Sunday, October 11, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Imlay 09 trip
at 8:01pm. Made 9:40pm shuttle. Ate bad mex food Springdale. Retrieved
gear drop. Asleep at 2:00am. More later.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Final prep
on Imlay. We picked up an extra canyoneer. Trying new type of boot.
MSR canyon boot. Nice.
Logistics
You'll get lots of emails updates during this trip. Tough. Deal with it.
This is my desparate attempt to document out adventures. I have fails
miserably to get and substitive site report up after our last trips.
Hate it. Being too busy and going on too many trips may be a noble
excuse but still fails tonget it done. This May work. There is dead
time during these trips. Travel time. Lines. I think this could
provide the mechanism.
This is a test run. I need you guys to help by commenting on the
entries in the blog, if needed. Notes from the trip along with
pictures and your comments will become the permanant report of the
trip. And without additional work upon return. This could be he
temate for all out trips. I would like to get every using it including
those who get to go to China.
Also, figure out how to send email from your phone with a picture
attached.
Check out the blog at: mctraveler.blogspot.com
Put your comments here too.
Thanks. McKee
Red Rock sp from SWA about Vegas
of podcasts later we are in The Desert Southwest. Not a bad commute.
Vegasville is bargain city right now! If only I could stand to waste
canyon time. For example: car $15 per day, Bally's room $45 per night
with breakfast.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Re: German influences at the Nantahala
Nice beer!
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Shawn McKee <shawn.mckee@gmail.com> wrote:
Watching the hikers cross the noc on the AT.
Sent from my slow, first gen Apple Phone.
Re: Damage on Flint Creek Trail
Ouch. That's one of the worst of those I've ever seen, including the scar I'm still wearing from Moab.
Dale
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 2:50 PM, Shawn McKee <shawn.mckee@gmail.com> wrote:
Pete's leg
Sent from my slow, first gen Apple Phone.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Mountaintop
We slept on the porch last night. 55 degrees on July 2nd. Umm mountains.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Adventures of Unintentions on Raccoon Island
Adventures of Unintentions on Raccoon Island
It was the weekend of free fishing for Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries where the State of Louisiana allows anyone to fish without a permit. Already this weekend was a bargain. The plan was to go out Saturday morning with whoever in our group wanted to go and check out the fishing in the surf. Then come back for Lunch, go back in the afternoon for a few hours, come back to the camp and cook fish. That night we would watch a movie or two and maybe go back early Sunday morning for one more round of surf fishing. Hugh and I figured that Jamie, Lauren and Harrison might go on one of the three short trips but generally they would hang out around the camp.
To our surprise they all wanted to go out on the first test run Saturday morning. We had been up early hearing many boats head out past the camp before dawn. Hugh and I joked that every boat fit to sail and many not fit to sail were out this weekend. It was perfect weather when we loaded the boat and got ready to head out about 7:00am. No need for food or much supplies since we were coming back in for lunch in a few hours. The wind was calm and temp not too hot. Hugh fixed some rods with new line and I put snacks, drinks, water, and engine oil in the boat.
We had a great time riding out to the islands in near calm water that you could have water skied. Never seen the ocean this calm. The islands were busy with many boats and lots of wading fisherman. We got set up and heading into the surf where we found the fish were jumping. Catching a trout nearly every 5 minutes is steady and good fishing. We had about 40 fish by 10:00 and decided to try another part of the island just to see how they were doing.
We headed east for about another 3 miles, I think. The back of Raccoon island has a long sandbar that connects perpendicular to the main barrier island. We navigated up to this sandbar and tried to anchor near it about 100 feet away. When in 3 feet of water we stopped and got out. Inconveniently, there was a trough between us and the edge of the island that was at least head deep and we did not want to wade over to the land. Back in the boat we moved over the trough closer to the island. There we anchored, got out into 3 feet again and easily got up on the shore. I moved the anchor a little closer so that everyone could get out of the boat. I buried the anchor in about two feet of water about 30 feet from the shore. This would stick in my mind later as the fatal mistake.
