. I convinced myself and my wife that it a) Wasn't going to rain for long b) That it wasn't going to rain hard and c) We didn't need no stinking tent.

Around 2 AM it did start to rain. Hard. For the rest of the night.

Pulled the ground cloth over us, and after about an hour my wife pulled something with something and a lake of water poured down between us. It was actually wetter inside the ground cloth than outside. Miserable.

In the morning I was momentarily pleased to find that I had a dry shirt and (mostly) dry shorts. With a "dare you" look she snatched both out of my wrinkled frozen fingers and put them on.

When another couple found out we had a tent packed in our bag and didn't use it or offer it they were mildly pissed, suggesting that maybe they didn't need to share their gallon of Tequila for the rest of the trip.

It was a miserable day on an otherwise sunny trip.

The moral of the story is; momma wants a tent, momma gets a tent.


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## upshitscreek

i bumped a rock once. the guy up front had to steady himself by putting a hand on a tube. it was on the selway at .9 ft on the gauge. before and ever since, i've been my awesome rowing machine self though. 

that's all it took. just a moment of inattention and...bump. 

anyway, great stories guys. makes me feel better about bumping a rock once. i'll never forget that day.... it still haunts me.


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## BCJ

Drug a poorly lashed wood oar down the highway from Westwater to I-70. Ground off about 2" of the blade.


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## shoenfeld13

*Oh the long sad list...*

On the Dolores, on our first day we soaked my ipod and our only camera. 

Or on the San Juan, after a great trip, 50 yards from the takeout, my wife pulled the bowline, which was wrapped around the GoPro attached to the bow. It detached and was never to be seen. 

Or the GC trip where we packed the groovers so tight and firm that we clogged the whole drainage at the Flagstaff KOA. Unfortunately, while trying to loosen things up with the hose and shaking the groover, the pressure built up and the lid blew off and sprayed my buddy from head to toe. 

Or the 3rd day into an 18 day GC trip where I flipped in Indian Dick rapid! I soaked a friends SLR camera. 

Or the Ruby Horsethief trip where my daughter left her only shoes at a lunch stop 30 minutes into a 3 day trip. 

Or another Ruby trip where the up river winds were so strong that I jumped off the boat to prevent us from blowing up river. Unfortunately landing between 2 rocks and nearly breaking my leg. I couldn't walk for the rest of the trip, but was the only person capable of rowing. Who knew one legged rowing could be so hard. 

Or the time the trailer disconnected from the hitch. 

Or the time a mouse snuck onto our boat. My wife being terrified of mice refused to get on the boat. We insisted it was gone and 'found' it the next day while going through some rapids. I never realized how much harder it would be going through a rapid while being struck repeatedly on the head.

the list goes on and on. live and learn...hopefully.


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## Robpineau

*Green River Fail x2*

So I met some friends on the ABC’s to fish camp for a 3 day trip. I had my 14’ raft with one passenger and gear. 3 buddies rented a Dory to fish from. During the first day we fished the top section as slow as possible it was getting late and we were ¼ mile from the ramp when the guys on the dory bumped a rock and the guys leaned the wrong way. It scooped the dory and pined it with the inside of the boat up stream evenly between two rocks. (Read thousand dollars of fishing/camping/ boating gear floating down the river not rigged for a flip) 

Lacking anchors and angles required to pull it off we had a guy hike to the ramp and hitch to get my Subaru. We proceeded to load my raft/ frame/gear/ and the recovered gear from the dory onto and into the Subaru with 5 guys to the nearest camp ground it was late we got a fire started to dry off and were working off the stress with a few beers. When an adjacent camper cam at us intending to fight us with his raft paddle. Keep in mind that we were not “That Loud” and it was not “that Late” 9:30 in the summer in an established camp ground. I talked the psycho down and we proceed to bed. 

The next morning we set off to recapture the dory at 3am to get there when the power company reduces the flow due to usage. We packed everything up not trusting our gear at the camp ground unattended with the psycho. With the lower flow my friend and I were able to wade out to the boat and rock it back and forth up the rocks until it was finally dislodged and had our buddies pendulumed it to shore. Were we bailed it out. It floated back to the ramp (kind of) were we loaded it on the outfitters trailer and floated B in search of missing gear. 

5 Guys on my raft floating B we did not find much but my friend and I got to fish a lot for the effort exerted on the others behalf. 
The three dory guys packed it up a day early and ran a shuttle for my friend and I were we ran A again in my raft. After another long great day fishing I drained the battery packing up the gear into the Subaru in the dark on the boat ramp. After a few hours we got a hold of a ranger to jump us for the drive home. 

