Your tales of running the water below Silver Falls reminds me of the trip we made in '99(the pictures that I just posted).When I reached the end of the portage I asked one of my buddies where John was since he was in front of me and should have been there waiting.Doug told me that John found a short cut and Paul was taking life vests back to him so they could paddle the canoe out from there.I didn't remember any short cut so I got out the map to take a look.My conclusion from looking at the map was they must be somewhere above the rapids shown on the map.
Knowing that niether one had any white water experience or much canoeing experience for that matter.Doug and I thought we had better go back and try and stop them.We weren't 10 yds. down the portage when along comes Paul without John.Paul tells us that when he got there with the PFD's nobody was there.No sign of John or canoe.
The feeling that I had when Paul and I put the canoe in the water to try and paddle up stream from the portage to see if we could find any sign of our missing canoeist is hard to discribe.I was sure he was either dead or injured and I tried to think of how I would tell his wife.This is truly not a good feeling.Paddling upstream is next to impossible so we tuned the canoe around and headed back to the end of the portage.
As we rounded the corner and could see the landing there stood Doug and next to him our missing friend.
I've known this guy all my life and had never been so mad at him before.He said that he tried to paddle it alone and when he saw what he was up against was able to turn the canoe around.
I spoke very little to him except maybe to tell him how stupid it was to try that alone and especially without a PFD and how damn lucky he was to be able to turn the canoe around.
We had to go back to his "shortcut" since he didn't even bring the canoe or pack with him.The adreniline that was pumping through my veins allowed me to haul that canoe up the hill and down to the end of the portage in record time.
I'll probably never show him the post of your trips down these rapids because if we ever go back that way,and I hope we do,it will be harder than ever to keep himfrom trying it again.Besides I couldn't stand to hear him tell me that he could of made it :)

Posted by muskrat on February 06, 2001 at 16:49