It was a long walk across the island to the other side. It's impossible to describe how flat Louisiana islands can be. There was no more than 6 inches change in height of this "island" over 1000 yards of walking. You know this because the sand is wet with water then it is under water but only inches deep for the entire walk. Briefly, at the other side of the island there is a little rise in land about 5 inches then into the main gulf. No waves at all so it was like walking into a pan of sloping water. Hugh, Jamie, and I walked out about 200 feet to waist deep and starting fishing. Another boat with a man and woman were not too far, catching fish steadily. We soon were landing trout over and over. Harrison came over and fished some, Lauren never came over to that side of the island. The fishing and catching was fun, weather perfect. Hardly a better wade fishing day ever. We visually checked on Lauren and Harrison who were walking around the boat area catching crabs and such across the wide island/bar. Reluctantly, we decided to think about heading back for lunch since it was about 1:00pm. But then another "fish on" must keep fishing. Hugh suggested that he go and get the boat and bring it around the island since we had so many fish to carry back to the boat. He headed back while Jamie and I continued to fish.
After about ten minutes I heard something and turned to see Harrison walking back across the island. Jamie and I thought it was strange that Harrison was coming back but figured that he wanted to get picked up with us on the other side by Hugh. We kept fishing. Then we heard something again. It remotely sounded like a boat motor, but too far. Then Harrison was closer to us on the 1000 yard journey and he was sort of jogging out of a heat mirage. Something was not right. We gathered up and came to the shore, then met Harrison who said Hugh needs Dad right now. We looked across to the boat and it looked like it was still where we left it. After walking for a few minutes we could then see that Hugh was running the reverse on the motor and churning up sand and mug behind the boat. I started moving quickly, carrying and dragging lots of fish across the island. When I got there Hugh was in panic trying to get the boat free.
The boat had it nose on the beach as if you had run into the island at high speed. I knew instantly the problem - stuck. We all rocked the boat in the sand back and forth to get it off the beach. The back end was stuck and the tide was falling away from the boat. Hugh had run the engine in reverse so that a big hole had been created in the sand under the middle of the boat by the prop wash. We all got together and pushed on the front end. It moved back about a foot. Again we all pushed on count of three and it moved back another foot. I slipped and slammed into the boat breaking my sunglasses in half. Then, it would not move any more. The engine would not start and Hugh explained that it had quit running while he was running in reverse. He knew the problem was probably fouled plugs and he had new spark plugs on the boat but did not have the tool needed to change the plugs.
Now it was obvious that the water was falling. The boat soon became entomed in a sand slipper. Thirty five hundred pounds of bulk that always seems to glide and bob with the greatest of ease is now concreted to the island. Nothing short of Katrina was going to move it.
We sat and thought and figured how to dig out but ultimately decided to wait for the tide to come back. We figured the tide would come right back in so we would just hang out, fish until dark if we had to, then leave. Ok, so we headed off to investigate the rest of the island. About a mile down was a dredging crew. We walked around them but decided not to bother them for help with the boat. I couldn't see them moving their dredge crane over to our little boat to dig it out although that would have been a cool sight. Back to the boat at 3:30 the sun was extremely hot and bright. The entire 9 square feet of shade was under the side of the beached boat. So we all got around the napped on the wet sand next to the beached whale.
