Spring Break arrived at 5 pm on Friday. I hadn't much of an agenda for the next nine days, only a list of work-related things that (still) need to be accomplished, and a longer list of potential outside fun. I walked into the apartment and notified Rob of the gauge situation on my favorite scenic paddling run: Hopeville Canyon. The situation to which I refer was a gauge well above the minimum for boats and slowly falling. There would be at least three more days of water in the canyon.
It was decided then to start packing. Boating gear took priority as we loaded the car, followed distantly by all other gear. Rob's buddy, Andy, stepped up to the plate and agreed to drop us off at the put-in for canyon runs and then sit at the take-out, attempting to catch dinner. He made a great shuttle driver, and we enjoyed lots of beans each night for dinner. The plans were very loose. We'd hit the road Saturday morning, paddle the canyon twice, and crash at Mark and Margot's cabin (see "Arbitrarily Close to Heaven, Parts n and n + 1). From there, we'd do whatever the water levels, weather, or interests made most exciting. In anticipation of other interests, we tossed in our climbing gear, and in went my trail runners. Clearly headed for funner pastures, we fueled up at Little Sandy's truckstop early on Saturday morning.
More than 72 hours later, we were packing up to head back to the world. In that time, we had logged three runs
down Hopeville Canyon (one with Jeremy . . . nice job, buddy); a failed attempt at top-roping a pitch at Seneca Rocks (we couldn't find a reliable anchor where we had hiked and didn't have enough daylight to find another place); an evening trail run along a closed Forest Road 75 in hopes of a bear sighting (another failure); a 9-mile, 5-hour long run of the Smokehole Canyon section of the South Branch on a 75-degree sunny afternoon; an "only in WV"-style pickup bed ride in full boating gear; several classic bonfires under a clear and starry night sky with live guitar; a bit of a scary rescue of a boater (whose name I will not reveal) who was washed into "The Cave of Death"; a divebomb attempt by a kamikaze woodpecker; and the usual run-in with our rodent friends. All of this while crashing each night at my favorite crashpad in the lower 48.
Git 'R Dun