Green Fail x2 

A few years later on a family trip to abc’s we had a trailer axle barring burn out on I-80 limped it to rock springs and spent a night fixing it.


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## Schutzie

This story was told to me. I was not there, I don't recall the river or even the state, and cannot verify it's accuracy, but it is too good not to share.

So this group had a fun day on river, and stopped at an old homestead to investigate the ruins that included an old rusted out car body.

During their investigation they discovered a rather large Goose with a broken wing, hiding in the car hulk. Being resourceful types they decided to put the Goose out of it's misery and enjoy roast goose that night.

As it turned out, confronting even a wounded goose in an enclosed space is risky business. A pitched battle ensued that was resolved in favor of the guides only after one of them employed a paddle as a club, giving the goose a resounding whack on the head. 

The somewhat bloodied but unbowed group decided to move along to their chosen camp, a few miles downstream before plucking the goose, as it were.

However, in the middle of a rapid the demised goose turned out not to be so demised, and proceeded to extract revenge for the rude behavior of the guides.

Just as we entered the top of the rapid we heard a loud HONK! and from the bottom of the boat emerged an enraged, biting, flapping, scratching demon from hell, bent on destroying us and sinking the boat. It fended off a feeble attempt to subdue it and proceeded to inflict painful bites and scratches on it's tormentors. It was amazing, the ability of that thing to find unprotected skin and effectively inflict painful, bloody wounds. 

The decision for each member of the party came down to protecting oneself from the enraged goose, abandoning ship, or risking being impaled on rocks or flipping in a big hole mid rapid. It became clear, the Goose was not interested in negotiation or in the taking of prisoners. Attempts to either subdue it (again) or pitch it from the boat failed and the goose took advantage of the general confusion to repeatedly attack any skin, limb or hair that came within striking distance.

The wrath of a woman scorned is nothing to the wrath of a wounded enraged goose in a boat in the middle of a rapid.

The wounded goose extracted revenge in the form of many cuts, bruises and lacerations before departing the boat and heading for shore. Turns out the broken wing wasn't so broken after all.

Dinner that night primarily involved alcohol. 

The moral of the story?

If it ain't yours, don't touch it, and beware a goose with a wounded wing. It well could be a flesh eating demon.


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## Jensjustduckie

Schutzie said:


> The wounded goose extracted revenge in the form of many cuts, bruises and lacerations before departing the boat and heading for shore. Turns out the broken wing wasn't so broken after all.


This is hilarious! I bet the goose had a nest nearby, they pretend to be hurt to draw you away from their babies. LOL, that'll teach 'em.


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## brendodendo

Brand new propane tanks do not contain propane, but compressed air.

Crappy 5 gallon water containers will get holes in them and leak all your drinking water out the bottom.

When the sign says last gas for 150 miles, you should probably look at how much gas you have in your tank.


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## swiftwater15

Coming off of Cataract Canyon on a commercial trip. Big heavy bucket boats. We had arranged for a big patio boat, the Wahweap Lady, to meet us and haul us off the lake. The lake level was high in those days, about 30 miles of flat water. Had a swim in big drop 3, so we were running a couple of hours late. When we got to the meeting place, the Wahweap Lady wasn't there. WTF. We tied together and began to push the giant flotilla with a 7.5 horse. Slow going. I eventually hitched a ride to Hite on a passing speedboat. I rented a powerboat, and headed back up the lake to help tow the group out. I told them what we had to do, and asked for extra gas. They insisted we had enough. Are you sure? Oh, yes. End of the story, power boat ran out of gas as well, we ended up paddling down the lake in the darkness, into the we hours, with ticked off customers having missed flights. Oh, and this was a no-alcohol trip.


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## Schutzie

........no alcohol...............isn't that illegal?
..........Certainly immoral and against boatman union rules...............


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## Schutzie

Took a group from a local strip bar on a two day upper Colorado. Picked em up at State Bridge and they had-count em-18 coolers for a 25 passenger trip. One cargo boat, 3 paddle boats.

Got them to consolidate, they worked it out so they had 9 duffle bags and 15 coolers. I looked like a container ship heading into New York harbor. Had em stacked 3 and 4 high by God, had to stand up and row.

My wife, one of the guides, had a fool try and get in her boat wearing Ostrich skin Cowboy boots. She suggested he might want to change into tennis shoes. His response;
"Darling, if I'm going to die today I'm dying with my boots on"
Her response;
"Well if you're planning on dying today would you get in a different boat?"