Many more walks around investigating all sorts of stuff, making tide measuring beach clocks, making sundials out of bamboo until 6:30. As planed, time to go fishing again. This time no luck on the other side of the island. Not biting. It was as if the fish were hot and tied like us. Not having anything to eat except coffee all day was making fishing not so much fun anymore. Back at the boat at 7:30 and the tide seems to be falling more. Panic! The cell phone hadn't worked earlier but now Hugh got a faint signal and called his wife Terri. Too far from land, cell phones occationally pick up the repeaters used by the oil rigs. The phone will say "emergency only" or "911 only" on the top where it normally says "ATT" Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This time we got through to Terri and told her we were stuck. We needed to know when was low tide at Raccoon point. She would check and call us back. When we got the call it was bad news. The low tide was 8:36pm which meant that we got stuck at mid tide and it would be 2am before we got the water back we needed. Very depressing news. If we had called someone for rescue at 2pm when we got stuck, we would be leaving now. Misjudging the tide meant we now would either have to wait until 2am or call someone to come out in the night time to find us. They would not only have to find us in the dark but bring us back at night. Plus we would have to leave the stuck boat and come back and get it when it floated free at 2am. So we decided to wait, rescue ourselves. We all got ready to spend the night on the island and wait until 2am. What else could we do? We couldn't inconvenience anyone else for our mistake. Besides the weather was nice. We had water and some food. How bad could it be?
It was a beautiful sunset. An a+ perfect day on the barrier islands. At about 8:00 I decided to go over to the other side of the island to the thousands of birds and make a shelter fire in case it got cold. Jamie, Harrison and I gathered drift wood, old washed up boat parts, pieces of docks, as well as dried grass and anything else burnable. We had found a lighter on the boat and thought about getting some gas out of the boat to help start the fire. A big hole dug into a smallish sand dune gave us a nice fire happily burning in the hole. We got it lit just as the sun set and I noticed something amazing; there were about twenty mosquitoes lined up on my leg, all dining. I swished them off and they came right back. Not even a hint of a bug all day and now this. I looked over at the others and they were all swiping bugs.
The fire came to life over the next 10 minutes just in time to get all of us into the smoke to avoid the bizzilions of skeets. The more smoke the better as we all huddled near the fire. Still, they were biting every uncovered inch of flesh. Jamie and Hugh went back to the boat to look for bug repellent. We had a tiny amount of deet, maybe a dozen squirts left in the mini bottle and some sunscreen with orange bug repellent. Neither did much. So we put all the 100% deet spray on our faces and ears and necks and kept swishing them off our legs and arms. We resorted to putting wet sand all over our legs and arms to keep them from biting. It did work but took some care to keep putting the sand on our skin. It needed to be wet enough to stick and we could not find very much muddy sand. It was all sandy sand so it caked up and fell off.
After a while everyone when back to the boat to see if it was any better away from the birds and near the water. Hopefully there was a little breeze. At the boat we got out all the rain gear coverings we could find and put them on, covering all parts of exposed skin. Lauren had a towel that we used to wrap around our legs. I sat on the boat and used a wal mart bag wrapped around one leg and a couple of gallon plastic bags torn open and wrapped around the other leg. Hugh managed to get some plastic wrapped around his legs and torso. The relentless battle with the mosquitoes had begun. The electronic minutes on my watch creped by slower and slower.
The boat was too buggy to stand so we started walking around the island. During our walking we all ate dinner of power bars, oranges, peanut butter crackers and water or diet root beer. Not bad for a camping trip, but not good when you were hoping for fish at the cabin. I decided to clean a few fish and cook them over the fire on sticks for a real camping dinner. After finding the knife in the boat I quickly gave up on the idea. It seemed that if I cleaned the fish on the boat it might attract more mosquitoes and if I took fish back to the fire and cleaned them there on a piece of scrap wood, it might do the same, and I did not like the idea of slapping flies while cutting the fish. No fish for dinner.
There was a gentle breese that would keep the skeets off you if you walked slowly on the beach. We found that if we walked too fast we would heat up and attract more. You had to relax, walk and breath slowly to keep them uninterested in you. It was like trying to become bug invisible. Still the bugs like one place on our lower legs just above the socks. Jamie and Lauren were wearing the rain pants so their legs were not exposed. Hugh, Harrison and I only had shorts. As I walked around the island I would stop every five seconds and slide my hands down each leg knocking off multiple mosquitos with each pass. It was like a game to see how long you could go before they got back on your legs. It's now easy to empathize with early north american settlers about the hardships they encountered. I remember reading about the French settles at Fort La Salle near Ocean Springs in 1599. They were dropped off to colonize the coastal islands. When the supply ships came back a year later all the settlers left because they simply could not stand the bugs. This I can now understand. What do these mosquitos eat when we are not here? The birds? Do they bite fish? There is not even any fresh water on the island. I guess I dont understand them very well.
