Friday, June 10, 2005 
2 good friends from Nebraska (Amy & Brian) came to Moab to visit and raft. The 3 of us put a boat in the water late afternoon and hit some awesome rapids, especially Whites Rapid - a huge wave that will flip full boats paddling at full steam. The 3 of us did our best and rode it out - fantastic. I wish I had the photos of our trip, but here are some of the rapid with our company, Red River Adventures!
Saturday, June 11, 2005
My first guiding overnight on the beautiful Dolores River leaves around 7:30 am with 8 clients, one other guide, 2 boats (1 paddle, 1 oar boat) and enough food to suffice for 5 days for our 2 day 1 night trip down the Dolores River. The Dolores River is a much smaller, more technical river than the mighty Colorado River I am used to. We drive 3 hours to our put in at Gateway Colorado and shove off around noon. Theresa, the trip leader and more experienced guide takes a father and his 8 year old son in her oar raft and I take 3 girls, 2 big canoe enthusiasts and their female friend in my paddle raft.
The first rapid we hit is an old blown up dam, ugly, but a good rocky ride.
The next thing we come to is State line Rapid. A class IV, very technical rapid-because of the rocks. 
I had never run such a technical rapid, never guided a class IV rapid, and never been in something so rocky with clients. Needless to say I was a little nervous. We took at least a half hour to scout the rapid, walking up and down the shore line trying to find the safest line through this. The picture only shows one of the 4 major parts of this mile long rapid, and when we ran this it held much more water to push us around.
Following the plan and the oar boat I headed left around the first island to find our plan screwed from the beginning. More of the island was showing than originally expected forcing us to go further left than we wanted. Moving left down river we curved right around exposed rocks, then cut immediately left to what we called "chicken run" (because it had the least exposed rocks and most moving water with only a couple technical moves), but instead of heading left we had to turn the boat entirely upstream and ferry across between two pour over rocks (we barely made it). Having completed that move we caught some slack water for 5 seconds then rode the current down 2 huge holes and bounced off a giant rock, which pushed us away from a hole that would have eaten our boat. So far, so good. Things were now going according to plan C. We caught a huge eddy (slow, or recirculation water behind rocks or land) and slid down to move right around the next island.
Heading river left here has serious consequences....The Dolores River guide book says "avoid the left side of the 2nd island because it can completely destroy a boat"....So we went right. Slipped through the 2 rocks guarding the entry of our path and rode a huge wave train catching a ton of splashy water. We made one more big cut left to avoid the run off right channel into major tree debris and were safe. Sitting in the back of the boat guiding I could hear giant boulders rolling around and crashing under the water.
Just when we began to sigh with relief a giant clap of thunder echoed through the canyon and the sky opened up. Drenched we paddled to shore to make camp early where we set up tents and enjoyed dinner in the rain.
Sunday, June 12, 2005 
In the morning we crawled out of our warm dry tents at 6am, made a quick breakfast (in the world of boating the word "quick" is relative, breakfast actually took 2 hours) and got in the water. About half a mile downstream we hit Beaver Creek Rapid, a fun wave train, then came up on Rock Slide Rapid, or Big Rock Rapid, or Ping Pong Rapid. The rapid consists of huge boulders that fell when a major part of the cliff fell into the river...It's really amazing.
We had run this rapid at higher water levels before and decided to scout the run from the boats while on the river, or river scout, but were not prepared for what was about to happen. As we got our first clear shot of the rapid we instantly saw a bright yellow boat pinned, or stuck on a rock on the left, or river left. The lead boat decided although we had run right in the past, with the yellow boat stuck it must not be the way to go, so headed river right. Unfortunately the lead boat decided we didn't want to be left, but decided so too late and was sucked down stream in a strong current racing under an undercut rock. The following happened in just a matter of seconds.
The lead boat while trying desperately to move from river right to left pulled an oar out of its oar lock, while being pulled by the rushing current towards one of the large rocks creating the rapid. It was impossible to see how undercut the rock was that they were approaching until it had sucked one of their front tubes under. 