Entire bunch was drunk and mostly naked by lunch. The only problem was, there were only ancient girl friends of ancient bar bums. Enough wrinkles and fat and sags visible to scar my innocent psych for life. No one under 35, average age probably 50. Really.

Make camp and we're hauling those damn coolers up the bank and I open one. It's half full of ice and water and has a single 12 OZ. bottle of orange juice floating in it. I think I'm going to be pissed until someone pointed out that that was the "VO and water" cooler. 

It wasn't water boys, it was VO and ice.

Found a cooler of really good (read; no screw tops) wine, a cooler of some very tasty Jack and coke, and another cooler of something that had Tequila as the main ingredient. I learned later that it was my introduction to something called "Yucca".

Don't recall what dinner was that night, who fixed it, or who ate it. Pretty sure I had nothing to do with it.

By dark everyone had cornered a cooler and a Sierra Cup. Things got pretty dim after that.

I do recall someone offering $500 for a lap dance, and thinking that would make the rent payment, but my wife was already asleep and it seemed too much effort to wake her up.By the time it occurred to me to offer myself someone else had stepped in and done the job.

Rolled off the next day four hours late but got a $250 tip.

Could have been my favorite trip ever except for all the old people standing around in their skin. Jesus.


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## BarryDingle

Lookin forward to making some stupid memories in 2014. Finally won today! SYoTR

Edit: my fail involved a few of us getting attacked by wasps(hornets?) on Lodore. Three of us got stung as we were droppin in for Hells half mile. I only got it once,my friend got it about 18 times. Sucked....


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## spider

Went on a 4 day trip with a bunch of rowdy friends of mine, it rained the whole trip. On the 2nd night everyone was doing crushed barbituates off a sleeping pad and one member of our group slid down the hill into the river in his waiters. I was asleep, when we woke up he came crawling out of another friends tent in said friends purple sweatpants. The story we got was that he was being helped out of his clothes and was near hypothermic so spooning was in order to get core temps back up. We made many ass play jokes and still to this day question what happened in that tent (insert banjo music).

Any one want to go camping?


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## rivh2o

hey kyle k been there and done that except for raft #2and #3, i was the last to run and got into the room lost both oars boat wasn't going anywhere looked like all hell was about to break loss calmly look at my two passengers and said "WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A PINNED BOAT SAVE YOUR ASS" both passenger's steped from the boat to the shore and I being the capitain followed last. That boat was getting trashed in there and we were glad not to be still on the boat We tied the boat up and had to d-rig the whole boat right to the frame,(during which I discovered that my pelican box was gone which had my stash in it), pulled the boat over the black rock and dropped it into the eddy. When finally re-rigged the boat my buddy comes up to me and hands me my.... you guessed it my pelican box, he had found it floating around the shore I let him keep the stash and me the box. p.s that sleeve is called Stanley's Slot, after a guide who flipped and got flushed into the eddy below.


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## LSB

Forgot the toilet chemical on the san juan in the days before wag bags. Ended up covering each night's groovage with a layer of sand in the bucket. It worked OK actually...

Thought Camp B was Camp A at Slickhorn and had to pull several rafts upstream about a quarter mile.

Same trip shuttle out from Clay Hills, El Flaco's folded raft slides out of the bottom of his trailer and gets a gnarley hole worn through from dragging on the ground


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## PhilipT-N-TN

Working as a guide on a class III IV river, which will remain nameless, I had a family of 4 consisting of the parents and a brother and sister right at the legal age for rafting. None of them had ever been on a river in there lifetime and were scared shitless. I spoke with the family and asked if my girlfriend could join us, they agreed. My girlfriend at this time had never been on a river either. The trip started out great, we ran the first class 4 with ease. Toward the end of the run I started to butter them up about the last back to back large rapids, and how they did not want to swim these. I assured them that we would be fine and they would have a blast. Right before these back to back IV rapids there is a small play hole I had always dropped sideways with no issues. Well this time we dropped it and my girlfriend went flying off backwards, with feet in the air. I grabbed the lapels of her pfd, without planting my feet and proceeded to pull her back in and prepare for what was to come, Rather than just kicking her feet she caught me off guard, she grabbed my arms and kicked off of the boat. Naturally I went in the drink head first. I come back up and explain to her how she needs to get her ass back in the raft or this swim was not going to be enjoyable for any of us. I ended up pushing on her ass and getting her back in the raft just in time, I however I was not so fortunate. I ended up swimming, screaming commands while holding on to the stern handle. After a gnarly swim with multiple bruises/cuts, I climbed back in. The family was cheering and laughing, they had no idea what had just happened. Luckily there was a nice swimming section below these rapids where I quickly jumped back in river to hide my beaten body. Ended up with a fat tip and bruised ego. I ended up marrying her, she still will not let me live it down.