So back to the fire at 11:00pm, we got it going again and the mosquitoes finally started giving up a little bit. Reviving a nice fire, we talked about all sorts of things. The stars were brilliant and the moon was spectacular, completely full. You could easily see everything with no flashlight needed. The nesting birds sang all night, never stopping - or maybe they were crying from the mosquitos. Hugh and Lauren elected to stay on the boat while the three of us enjoyed the fire.
This camping trip, this forced impromptu camping trip was not "enjoyed" by anyone except possible me, who loves camping anytime, and possible Harrison who has a great attitude all the time no matter where he is. Without the bugs, it was supreme outdoors; perfect temperature, nice fire, beautiful surroundings. The Nature of the barrier islands standing only inches above the ocean along with the full moon night ski, the birds, the breeze. It was nice. All around the horizon nearly 360 degrees were lights from various oil rigs and sleeping shrimp boats. Probably 30 shrimp boats had anchored, pulled up their nets, and all fishing stopped around 8:00pm. Then around 1:00am they started lowering their nets and moving again. I guess they take off 5 hours each night during low tide. Hum. Even though we could see all this around us, the closest boat was at least a half mile out to sea off the island. We thought about getting one to help us off the island then dismissed the idea.
Now around midnight the wind slowed and the bugs came back again. Fire, smoke, eyes burn, out of smoke, bugs bite legs, back in smoke, eyes burn, out of smoke, bugs bite. Back and forth. We headed back the boat to check on the time and Hugh and Lauren. The water was finally coming up to the back of the boat. The boat was moving a little in the sand. Ate the last of the crackers and had some more water. Too buggy at the boat. Checked on Lauren who was wrapped up in towels and plastic, completely cocooned at the front of the boat. She said she was fine. So, back to the fire again. Got it going big and told more stories. The wind started to blow and the mosquitoes gave up on round two. Now it was almost bug free except for the occasional buzz around your ear.
At 2:00 we ventured back to the boat which was a good walk from the fire. The boat was free! Hugh had it in the water anchored from the back to keep it off the beach. But, he reported that he could not get the engine started. He had tried everything. Together, we tried and tried and thought about what could fix it. Fuses, fuel line, gas, gages, choke, throttle, nothing worked. Then it was decided to use the electric trolling motor to move us away from the island and anchor off in the ocean so the boat could not get grounded and the bugs would not come back. Problem. The trolling motor did not work. Hugh gave up on fixing it after trying for several minutes. At this point we realized that we could not go back to the camp under our own power. The tremendous letdown of not ending the bug fest, but getting sentenced to the rest of the night was like getting denied at the parole board. Nope, not leaving now. We had made two errors in judgement. One, we did not get grounded at low tide and get off in a few hours. We got grounded at mid tide and it took 12 hours to get off the beach! Two, we did not check the engine after it did not start back up in the afternoon. Now it was not starting in the middle of the night.
It's 2:30am, time to call for help. Hugh called his friend Jimmy in Baton Rouge and Mike Anderson in Gonzalez. Hugh knew Mike was already planning to come fishing that morning at 5:30am. Jimmy said he would call Arther, another friend of Hugh's, and come right away! Hugh tried to tell him several times through very sketchy cell phone communications where we were and NOT to bring Arther's boat, to bring Jimmy's OWN boat down from Baton Rouge and get us. It sounded like Hugh was having a hard time getting Jimmy to understand what he was saying or maybe to listen to what he was saying. Mike Anderson said he would come down and back up Jimmy in case he was unable to get us. It sounded like Mike was going to launch at his regular time and go fishing then be available if needed. Reasonable, I thought. It's nice to know there is a backup person coming.