Instantly the 2 adult clients who had chosen to ride on the oar boat this morning slipped out of the boat while it tipped and rode the rapid in their life jackets. Though a little frazzled, both made it through ok. Meanwhile my paddle raft is watching this happen 20 yards upstream in total shock. We too floated river right (the wrong side) to follow the lead boats line and did not have time to get left. We slammed sideways into a flat rock and held steady. Stuck "safely" on a flat (no undercut) rock we yelled to the now pinned boat, to the lead guide, Theresa, who had slipped between the boat and rock into the water and amazingly climbed back atop the boat.
When we learned she was ok we decided to pull ourselves together and attempt the right channel - we were no help sitting in our boat on the river. We pivoted around the back of the boat to take the far right channel and raved through the rocks. My adrenaline raced through me as we paddled, backed, ferried and rode through the rocks. At the end of the rapid we raced to shore, landed the boat and I sprinted up stream to help. To make this already long story shorter (sorry its so long) I found there was nothing we could do with the equipment we had. Our flip rig was on the pinned boat under the ragging current.
We, 4 of us, attempted to pull the boat off with a throw bag, but busted the bag. Wanting to keep everything as safe as possible we sent the lead guide, Theresa, who had been banged up quite a bit, downstream with everyone but me and one other company friend. While the 8 of them paddled out Ken and I spent the day chasing dry bags, oars and the yellow pinned boat downstream in an attempt to salvage what we could.
After hours of chasing bags downstream we called it a night around 9pm and made camp with a salvaged tent and sleeping bags from a dry bag. We ate the leftover chips and bread and hoped our friends would think to bring more food when they made their way to us the next day.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Around 7am Ken wakes me up with the excellent news of our rescue team pulling up in the truck. Luckily an old dirt road runs back to where we waited. We gobbled up the food they brought and deciphered a plan to free our boat.
We ended up stretching a rope clear across the river to allow us to move a 2nd smaller paddle boat back and forth across the river upstream from our pinned boat. This plan had Carl, the man I work for, swimming halfway across the river with the rope and bouldering up a rock in the middle of the river.
I then attached the boat to the rope across the river, after it knocked me into the rapid forcing me to desperately crawl up the rope around the boat and finally into the boat, then move the boat across the river to the middle of the river where Carl waited for me.
Next I lowered the 2 of us down the rapid by a 2nd rope and Carl the daredevil jumped from our boat to the pinned boat, attached a rope to it, then jumped back into my boat. We made it back to shore and set up a pulley/z-drag to pull the boat off the rock. 
We ended up setting up a huge haul system (12:1), pulled with all our might, but were still unable to move the boat. After a couple more hours we acknowledged defeat and called it a day. We gathered up our belongings and headed back to Moab to regroup, gather more supplies and strategize.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
We called all over town for advice from experienced boaters. We even tried search and rescue to see if they wanted to "practice", but the politely declined. By the end of the day we had a team of 4, more static rope and a come-along (able to pull a ton of weight).
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
By 6am the 4 of us are in the truck headed back to the boat. We reach the sight around 8am, find the boat still stuck and get to work right away. The plan is to build a strong anchor around a tree, set up a haul line with the come-along and cross our fingers. It took a little time to get everything set up, but it all worked like a charm...kind of.
We successfully pulled the boat off the rock it was pinned on, but when it released the rope we had pulled on now held the boat in the middle of the rapid. Quickly Carl cut the rope allowing the boat to float down through the rest of the rapid. We thought we were home free till we found the boat downstream in an eddy behind the largest rock in the rapid...not cool. We stared in shock, we worked so hard and now the boat is stuck again?
Taking our time to evaluate the situation, cause the boat ain't goin nowhere, we release its now hung up on the rope we pulled on and cut. To put our haul system together we needed to attach pieces by carabiners, which were now stuck underwater between rocks, still clipped onto the rope, which the other end of is still tied to the boat.
This next move is the craziest thing of the whole "boat rescue", and I really didn't want to do this, but we didn't have many other options. All 4 of us piled in the not stuck boat to paddle the rapid to the last large rock, which our boat sat, stuck behind. The rapid tossed us this way then that, but we stayed focused and were able to move close to the big rock. As we passed this enormous rock, Carl (the boss) jumped from our raft to the stuck boat. He would have landed perfectly on it, but as he pushed off the tube of our moving boat his foot slipped giving him a sloppy jump, a terrible belly flop and painful face plant on the stuck boat. Amazingly, and much to our surprise, he grabbed the line of rope around the stuck boat, hung on for dear life and pulled himself atop the boat. The 3 of us were shocked that he pulled it off....it was ugly.