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## LSB

PhilipT-N-TN said:


> Working as a guide on a class III IV river, which will remain nameless,


Ocoee


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## cataraftgirl

OK, I'll chime in with a few.
Main Salmon - Afternoon, a little windy, setting up tents at Hancock. A couple didn't get their gear, or a few rocks into the tent fast enough after setting it up, before staking it down. Wind picked it up, and it rolled, fully set up, across the beach, into the water, and off down the river. One of the kayakers jumped into his boat and took off after it. He came dragging it back after about 20 minutes. Only had one bent pole. The next morning as we were launching, someone asked about the next rapid (Son Of Hancock). The kayaker answered...."the tent seemed to run it just fine."

Deso - All the keys from the other vehicles were to be locked in the TL's truck along with the shuttle paperwork. TL keys in a Hide-a-key. TL forgot to Hide the Hide-a-key. Luckily someone needed to add something to the shuttle paperwork at the last minute, and we discovered the hidden key was not hidden, but still in the TL's pocket. That could have been ugly at the take-out.

Middle Fork, late season, low water trip - I made a nice run through Devils Tooth, but took my eye off the ball at House Rock. Didn't make the right to left pull through the S-curve in time, and ended up stuck in the right corner pocket on the huge rock. Got the boat free with help from my friends.....unfortunately I was not on the boat when it came unstuck and floated away downstream (embarrassing part of the whole debacle....duh!!!). So I crawled out the the end of the huge rock, tightened up my PFD, surveyed the scene, and went for a little swim down to my boat. Got myself sorted out, back in the boat, and finished up with a great run through Cramer. Then tried to cut off my right thumb with a pocket knife at the the Cache Bar take-out. Great trip.....epic fail ending.


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## brandob9

We woke up to this miscalculation on day 2 of our grand trip:


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## MT4Runner

Jumping the fire on my brother's bachelor party Yellowstone trip and I slipped on a rock right before lift-off and stepped in the fire. Got a nice 2nd degree burn about 2" across on the top of my foot and singed all the hair on my leg up to my knee.

Loading the boat the next two days while trying to keep my foot dry and out of the river water sucked.


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## Gremlin

The store was out of the groover liquid chemicals I usually buy so I bought a box of premeasured powder chemical packets. I found the packets difficult to open and ended up with the powder all over my hands. Washing with water turned the powder into blue dye. This was on day one of a three day trip and my hands were blue the entire time. On the second day I discovered that the convenient packets dissolve.


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## richp

Hi,

Here's what happens when a day of really hard rain in the Grand stops in the middle of the night.

FWIW.

Rich Phillips


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## king kong kev

40th Birthday on the river. It is just myself, wife, and 2-yr daughter. My wife gives me a Partner 2-burner stove for my birthday. Since it is just the three of us, I figure we can get by with a 1-lb propane canister instead of the 20-lb tank. On the way to the put in, we realize we forgot the tent. Get to camp and set up the stove, the 1-lb tank does not thread onto the Partner unless you have an adapter. Plenty of fuel just no way to burn it in my brand new stove. Fire ban in effect, but we have raw ground beef to cook for a taco dinner. Have a campfire, cook over the fire, sleep on a tarp, float out 25 miles next day as not to push our luck anymore.


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## tmacc

So, in '09, we get a GC permit. A full 16 person trip. Everyone has their own boat and gear. My GF is putting the menu/food list together from scratch. Hours and hours of work and many spreadsheets. On top of this, one of her software clients needs some work done ASAP and not just a little tweaking. Afull blown data retrieval program. We have friends flying in and showing up at the house. It's a zoo. 

The morning that we're leaving for Page, we get the trucks loaded. Walk through the house. It all looks good. We drive to Page. She's still putting the menu and ingredient quantity list for each meal together. Often till way after midnight. Everyone gets a spreadsheet and debit card for food shopping. We shop. Jed was a slave driver. Apsolutely would not let leave Safeway till they booted us out at midnight. 