Now the wind was blowing pretty strong. The waves were picking up about one foot but no sign of storms, just broken clouds. We hunkered down on the boat to wait for morning rescue while the waves tossed the boat up and down about 50 feet from the shore. By anchoring the boat at the back, the heavy engine part of the boat was having a hard time riding up far enough when the waves came. Every ten waves or so a big one would crash over the back of the boat and splash me on the head. Water was finding its way onto the floor of the boat. Not too alarming because I knew we were anchored in 3 feet of water. Still, it would be a mess if the boat sank right here by the island. Every so often Hugh would turn on the bilge pump to remove the excess water from the floor of the boat. After what seemed like a long nap, I was awaken by bigger waves and splashes onto the back of the boat. My watch said 4:00. Disappointing that I had only slept 30 minutes. Harrison told me he was cold like me. We both decided to go back to the fire and get out of the wind and water. Jamie wanted to come with us, but Hugh and Laurie stayed in the boat. I figured the lighter boat would be easier to keep afloat.
Back to the fire at 4am, to find very few coals left. The wind had burned out all the fire we left at 2am. We gathered lots of new wood, sticks, and anything that would burn. Jamie took over building the fire and I scavenged for burnable stuff. Several trips back to the fire and we had it blazing again. This time it really felt nice as the bugs had let up in the wind. We all found a place to sleep around the fire. Harrison was sound asleep on the sand with a life preserver for a pillow. I got up a few time to fix the fire but felt really comfortable for the first time all night. At 4:50 Jamie and I watched the sun's first light break the night time as the moon settled behind a distant cloud and began to change to orange for its exit. Within the next 30 minutes the sky brightened and the sun rose at 5:35. What a wonderful sight. Very impressive. We all slept well from 5:45 to 7:00, then poked around the fire some more and watched boats trolling for shrimp. The morning was very nice with no bugs and not hot yet.
At 7:30 we saw another boat near our boat so we cleaned up the fire and headed back over. Jimmy and Arther were there to rescue us. They were a sight for us. We got to the boat, retrieved the fish cooler from the shore, and started pulling up the anchor. Jimmy gave us a line to pull us out further from the shore. Then we attached a rope to the front of our bow and began being pulled away form the island. As Arther began to power his boat, the rope immediately broke. We decided it was not a good rope and proceeded to untie Jimmy's anchor line to use as rope. This rope held and we were being pulled away from the island. For the first time since 2pm the day before we were underway on the water. Cool breeze, no bugs, but already hot sun at 8am. There was only a few hours of comfort between bugs and sun, now gone.
( I wish we were in this picture, we're not )
We struggled to get any speed over 8 mph. Arther stopped, came around and loaded everyone except me over into his boat to help with the weight. This allowed Arther's boat to plane off better and soon we were going 20 mph. With about 26 miles to go to the camp this was going to be all we could do. Normally we cruised at 35 to 40 mph, today half that. Still, this was amazingly productive after being marooned for 18 hours. Within minutes we had stopped again and Hugh got back on the boat with me. Then we were chugging at 6 mph again. Arther was afraid of hurting his motor so that was all we could get out of it. Now the 26 miles where going to take 3.5 hours. We stopped again later in the middle of the ocean to work on Arther's engine. It was having some sort of auto limiting situation from a bad sensor that he either knew about or had been told would happen. We untied and worked on it for a time then gave up and tied back on. Then we tried to change the plugs on Hugh's boat again so that we could possible pull jimmys boat in with Hugh's, reversing the rescue. This effort took a half hour bobbing in the ocean while Jimmy worked on the uncovered engine of Hugh's boat from the back of Arther's boat. I was in charge of keeping the two boats close but not touching in the bounciness. We could only find the wrong size socket wrench on Arther's boat. Arther looked under every compartment, in every case and had a lot of tools but not the size we needed. Jimmy tried using pliers of every size but could not get the plugs to come out. Finally we gave up on the mid ocean repair and started back on the slow tow.