Atop the boat Carl, after some difficulty, cut the rope and finally freed the boat.
Astonishingly the boat was relatively ok, no major rips, tears or holes. In fact it was in such decent condition Carl and I decided to row the 20 miles down river to the next available take out and salvage what gear we could find along the way.
Back at the shop we patched a couple small holes on the red boat, which we now lovingly call Dolores, and she's back in service.
Our first month in Australia got better with everyday. We started off badly when our airline, Air Pacific (never use them), screwed us over with tourist visas. But when we finally landed in Australia things got only better.
A friend from Nebraska, Joe Ferring, and his girl treated us to dinner our first nights. It was nice to get some ideas and tips from locals. We did the average tourist activities in Sydney; sea cliff walks
(some dude has an illegal tarp city set up on a cliff), the downtown tour including the opera house, governor's mansion, "the" bridge and the beer tour. We found a free beer book, so made it a goal to see how many free beers we could get in - 11 outta 20.
We quickly escaped the city by flying south to Tasmania. A kid we met several years ago climbing in Joshua Tree picked us up from the airport - Crazy John. Yes, he has earned his name (ask me how later). He allowed Jason and I had 1 hour to pack and get groceries before we
headed to climb at Ben Lomond.
Fresh off the plane, this was a challenging place to ease back into climbing.
Dolerite crack climbing - ripped Jason's hands apart.
After a few days of climbing and relaxing in the climber's cabin we drove home at dusk enjoying an impromptu wildlife tour called Swerve the Car between the Wildlife Creatures (wallabies, wombats, deer, possums - different than those in the US).
No rest for the wicked, the next day we climbed at Mount Wellington, the mountain just outside of Hobart (the capital of Tasmania) then enjoyed a BBQ - wallaby burgers and Australian beer.
The next morning we left for another climbing trip, this one to Freycinet National Park, a beautiful sea cli
ff park along the eastern coast. Our first afternoon we took a hiking tour of wineglass bay with cheap wine bottles - classy huh? We did a few days of sea cliff climbing, possums stole John's cheap port, and returned to Hobart just in time for a free short film festival. Australian Humor.
Our "home" in Hobart houses all sorts of characters passing through town. All you gotta do is clean up once and awhile and in return you get free lodging, showers, laundry and food. Granted its bin dive food, but its probably the healthiest I've ever eaten (not that it takes much for me), but tons of fresh fruits and vegetables. One night we made 4 large pizzas of all bin food. We turned it into American night; pizza, beer, movies (Cliffhanger, a classic!)
Our next climbing trip took us to the center of Tasmania and its surroundings. We were a random mix of 5; Jason and myself, Crazy John, 19 year old Billy (all 4 Americans) and Danger Darren (Tassie). We spent more time sitting around, laughing till it hurt, and drinking beer. That's a climbing trip right? We ran outta gas one night at a gas station that wasn't open. Unfortunately it was a 24 hour diesel truck stop whom liked to honk at the sleeping dirt bags.
Eventually we made it back to Hobart, just in time for an 80s party. Problem - the college age, non-Americans kids played 90s music and dressed in 90s style. I guess they were a little young in the 80s.....or not even born yet! Pretty funny. Or maybe it really does take that long for things to get to Tasmania!
Sometime during the party we agreed to go rafting early the next morning with the Uni (University) rafting club. The run was short, in distance, 5 minutes, and in duration, they released the water for only 4 hours. There was a class 4 drop into a strong flipper eddy, with fun class 3 water. We ran it about 8 times in 5 different types of boats. Freezing rain and wind threatened hypothermia, but we lived.
This last week Jason and I drove on the wrong side of the road for a tour of Tasmania in Darren's $50 orange toyota corolla. It started.....most the time (sometimes with the key, a good ole role start, and a jimmy rigged starter button). We hiked the interior mountains, part of the overland trail, took in the coasts with freezing ocean water, and met up with some familiar faces randomly in Launceston. Jason's favorite day of our trip was our impromptu gluttony tour; we found free chocolate, cheese and raspberry tastings and a super cheap fish and chips place.
We have a few days left in Tassie then head up to the mainland for our next month+ of travel.