We get to LF. Everyone is rigging boats. Pam's at the picnic shelter trying to wrap up the menu on her laptop, so we can go back to Page and print it at the hotel. Ranger Dave shows up. Royally pissed that we have 5 vehicles at the ramp. The ramp was empty. We weren't spread out. We kept it tight. It was late in the afternoon. All of the commercials were long done and gone. He tells us he wants to inspect all of the require gear ''right now!''. Uh, OK, we can do that. We get to the signal mirror. "Where's it at?" "In the camping drybag. " Hmmmm, the camping drybag with our sleeping bags, tent and stuff?" "Yup." So, I look in the truck for the fifteenth time. A little frantic at this point. I could of looked a hundred time and it wasn't gonna change a thing. Man, that's a sick feeling when you realize that the camping drybag is neatly packed...........sitting on the bedroom floor 10 hrs away.

We scrounged gear and stopped in the camping section at Wally World on our way back from printing the menu/ingredients list. It was still an awesome trip and if I don't say so, we ate really good on it.


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## brandob9

[QUOTE=". Man, that's a sick feeling when you realize that the camping drybag is neatly packed...........sitting on the bedroom floor 10 hrs away.

it.[/QUOTE]

I can only imagine the stream of foul words...


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## tmacc

I prolly dropped a couple F-bombs at myself.


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## shoenfeld13

I don't know how I forgot this from my original post;

Many years ago I was on the Middle Fork on a friends bachelor party. 18 of us were having a great night, when someone starts to light off bottle rockets. I was doing dishes and the person I was doing them with said he thought it was really stupid to light off bottle rockets. I didn't think it was too big a deal. Less that 5 minutes later, the guy lighting them starts screaming, 'shit, shit, shit', and we all look across the river and see that one of his bottle rockets had started a fire about 50 feet up the bank. In a jiffy, everyone is rowing and paddling to the other side of the river. It is about 9pm at this point. We set up a bucket brigade, and spend the next 3 hours hauling water up to put out the fire that had grown to about 20x20. It was pretty damn embarrassing to be associated with this, and a great lesson for a young man. Of course, a few years later the whole area burnt to the ground, as is natures way.


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## Mark the dude

Drunkenly staring at our 5 rafts in the eddy below clear creek at 2am on night 8 of a g.c. trip. I'll never forget the feeling when I slowly began to realize that there should definitely have been 6 rafts in that eddy.


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## tmacc

That's it!? No gory details?


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## Katboater

I'm always good for forgetting something....sometimes big, sometimes small. For instance ran the Illinois last weekend and forgot the main ingredient for my part of one of the meals (potatoes). Heard about that the whole trip. The worst was when I pulled into camp with the wife and kids and was feeling pretty good about things. Had the kitchen set up and was in the beginning stages of getting dinner going, then the wife asks where I had the sleeping bags packed? Might have been able to laugh about it except for a pissed off wife and a cold 10 year old and 5 year old.


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## Mark the dude

tmacc said:


> That's it!? No gory details?


It actually ended well. 3 of us in kayaks left before dawn and we found the raft in the river right eddy at the bottom of Granite. It ghost rode about 10 miles with nothing tied down and not a single thing was missing. I wish I could have seen the line it took through horn creek. We spent the rest of the day drinking heavily and running laps on granite while we waited for the rest of our group to catch up.


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## DangerousDave

*Grand Canyon moments*

On our trip in March, 2009:

High winds sandblasted me then pulled tent stakes out of the ground as I tried to set up. My entire tent flipped and was left with 2 stakes preventing it from taking off. The same night another member of our group had their kayak, paddle and sprayskirt blown into the river in the middle of the night. Fortunately, another group member heard it bounce past him and woke up the owner of the gear who retrieved their boat. Luckily it all blew into the massive eddy on the upstream side of the Tanner(?) campsite. I was able to follow the recirculating debris in the eddy and recover the paddle and sprayskirt.

Our group suffered multiple drysuit and drytop gasket failures. I spend several evenings constructing a neck gasket out of wrist gaskets.

One person got a hand full of cactus spines and another got a minor scorpion sting on the same night.

After a game of chug, shuck, run, swim, one person cut their forehead when they were slightly inebriated and fell hitting the edge of the fire pan. Luckily, it was a minor cut.


