Cache River Passage
by Jim Carrier (continued from page 1)
The "shortcut" idea had churned in my middle-aged brain with each trudge in that first mile of Cache portage slop. The idea was deceptively simple (Gary would later say "simple-minded"). Why not forego the rest of the mess and ride this stream (the upper Cache River) for a leisurely float to our ultimate destination in Cache Lake? The water level was high... really high, right? Surely, with at least four hours of daylight left, there was plenty of time to cover the remaining mile or so....
Being conservative, logical, and safety conscious, my brother the engineer calculated we would complete this nasty portage in about an hour and a half IF we simply STAYED ON THE PORTAGE TRAIL. In light of the bogtrotting episode that followed, this was clearly the wiser choice. At the time, however, the dangling lure of a "navigable" stream was simply too seductive. Despite initial protests, Gary took the bait I offered. I had hooked him by his cold wet foot, boated him, and now drifted with him - hopefully - towards Cache Lake.
The folly of our choice was not immediately apparent as we paddled deep into a marshy flood plain, full of grass tufts and hillocks. We twisted, turned, and meandered several paddling miles - but surely less than one mile as the crow flies - before we realized our blunder. First of all, the going was slow... really slow. Our seventeen-foot canoe was often too long to negotiate switchbacks and the narrowing serpentine waterway. This meant frequent liftovers. Worse yet, more than one waterway developed! Channels meandered, twisted, and turned every which way rendering our compass virtually useless. So, as the sun sank rapidly in its downward arc, we wandered willy-nilly in this marshland maze. Grumbling more and more, Gary made nervous, pointed comparisons of my "shortcut" to the plight of Bogart and Hepburn in the classic film, "The African Queen."
Concluding that a return to the forsaken portage would cost too much precious daylight, we pushed forward, seeking Cache Lake around each bend. As our map didn't reveal topographic features such as elevation, however, we couldn't be altogether certain just where this flood zone would deposit us. There was a distinct possibility, we believed, of ending up on the wrong lake! We agreed, however, that even such misfortune would be preferable to this bogtrot. Priority #1 quickly became finding solid soil for pitching our tent. We wanted shelter, warmth, and nourishment... in that order. The rest could be figured out in the morning. A tree-covered rocky ridge to the South held the prospect of solid ground, so we picked a channel that seemed to sweep us in that general direction and paddled on.
The stream narrowed and the current picked up as we approached the long hillside. A long stretch of unnavigable water ran along the ridge. Clearly we would have to blaze a portage across the ridge to continue, seeking a spot to pitch our tent along the way. It was cold and almost dusk. Gary was grumbling more than ever about my "shortcut." Both of our tempers were rising. To make matters worse, Gary accidentally back-flipped into waist-deep water while stepping out of the canoe. I resisted my brotherly instinct to rate his acrobatics on a 1-to-10 scale and saved myself a punch in the nose. Instead, I reached out and pulled my sodden brother onto solid ground.
Tree branches and tricky footing pushed us away from the stream as we blazed our way across the ridge. With the canoe on my head, I made slow progress in the thick brush. Gary got ahead of me... too far ahead. I lost track of him. Realizing that, I set the canoe down and looked around. He had vanished into the growing darkness. The burbling rush of the stream rounding the hill muffled my yells for help. I dropped the rest of my gear and raced along his probable route. No luck. I doubled back to where I thought I left the canoe and my pack. No luck, no Gary, no pack, and no canoe. Where the heck was I? Growing darkness and the blanketing sound of the stream made it difficult to pinpoint directions. Where was my compass? Oh, yeah... it was right next to the flashlights in the lost pack, which was parked right next to the lost canoe. Not good. In my panic-driven idiocy, I had lost my compass, my pack, my canoe, my brother, and myself.