CMack: How bad do you want to paddle the Gorge?

Me: I’m up for whatever, why?

CMack: You’re not going to believe this sh*t! I’m still not sure it’s true, or if MikeG if messing with me….Apparently a truck flipped over on Hwy 50, and there’s propane tanks floating down the Ark heading for the Gorge.

Hmmmm, intriguing development for sure!! Several phone calls later, after realizing we couldn’t even get to the Gorge put-in because the highway was blocked off, we decided to make the haul over to Buena Vista to run the Numbers.

We rallied to leave town by 1:30p, but I was already trying to remember what time the sun goes down this time of year. I thought to myself, “Who cares, this sounds like an adventure.” An adventure indeed…off we went.

The saga continued once we reached the take-out where we would set shuttle. Some random dude from PA was hanging out with his pack of dogs at the take-out, certainly not an unlikely scenario if you’ve been around the river much. However, the dogs got a bit excited at the sight of MikeG pulling up in his shiny car. They decided to greet him by jumping up on his driver’s side door laying four paws worth of claws down the side of his paint job. After a bit of “intense” discussion regarding falt, payment, and an exchange of information we were off to the take-out.

Ah yes, the take-out. Did I mention the potential for snow on the trail to the take-out? No? It really hadn’t come up in our discussions either. We managed to break through a couple of drifts with CMack’s Jeep, but the third one held us up a bit. MikeG, and all his glorious strength, managed to push the Jeep out while I took the obligatory photos. Naturally we had to try again, and we busted through successfully on our second attempt. Of course this just boosted our confidence level heading into the next drift. The outcome wasn’t quite the same this time, and we ended up high-centered to the point of pushing yielding not so much as a budge. Luckily for us some kind Scandenavian(our best guess by accent) concrete workers came to our rescue in the form of an F-250 and a tow rope. A quick tug and we were out.

Plan B involved suiting up and hiking into the put-in. Twenty or so minutes later we were riverside and putting on…….time 4:30pm. When does the sun go down again? The trip down the river was rather uneventful in comparison, but I spent a good deal of time upside down in #1 and #2 before getting my sh*t together to clean the rest of the run.

The river was around 600cfs, and had a great feel with a little more water than my first trip down the Numbers last fall. We managed to make it to the take-out and get loaded up with sunlight to spare. A quick stop at the put-in to let CMack rally car his way back through the snow to the highway, and we were off to the Coyote Cantina for post-paddle beers and grub.

All in all, it was a super trip, and I couldn’t have asked for a better crew to share the experience with. It really adds to the fun factor when the epics of the trip come off the river as opposed to heroics on the water.