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## rebel1916

The Mogur said:


> Avoid reading this one if you have eaten recently or plan to do so in the immediate future (like anytime in the next week).
> 
> I was leading a Rogue trip for a group from Seattle, and I had a rookie guide named Stanley running a 14-foot gear boat. In camp at Mule Creek on our third night out, one of our guests, Rita, was drinking a soda from a private stash that she had brought along. In the kitchen area, as we were wrapping up the dinner dish line, Rita took a swig from her soda can and immediately threw up all over the beach as she rushed to the riverbank.
> 
> The third guide, Alan, and I ran to her aid, along with a couple other guests, as she heaved into the water. Once she had ejected everything from her stomach (a cachew chicken stir-fry, as I recall), Rita began to feel a little bit better. She said that something vile had gotten into her soda. Now, I have seen yellow jackets go into beverage cans, but that seemed an unlikely explanation. So I walked back to see what had happened.
> 
> I found a soda can that was nearly empty sitting on the sand next to the chair where Rita had eaten dinner. I poured it out and found nothing in it but Sprite. Just as I was starting to believe that she must have swallowed an adventurous slug, I spotted Stanley carrying another Sprite can. He seemed to be heading out of camp, up in the direction of the outhouses. I asked him about the Sprite, because I knew that he hadn’t brought any along.
> 
> He stammered and looked evasive as he tried to tell me that Rita had given him one. All the while, he was trying to keep the can out of my view. When I made him show it to me, everything became clear. He had been using chewing tobacco, and had grabbed the empty can to spit in. Rita had the profound misfortune to pick up the wrong Sprite can.
> 
> If there had been any way to throw him out of camp right there, I’d have done it. I told him not to use me as a reference if he tried to get a job as a guide with any other outfitter. Then I told Rita that it must have been something like a slug in her soda, and I told her that she could take her next trip with us at no charge. Believe it or not, she actually did come back for another trip. Stanley did not.


OMG, a raft guide was chewing tobacco. You better blackball him. What an outrage. Good thing you were there to handle the situation.


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## kikii875

The Mogur said:


> I was leading a Rogue trip for a group from Seattle, and I had a rookie guide named Stanley running a 14-foot gear boat. In camp at Mule Creek on our third night out, one of our guests, Rita, was drinking a soda from a private stash that she had brought along. In the kitchen area, as we were wrapping up the dinner dish line, Rita took a swig from her soda can and immediately threw up all over the beach as she rushed to the riverbank.
> 
> The third guide, Alan, and I ran to her aid, along with a couple other guests, as she heaved into the water. Once she had ejected everything from her stomach (a cachew chicken stir-fry, as I recall), Rita began to feel a little bit better. She said that something vile had gotten into her soda. Now, I have seen yellow jackets go into beverage cans, but that seemed an unlikely explanation. So I walked back to see what had happened.
> 
> I found a soda can that was nearly empty sitting on the sand next to the chair where Rita had eaten dinner. I poured it out and found nothing in it but Sprite. Just as I was starting to believe that she must have swallowed an adventurous slug, I spotted Stanley carrying another Sprite can. He seemed to be heading out of camp, up in the direction of the outhouses. I asked him about the Sprite, because I knew that he hadn’t brought any along.
> 
> He stammered and looked evasive as he tried to tell me that Rita had given him one. All the while, he was trying to keep the can out of my view. When I made him show it to me, everything became clear. He had been using chewing tobacco, and had grabbed the empty can to spit in. Rita had the profound misfortune to pick up the wrong Sprite can.
> 
> If there had been any way to throw him out of camp right there, I’d have done it. I told him not to use me as a reference if he tried to get a job as a guide with any other outfitter. Then I told Rita that it must have been something like a slug in her soda, and I told her that she could take her next trip with us at no charge. Believe it or not, she actually did come back for another trip. Stanley did not.


I was almost the victim of this same type of thing, but I got a wiff of what was in the can just before swigging. I ended up wrapping the can up in duct tape and writing "Caution-BioHazard" on it.

This also reminds me of a fun drinking game. Anytime a guide I am with cracks open a drink while we are cooking dinner I look for the opportunity. When he/she sets the can down on one of the tables to go do something else I take a knife and poke a vertical slit in the side right below the drinking opening on the top. High enough that no liquid comes out until they go to take another drink. Depending on how many they have had it sometimes takes a while for the dripping to register. Here is a picture of such an event. I poked the hole and then went down to my boat to get my camera and capture the moment. This was the 12th time I had gotten Ryan that summer. If you can't tell from the look on his face, what he is thinking is "I can't believe that bastard got me again"


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## lhowemt

rebel1916 said:


> OMG, a raft guide was chewing tobacco. You better blackball him. What an outrage. Good thing you were there to handle the situation.


Are you joking? No emoticon, so maybe not. If I were a business owner and an employee of mine made a customer vomit violently, I'd have done the same. Good on you for giving her a free trip. That's successfully taking a potentially bad event and turning it into good advertising.


