What I am about to tell you never happened. See, it was the 2nd to the last night at Camp Bighorn and some of us guys wanted to do something fun before we headed back to Prairie. Oops, it is time for chapel I will have to continue later.
CONTINUATION:
Across the river from camp is a pair of train tracks. On one set are a stretch of train cars with no caboose or engine. They evidently have been sitting there for 6+ months. I thought it would be so sweet to swim the river and spend the night in one of the cars. Like my life wouldn’t be complete unless I did this. I mentioned it to a couple people, but found not much shared interest. Until I talked to Buckmaster.
Jason is a cool guy. From the start of Prairie he and I hit it off through frisbee. His skills and height make him a key player in any game. We are usually split off, much like Noah and I. In fact, we have only played on the same team once. We won. Jason is 24 and from WA. Old enough to know better.
Jason took care of getting the drybags and I readied the raft. We got to use the “reject” raft of camp. It was missing a tharwt and wouldn’t pump up all the way, but it was RED. I was cool with that. We checked out PFD’s and paddles. Joel had joined out expedition. I knew it was going to be a sweet night.
We loaded everything up and headed off. We were being dropped off above the Rock Garden and Cascade rapids. We would raft down them and then head over to the train. By the time we got there, it was getting dark quickly. Dusk does not last long in the valley. We didn’t bring helmets because camp policy does not require them on class II rapids and we didn’t expect any swimmers.
But in the dark everything changes. Our headlamps didn’t do anything so we just left them off. This is when Jason named our raft, the “Devil’s Advocate”. We sang hymns down the flatwater, and then made it to Rock Garden. Rock Garden is named so for obvious reasons. Plenty of rocks make passage kinda difficult, even in daylight. We made it without hitting a single one. Then we approach Cascade. The roar is loud, but we have all rafted this one before and know to stick to river right.
Man it was awesome in the dark. We almost got flipped on the last of the big waves because we hit it broadside, but we ended up making it just fine. Then we head over to river left and look for a spot to beach the raft for the night. Right as we find a good enough spot and are about to get out of the raft, we hear this loud splash. It is the type of splash that happens when someone throws a large rock (BFR) into the water. We stop and look around, but don’t see anyone. We then hear a couple more similar splashes in different spots. We think it must be people from camp who came over to mess with us.
Jason yells up, “What’s up homies?” After getting no answer, he then yells, “Chupp, we know you are there.” Still no answer, but we are sure we hear voices. and there are no more splashes for a little bit. We get out of the raft, grab our stuff and head up the bank to the tracks. We hear a couple more splashes but we still can’t see anyone nor see any lights. Jason suggests we wait them out on the tracks. So we set our stuff down on the empty tracks and climb to the top of the train cars right next to us. However, I make the suggestion to move the bags off the track just in case. At the top, we still don’t see anyone. Then a train comes by at a fast rate of speed. We lay down on top and try to act invisible but it doesn’t work, as we find out later.
After the train goes by, I look down and only see one dry bag in the dark. The other two are missing. The thought crosses my mind that the people could have come by and taken the two bags while the moving train hid them from our sight. However, we climb down and start to look for the bags. Joel’s is 30 feet up the track. Mine is even further up and actually rolled down a hill. I was incredible relieved to find it as it had my rented sleeping bag inside.
More later.
Life, Prairie | Garrett November 3, 2007 | 
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