– November is Bad for Whitewater –

---

We pushed off from Funston the next morning with the idea of moving our adventure to Little Pine. Usually, there was excitement and energy to share when we packed up the boats, but it was quiet and somewhat sullen that day. Our hands were cold and limbs stiff as we lugged the gear to the beach and struggled with frozen straps. Even after we finished and started moving downriver, the water seemed slow and progress difficult.

After what seemed an eternity, we floated past the Flying B. Memories from the fall and winter I worked there popped up and mingled with my moody outlook… triggered, no doubt, by the dark underbelly of grim-looking clouds.

Bad News

“Wonder who’s holed up there this winter…” I thought out loud.

“It ain’t Maynard,” said Todd. “He died.”

“Well, that’s news to match the gloomy day.”

“Sorry. I thought you knew.”

“I only worked with him that one season,” I said.

But I had several good memories of him, and a couple flashed on the screen in my mind.

“What killed him? Cigarettes?” I asked.

“I didn’t know him,” said Todd. “An outfitter friend told me that they found him dead in his pickup somewhere up by Williams Creek.”

“Probably cigarettes,” I said. “I never did see him without one. That ol’ Maynard rolled his horse fordin’ the river one time and came up with a wet cigarette still in his mouth.”

“I call ‘bullshit’ on that one.”

Kinda True Story

“Gotta be a little bit true. The guy who told me is as true as you are, and he made that same stock run with Maynard that I did… movin’ horses from Root Ranch to the B. And that’s a wild run, Todd; anything could happen,” I grinned. “Each man pullin’ a long string through the wilderness, with bears and wolves and Sheepeaters…”

“Here we go…” laughed Todd.

“..and ya’ gotta sleep on the trail amongst the stock both nights. ‘Course, we used bridges to cross Big Creek and the Middle Fork. But no one just makes up stories like that. Color it, maybe… shade it a little.”

“The horse rolled over in the Middle Fork and kept his feet…”

“He got four feet and four skinny legs,” I said. “More stable in the water than we are; that’s why we ride across.”

“..and Maynard stayed in the saddle.”

“I’m not sayin’ it was still lit, but I can see his skinny ass drippin’ wet with that cigarette danglin’ from his lips. Probably first thing he did after breathin’ was spit it out and reach for a dry one.”

Squat laughed so hard, he farted. The smell of warm chili pushed all the fresh air away and the tension we’d been carrying evaporated in the funk.

Except for that, everything was quiet around the Flying B. No lights, no movement… like the storm had driven all the guests away. Bad weather had a different vibe on the river, prompted a different kind of thinking… more worrying. When Maynard and I made our Root Ranch runs during the month of November, there was snow on the ground. It was dreary and a little depressing, but it didn’t feel as foreboding as it felt in the boat that day.

Bad Weather

“So what do you think, Taylor? You spent lots of time out here in the winter.”

“About what, this weather? Funny how it affects ya’, isn’t it,” I said. “I’ve read I-don’t-know-how-many stories about explorers. On the sea, the ice, in the Sahara; doesn’t matter. Bad weather can kill ya’ and we know that instinctively. We can feel it, all of us. Every living thing stops down for bad weather.”

“You worried?” he asked.

“No… no, I don’t mean to say that. But I’m mindful of it. I can’t help but pay attention. It’s a big part of livin’ back here; knowin’ what the weather is doin’. And, like I said, it’s instinctive.”

“I thought it would be over by now, but it feels like it’s getting colder.”

“How are you feelin’?” I asked.

“I’m fine. Like you said; it’s weird. Never seen it like this before.”

“No, I mean physically. Are you sick from that pad goin’ flat?”

“No,” he sneered. “It didn’t make me sick, just grouchy. But the temperature is dropping. I feel colder.”

I pulled the hood off my head to feel the air. To gauge the stinging cold on my ears. I closed my eyes to concentrate.

“We need to pay attention here,” he said while steering for his entry to the upcoming rapid. “We got Haystack and Jack Creek coming up.”

Anyone who knows anything about Middle Fork whitewater history knows about the tragedy at Haystack Rapids.

“God Bless Eldon Handy.”

“..and us, too,” Todd said. Then turned on the mark and we slid into the roaring whitewater around the snow-covered stone obstacles in the river. From there, we remained respectfully silent all the way to camp.

From Bad to Worse

We woke up the next morning at Little Pine and there was ice in the river. Not a little bit; a lot. I stared at the frozen phenomenon like a caveman looking at fire for the first time; amazed and intimidated, not really thinking at all. The river was moving… and moving water was not supposed to freeze, but slush was clumped up like instant mashed potato mix in the Middle Fork. My mind tried to make sense of it, tried to calculate how cold it had to be to freeze a wild river, but couldn’t think of an answer. I wasn’t scared or worried yet, but I was mesmerized.

The ice that formed around the rocks was even more troubling, especially close to the inflatable rafts. Not just little halos of ice, but a conglomerate of rocks and ice merged into great sheets that stretched into the river. An iceberg sank the Titanic and, looking at the sharp edges of the ice sheets, I imagined a strong one could cut through a rubber raft and leave a gash too long to repair. And every rock along the river’s edge had ice on it that morning.

The BTI was flat-lined. All four steps were as low as the indicator could display. The low pressure that moved in a few days before had settled in to stay. It was more than inconvenient, more than uncomfortable; the bad weather had become a serious problem.

Everyone saw the same thing I saw and, judging by their reactions, had the same troubling thoughts.

---

(excerpt from “Lost & Found: Navigating New Lives & Love”)

---