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## MT4Runner

Had that happen to me once.

Once the chew-loogie starts going down your throat, you can't stop it. 

You didn't notice a coffee-ground appearance to her "cashew chicken" ?!? :lol:


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## shoenfeld13

I just got off a Grand trip and saw the strangest thing. We were about 8 miles down from Phantom and saw a motorized commercial rig floating down the river...unmanned. A few minutes later a NPS helicopter came roaring down the canyon about 100ft off the water chasing it down. The next morning we saw it tied up above Granite. The story is that a guide didn't put in the sand stake right and it pulled loose. The guests spent the night at the ranch and had a new boat the next day. One of our group members took a picture of the group in their new boat and one of the guides gave him the finger. I guess it will take a while to get over the embarrassment.


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## richp

Hi,

The other version is that the tree that the boat was tied to -- which had been used innumerable times by innumerable boating parties over the years -- pulled out, letting the boat loose. 

A lot of folks -- me included -- would have liked to see its run through Horn without a crew.

FWIW.

Rich Phillips


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## rivers2run

We did the Rogue once and we found a double paddle floating in the water about 15 minutes later a tahiti with 2 people and 1 paddle comes floating by. We asked them if they had lost a paddle and they happy we had retrieved their paddle. We chatted a bit and I wondered where their support boat was. They said they planned on doing it in one day (we were on the wild section) I told them they were less than 1/3 of the way down the river and it was 3pm. I also noticed that all they had in the boat was beer, I asked them if they wanted to camp with us and drink some water. The guy said with a great deal of swagger that he knew what they were doing and could run it in one day. The young women started to look skeptical when we told them they had over 20 miles yet to do. They did take some water there was one other tahiti in the party and we implored them to camp with us, to no avail. We told them the major rapids were yet to come and they should scout blossom bar. At this point I was really worried and told them if they had trouble at Blossom to stop at Paradise lodge for help. No problem they knew what they were doing and off they went. I thought about them the rest of the trip and asked around at the take-out. Well sure enough they flipped at blossom had a terrible swim very late in the day, but they did stop at Paradise and their parents covered it with a credit card, the other guy dug a hole in the sand and slept with the tahiti over him. They did make it out alive, later we heard that they thought they were on the upper recreational section of the Rogue. I don't know how they got back to Grants Pass likely bummed a ride from someone. We tried to warn them, the woman wanted to stop but her boyfriend talked her into going on, a serious case of raging testosterone.


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## 90Duck

*Tom and Tom*

One of my favorite river stories took place on the Snake several years ago. Our large group was camped at Pine Bar, which has a massive beach/gravel bar that forms at low tide, creating a little cove in front of camp where the boats get tied up. We were on the first afternoon of our planned two night stay and were enjoying the warm weather, warm water, and lots of alcohol. At some point in the afternoon a big purple cat boat shows up with two guys, Tom and his cousin Tom, who want to hang out with our group since there are lots of pretty young girls on this particular trip. It’s all fine and good until they suggest maybe they could camp with us, at which point we suggest that probably isn’t the best of ideas and they should really be moving on to their own camp. They were cool about it and moved on down river.

Late that night, after significant sustained partying (hey, next day was a layover!), the final few stragglers staggered off to take a piss down by the boats before heading to bed. They notice that one of the boats seems to be on a particularly long tether as the tide has been coming in, and has floated out away from the other boats. They decided they had better pull it back in a bit, but can’t find the rope, then realize it isn’t tied up at all as it slips out of the cove and heads off downstream into the darkness on its own. The two late night pissers take off in another boat to chase it down and reel it in about a ¼ mile or so downriver just before it entered a riffle that would have made it much tougher to catch in the darkness. The whole group is awakened by the shouting and lights associated with the wayward boat chasers, who by total luck and quick action have saved our layover day.

The minor miracle that aligned the late night pissing with the precise moment the boat floated away makes for a good story on its own, but the funny part of it all was the reaction of the escaped boat’s owner (who shall be known here simply as “K”). While it is pretty clear to all of us that it was operator error that led to the lost boat incident, in K’s clearly over-imbibed state he is completely convinced that Tom and Tom had come back and stolen his boat in an act of retribution for us asking them to leave earlier in the day. He could not be convinced otherwise, and was really pissed off about it, which is completely out of the otherwise very mellow K’s character. It was very funny to watch K lose it, and my laughing at him only made him madder.