Hugh called Mike again and found that they were fishing at the island. Mike said he would come rescue us from Arther's tow and bring us back to the cabin. Now it was 10:00 and really hot. I took sunscreen and carefully placed it on every exposed piece of skin on Harrison. He was asleep, looking up, with mouth open so exhausted he did not care about the sun. I made sure he was completely covered leaving white sunscreen showing on his ears. Jimmy had brought us food and drinks from the camp. I had a cold diet root beer and nutty buddy bar. Now in the sun and tossing ocean slow tow, I did not feel so well. Yuck. The rest of our adventurers were trying to sleep in various places except for me and Hugh. Arther's boat was making a loud alarm constant buzz from something being wrong with his engine. It was so loud it was hard to talk on OUR boat 50 feet behind theirs. Hugh and I talked and joked about the night. I told him about the fire scene and he told me how he battled the waves and bilge all night. Hugh had resorted to covering himself in the driftnet from head to toe during the worst of the mosquitoes.
11:00 still no Mike to the rescue. We called him again and he said they had gotten into some more fish and were coming up now to help out. We passed many people around the camps while in tow who sympathetically waved or shook their heads. We also passed other boats being towed in like us. I guess when you are going that slow you get to see a lot. If we had not joked about all the people who come out once per year and all the boats that were unfit for the water coming out that weekend, we wouldn't have jinxed ourselves.
Mike showed up with his group of four around 11:30 about 4 mile from the camp. He said he didn't realize that Hugh had 5 people and young people with him or he would have come right away! I guess what he was implying was that since he thought it was just Hugh and me that we would understand waiting on him since he was catching fish. At first I was not happy with the jilting rescuer's excuse but then I guess I understood it. I'm sure Hugh did not tell him we had five people and two girls stuck on the island. Mike is very personable and a likable guy although the rest of his crew was not as friendly. So, Mike loaded us up and with all the sympathy he could manage, took all except captain Hugh back to the camp at high speed. Hugh heroicly stayed with his ship until the end. The four survivors took off at the unheard of speed of 40 mph. A speed we had all forgotten existed.
Once at camp we bolted for the food and showers to begin the revitalization. It came quick. Clean, fed, watered, distanced from those clothes, we felt good. When Hugh arrived with the dead boat about 30 minutes later, we took him food and beer at the dock. The seven guys, Hugh and six rescuers were busy cleaning and helping, so we were allowed to go to bed. 1:00pm Sunday, 32 hours after waking up on Saturday morning, I was asleep in a bed.
4:00pm and awake. A new day. The previous day had been strange with two sets of sun rises and all that other stuff but it really felt like yesterday. We gathering in the kitchen and talked about the trip. First, the boat. Hugh reported that he changed the plugs when he got back and it fired right up. If we had had the right socket, well, we would have been home by 3am under our own power. Yikes. Lots of unlikely events combine to make an extraordinary event. That's always the way it goes.
The conversation turned on counts of bug torture, mosquito hell, and inventive ways we all fought them off. Then the uncomfortable nature of no food, no shelter from the sun, and no change of clothes. The fire was a friend, the boat was not. The supplies we needed to take the NEXT time we ever went fishing again were carefully examined. The minimal food, the little comforts that could have been so nice. The forced conversations while swatting bugs during the night became very memorable to me.
So, we survived. And now we all agreed that we felt much more alive for having done something that we would never have tried. Something that would have been sneered off the conversation as soon as it was brought up. Something that not many OTHER people would venture to try. But we did it. And we still could not believe we actually made it through the night. The feeling of survival was topped by the feeling of accomplishment and invincibility. Not that we could do anything, but we all secretly knew that we could do more that we thought. The ickyness and irritation of those bugs was more than I ever thought existed but we did not freak out and did not get upset. The next time we were faced with a task not so pleasant, we could call on the thoughts of Raccoon Island and smile stoically.
Now, some of the beauty of the experience began to seep into my thoughts. It was, after all, a spectacular sunset, moon rise, island, beach, view of the stars. There were thousands of birds nesting around us. The nature was pure and dirty and raw and simple all at once. I knew that the memory of discomfort would fade and the sunset would remain.
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