Camden's and Lathum's Excellent Adventure
Day 2 — Swimming Lessons and Petroglyphs
August 2016
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We had a peaceful, uneventful night on our sandy island,
followed by a golden sunrise;
by the time I was up Joni and Camden already had the coffee on.
I'm not a coffee drinker but we had lots of hot chocolate and spiced cider
for me and the boys.
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| Sunrise |
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| Coffee's On! |
We cleaned up the dishes, loaded the boats and were off.
Once it warmed up it was into the water again
with more swimming lessons for Camden.
He was a little less reluctant this time,
and began to have some confidence in his life-jacket
and his ability to stay afloat.
By the end of the trip he was semi-fearless,
saying "I have a life jacket!"
Not exactly the best attitude,
but better than irrational fear ;-)!
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| Camden Swim Lessons |
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I had brought my little one-person
Watermaster fishing raft to float in,
but as I learned last year on a
trip down Young's Creek and the South Fork of the Flathead
and again this spring,
its glue had "reached the end of its useful life."
It blew out a seam this summer when we were using it in the swimming hole
with grandkids and nephews;
I reglued the seam and
added patches over as much of the remaining seam area as I could.
But on the previous day's run I discovered it still had small leaks
and slowly deflated over the course of a morning.
I patched it every day of the trip;
it simply pushed out a small leak in some other place.
In spite of that,
it held well enough to run rapids and carry my gear the entire trip,
with only one or two pump-ups a day —
far better than my luck the previous summer.
However, one of the rubber oar-pin mounts cracked,
then ripped out the screw holding the pivot tube in place.
I jury-rigged a repair with a strap around the tube;
whoever was rowing it had to monitor it closely
and frequently shove the pivot tube back where it belonged,
but it got us through ok.
In the slow, flat water at the beginning of the trip
it was difficult to keep up with the larger rafts,
so sometimes we would dock the "donut" between the tubes
of the cataraft.
When it was docked between the tubes of the cat,
it looked somewhat like a tongue sticking out;
I decided its name was "Catongua,"
but "the Donut" is what seemed to stick.
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| Catongua, "The Donut" |
Steve and I had waffled about whether or not to bring
their inflatable kayak along.
In the end, we did, and the "ducky" saw a lot of use.
It was a great way to introduce the boys to paddling rivers
and they took to it like... ducks.
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| Camden and Joni in the Ducky |
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| Cave up on a canyon wall |
Powell's Lighthouse |
The second night we camped at Mushroom rocks.
We didn't have time to explore up the canyon behind camp other than to check
out the petroglyphs; there might have been some interesting climbing,
but I'm not sure.
One negative to the camp is there were a lot of bees around,
which caused Camden a lot of mental grief.
I put my tent up to keep the insects out, but didn't use the fly.
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| Camp at Mushroom Rock |
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Photo by Joni |
When I look at rock walls,
my mind automatically does two things --
I look for obvious lines to climb the walls,
and I try to imagine figures in the shapes.
As I looked across to the rock walls downriver,
I saw what looked like a place where a guy gliding with a bat-wing had splatted.
It wasn't that, but it sure looked like it!
If you click on the left hand image to enlarge it,
you'll see the splat on the second rib from the left
about a third of the way up in the shade on the right side.
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| Evening at Mushroom Rock Camp |
Bat Wing Splat |
There are petroglyphs on the "stem" at the bottom of Mushroom Rock;
it's a short walk from camp by the river.
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| Mushroom Rock |
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Mushroom Rock Petroglyphs |
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| Canyon behind Mushroom Rock |
Next: Amazing Petroglyphs and a Boat to Fit a Kid