The next morning K woke up hung over, chastened and extremely embarrassed about the whole incident. He only knew a couple of us out of that bigger group before that particular trip, and while I still boat with K all the time, including a Middle Fork trip in just a couple of days, K is always “busy” when opportunities come up to boat with that bigger group again.

K will never live it down – now every-time something ends up missing on a river trip he gets hit with a chorus of, “it must be those f*ckers Tom and Tom!”


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## lookinathesun

*Low Water Run*

Not long after my first whitewater trip in AZ, some buddies and I decided that the lower Dolores below McPhee Dam to Slickrock would make a great self supported ducky/kayak trip. We made plans with our other "green" river buddies and headed to the put in, confident that the 1000cfs on the gauge would be an exciting level for the run...

The day we put in I remember someone saying: "That doesn't look like a thousand, but maybe some tributaries join in later on." This section, as just about every one knows, is an entirely dam released run. About an hour into the trip it was clear that the gauge we were checking was the inflow to the dam, not the outflow. We dodged rocks and dragged boats down all the rapids for two days to the midpoint of the run before we hitched out. All in all it was less a paddling trip and more a sort of a boat supported canyoneering trip. Not at all what we wanted, but not really that horrible either. After getting out we headed above the dam to boat some real flows. Afterwards we checked the right gauge. We were "boating" a 40 cfs flow. 

Even though this happened a decade ago, it is still a sensitive and well-guarded subject for some of those involved in this group decision making fail.


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## richierivertrip

San Juan- A thunderstorm with what seemed up to 70 mph gusts blew up as soon as we made camp. One canoe we tied up; the other was still fully loaded, so we though it would be ok. Wind gusts blew it over, dumped out the gear, then the empty canoe rolled over the top of the water like it was on land. Luckily, it was blown to the other side and jammed in some rocks, so we got it with the other canoe as soon as things calmed down. That evening was the proverbial calm after the storm. Never had a more peaceful night on the river.


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## Tom Martin

Hi Shoe, thanks for the details about the Ghost boat from Phantom. If you search the Buzz for " *Motor Rig leaves passengers at Phantom this afternoon* " you'll find the posts that were going around about the boat. All the best, tom


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## deadlizard

*Too much wine equals naked boat story*

Middle of summer. No rivers running in AZ so decide on an solo overnighter sea kayak trip to Canyon Lake. Do a few miles and then pull out at the end of a canyon arm for a late lunch and break. Barely pull the boat out of the water since it's dead calm, the camp chair is less than 5 yards from the boat, and it's a zillion degrees out.

Sun keeps sinking lower and lower as does the jug of wine. Strip down and keep cool by taking dips in the lake ever so often. Never unloaded the boat. Booties, PFD, and clothes simply tossed into the cockpit. Photo taken well into the jug of wine as can be seen by the crappy exposure.










Next thing I know it's 4 AM and I keep thinking that shouldn't the boat be right here? Don't even have a flashlight to look for it. Possessions on shore consist of a book, empty wine jug, half-full water bottle, and a thermarest camp chair.

Butt naked. No ID.

At first light, work to the very end of the lake arm hoping against hope that the boat/gear washed that way. Thorns/rocks shred the bare feet and do better floating in the water than walking or wading. No luck. Take the thermarest as a mini-floataion device and start swimming towards the lake end of the arm. Working on a plausible story to explain being naked except for a thermarest sarong. Also hoping my possible power boat rescuer would not mind working the shoreline looking for a 14 ft kevlar kayak. No matter how many times I revise the story, it never gets any better.

200 yards and find the Werner glass paddle sticking out of a shoreline mesquite. Another 200 yards and I can hear powerboaters in the distance and can now see the main lake channel. Last little mini-cove and there it is. Bobbing up and down and I don't know why it stopped there instead of drifting out into the lake.

Little narrow boat that is so tippy that I rarely take photos when paddling. Can't believe it has not capsized. Everything bone dry. Neophrene hatch cover without a tie point just sitting on top as seen in the above photo. Camera thrown uncovered on top of the PFD.

This little event went unmentioned to anyone for many years.

Gene


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## Andy H.

Tom Martin said:


> Hi Shoe, thanks for the details about the Ghost boat from Phantom. If you search the Buzz for " *Motor Rig leaves passengers at Phantom this afternoon* " you'll find the posts that were going around about the boat. All the best, tom


Tom,

Speaking of commercial boats getting away, do you know the story of the commercial boat that slipped it's mooring and floated a long distance, through many major rapids, and was found with loose PFDs still in it, indicating it had not flipped? If you know the story, this would be a great place to post it.

Thanks,

-AH


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