Tuesday, August 25, 2009
North Fork American River ~ Sunny
Charlotte: Tuesday Morning ~ This trip has been more difficult than I expected!!! Far more difficult! We are sitting here on our little garden kneeling pads facing the river. We have had our first cup of tea. It was a LONG night. I kept listening for the bear or bears. Each time we were both awake, I banged on our cooking pot a few times with the lid. Larry had the pot the first part of the night but I took over pot duty about 11 because he wasn't banging it often enough. By 1 AM the ground had grown hard and my body was aching. Actually, I should say really aching since it was pretty much aching since about half way down the trail. I had taken Sport before bed but I finally gave in and took some Advil.
On the positive side..... the stars were unbelievable. I saw at least 6 shooting stars. We were awake several times together during the night (Larry confessed in the night that he was also having some apprehensive thoughts about the bear). We even had one long conversation during the night ~ partly to discuss our sanity with regard to this trip. We agreed that we are glad we are doing it. We are just not sure why yet.
I am very thankful for the 4 pound porta potty that I hauled down here, even though I took some kidding about it. This old body doesn't squat quite as easily as it once did.
We layed down on our pads on the gravel bar about 7:30. We won't do that tonight. The old body only wants to lay on that hard ground for so long. Today we will start looking for gold. We have some great sniping tools that our friend Steve made.
Our dry packs are a bit of a challenge. Everything we need seems to always be in the bottom. We had a supper of Annie's Mac & Cheese with tuna. It was pretty darn good. We had to keep moving, to stay away from the meat bees, while we ate. We only had cheese and crackers for lunch, a small piece of pork and a protein bar for breakfast. We are sore, sore, sore this morning.
Later in the morning: I am sitting on the bank in my wetsuit waiting for Larry to find an interesting area to prospect. It is quiet and peaceful here ...... sitting with my feet in the water. Wow, that is a really deep hole in front of me! First thing this morning we went in search of another pole for Larry. He finds what is left of a dead alder at the waterline. He sawed it down with the saw in our swiss army knife and whittled it and now has a dandy 8 foot staff.
Mid-day: I hiked down the river in my wetsuit to where Larry was sniping to find out how he was doing. It was getting hot so I hiked our dry bags up in the trees, to keep them in the shade, before I left. We have some chocolate bars, cheese, etc. that we would like to keep out of the hot summer sun. We decide that it's time to think about moving down river. Larry isn't finding many colors and we now feel we must keep on the move to make the bridge by Saturday. We are marking our progress on the topo map but we won't know if we are correct until we arrive at the bridge. I came back to camp to gather everything together to load the raft. As I approach our campspot I hear the familiar chirp of a ground squirrel, signaling. I see ground squirrels at our dry packs - demon squirrels! When I get to the packs I find that they have torn holes in the food pack. They didn't actually get into the pack but 15 more minutes and they would have.Thank goodness or we might now be down in this canyon minus our food. They managed to pull out part of one of the ziplock bags with trail mix and scatter some on the ground. Thank you God that I came back when I did.
Later in the afternoon: We floated our gear down the river. It was pretty easy going. First there was a long pool, mostly knee deep with small saucer size rocks. Then we decided to hike everything down a long gravel bar/boulder pile . Then it's back in the river. It was pretty easy going after the overland trek because it was mostly gravel on the bottom. We come to an area that could be a good camp but it's early and there is no decent looking bedrock here for sniping. We keep going. We made it down a series of rapids before we quit.
At our new camp: It's been another hard day. Larry is off looking for gold. He seems driven to find something. I mean isn't that what this trip is all about? I hope he is finding gobs. I am sitting in the shade of the blue tarp that he put up before he left. We are in a new campspot. I am trying to stay out of the blistering sun. We are on the wrong side of the river for shade.
Larry sniped around camp most of this morning and found a few bits. The areas that were accessible had been worked pretty hard and in the other areas the bedrock was simply too deep. The camping part isn't hard. If we had a nice campspot with a little shade ~ fish a little, snipe a little. The really hard part is moving and hauling our gear. I will be so glad when I have some real shade. This new campsight has absolutely no shade. The shade is all across the river but there is no place to camp over there.
Like I have said several times, "Who would hike down the Steven's Trail for fun?"
Evening: Poor gold showing today. Day 2 ~ HARD ~ not much gold
Larry: Tuesday: Early morning ~ Sun hasn't hit our camp yet. Got out of our bed and made a cup of tea. We had a restless night, what with our aches and pains from yesterday and our trepidation over the bears. We hung our food bag and trash bag in a tree and took our cooking pot to bed with us. At odd hours throughout the night, we banged on the pot.
With a crescent moon that set early, we had the starry heavens for entertainment during our waking hours. I was reminded of all our carefree years sleeping out under the stars down at Shirttail and up on Duncan Creek. I tried to get in touch with the spirit of those people and realized that I was actually trying to recreate that adventurous quality in us. We had lost our fearlessness over the years, rather I should speak for myself - I had become old and fearful. I resist that aspect of myself mightely. I want to go out full of vigor and adventure, doing fun, challenging things in the time that I have. In that respect, I have an ideal partner in Charlotte. Not only does she love me enough to go along, she can also lead the way, as she embraces the same adventurous spirit.
I must admit that last evening, I had misgivings about this trip - in our ability to pull it off. The trek was approaching our physical limits and the trip down river was tough. Walking in the river was difficult but the deep pools were the hardest. But, after a night of rest, my spirits are restored and I'm looking forward to a day of sniping. I plan to work my way down one bank so far and then work the other side up past camp a ways before returning to camp.
In our new campspot - Evening ~ Two more portages today. Lots of difficult terrain. Plus, the crevices seem to all be cleaned out. I'm working hard to just get some color. We camped on a very narrow strip of sand. I carried more sand in my gold pan to build it up to accomodate our bed. Charlotte, bless her heart is bearing up under the strain but it's taking a toll. Falling and bruising her ankles and shins while walking the boat through rapids we didn't portage.
