“I Can Kill 27 Kindergartners”

Tom Riggs

Now before you go ballistic and call the FBI, CIA, or the  Man from U.N.C.L.E. let’s get this into context.  First, most of us in this discussion don’t play with a full deck, but that’s no excuse.  Second, the conversation around the campfire grate at Hammer Creek had run its course of previous river conquests, favorite beers, whether Superman could beat up Mighty Mouse, and favorite beers (yeah, we like beers).  Third, when normal camp talk has run its course we turn to fiction.  During a rare lull in blabology  Carl posed the question how many kindergartners could you kill if they gathered a massive attack,  before you would be overwhelmed and become the casualty.

Having been new to all the other rafters in our group, and having just arrived at the camp grate, Seth Harriff heard the question and decided his 15 year old son, Will, did not need to see the darker side of boating just yet so sent him to set up his tent and immerse himself in a relaxing video game session of  “Mortal Combat” or watch reruns of some “Freddie Kruger” movie.

Back to the topic question, and Kyle piped in “I can kill 27 kindergartners provided they don’t have clubs;  otherwise the number is lower because you might not be able to reach them”.  Melanie, who is in education at first protested her husband’s question, but you could hear in her voice that her teaching experience was putting a little devil on her shoulder telling her to throw a number out there.  Im not sure I heard a number from her but if anyone had cause it might be her.  Tearney had to throw in Canadian rules where all combatants were wearing ice skates and jock straps, and even then he said his age would limit him to one kindergartner and not even that was certain.

All the while Blair is thinking anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law and Seth is wondering if he can get his shuttle money back and live to boat another day.  The conversation drifted to the next day’s launch time and mundane things like which rapids we would scout and do we need more ice?  Mosier woke up and piped in “10 kindergartners”.  I knew he was a gamer.

Brad Sunnes, and Kerry Peck  and Mike Mattson all rolled in to the boat ramp in the morning and set about rigging their two boats while the rest of us downed a yogurt, granola, and melon.  We kept Seth away from the newcomers so he couldn’t share last night’s discussions lest they bolt with their group meals.

August 1^st and we come here for the heat and sandy beaches.  It was too early in the day to take Pine Bar as a camp so we decided to float on with intermittent boat swims as our coolant.

I believe it was Rock Creek Rapids where the river splits around a large rock.  We followed Bob and got sloshed around in the exit hole as did others in our group however the group in front of us was on river right trying to wade out to the rock for some reason.  Upon closer inspection their dog had abandoned ship when the the hole and wound up stranded mid stream.  Bob quickly pulled into a phone booth and changed his outfit then did a superhuman effort rowing back up to the base of the rock where Fido was parked.  Fido must have smelled death because he would not board Bob’s cat (maybe since it was a “cat" dogs have a natural aversion to felines and his instincts told him to stay put)  The owners were shouting commands to Fido to get on the boat or to jump in and swim but he would have none of it.  Finally Chris Day in the IK was able to paddle up to the island secure his craft to Bob’s and collar the pooch and drag him onto Bob’s boat.  Three cheers from the shore as Bob delivered the hound to his relieved owners.  They gave Bob a Coors Light.  Obviously these were really “cat” people.

 OK, it was time to look for camps but we were finding no room at the inn as we had floated into most people’s night two camp areas.  Packers Creek is just around the bend but the bachelorette party that was hanging out there did not need the likes of us to taint their Jezebel intentions.  So much to Mosier’s dismay we pressed on passing a few marginal camps in the canyon. We had our hopes dashed when the map showed a potential camp on river left that was occupied by one boat.  

Twenty two miles below Hammer Creek we found a small but serviceable camp on river right above Pipeline Rapids that had a nice swimming hole and enough places to set up cots and some slopey tent sites.  While enjoying some beers we saw the bachelorette party of four boats floating merrily by complete with an 8 ft x 2ft diameter inflated fallic device.  Yee  Haw!

Seth and Will made some great spring rolls and other stir fry goodies for dinner and again did a yeoman’s job on breakfast.  Our plan today was to get a great beach and put in less miles since we only wanted to spend one night on The Snake River.  We passed the bachelorette party’s camp as they were loading up but figured they’d catch us while scouting China Rapids. 

Well, China has an upper section and a lower section.  Set up properly to avoid the big holes and you’re In like Flint.  While returning to our boats from the scout point we were surprised to see the bachelorette party rafting on by but not as surprised as they were when their first boat got stuck in a sieve. A couple of swimmers and a couple of hangers on.  Monkey see monkey do.  Their second boat followed the same route into the sieve and piled into the first plug.  Im thinking we may have some pin kit work to do here on a very hot day.  Their third boat hit the second boat but since the slot was full they bounced off to the right and their fourth boat pulled hard to the right and missed the carnage.  The stuck girls bounced their boats and voila, they became unstuck and floated down around the bend to the lower holes of China. 

We jumped in our boats to see if there was any assistance needed downstream but they all seemed in good spirits or maybe they were full of good spirits but for the most part reported unscathed.  Even their inflated toy survived the beating.

Our boats had clean runs and Will got baptized in the IK but self rescued and showed us how the pros do it. Downstream Carl rescued a coozy from the eddie and returned it to the bachelorette boats when they floated by our 36 mile camp an hour later.

This camp had a nice lagoon the requisite sandy beach, beer and good comraderie. Carl revised his kindergartner kill number to 17.

The next day was Snow Hole day and Mike decided he and Kerry needed a bath so buried their boat on a clean but wet run.  Seth and Blair followed suit.  Mel got a fishes eye view in the front of Carl’s cat and Bob merely yawned after his picture perfect run.  Our seven mile day gave us time to set up sun tarps at our beachfront camp and again stay in the water.  A bocci game broke out but the sand was too hot for barefoot contestants.

Since it was Skit night  the Riggs men ,Chris, Carl and Mel, marched into camp singing  the Zulu version of “Men of Harlach” complete with kazoo backup.  Taking the prize for first place Mike and Kerry did Leonard Skynard’s  “Simple Man” with Mike on monotonic vocals and Kerry blowing us out of the water with her interpretive dance.  Lots of beer was spilled during the laugh session they provided.  Seth and Will finished up the entertainment with a kazoo rendition of “tequila”.

When it cooled down to 103 F Kyle, Chris and I decided it was time to make dinner.  Barely needed to cook anything.  Chris chimed in later that night that he could kill 23 kindergartners.  Obviously lots of thought goes into these declarations.  We asked Tierney if he could up his count and he replied he would probably lose against one and backed it down to 0.  Those Canadian rules can affect the outcome I suppose.

That night it clouded up and put our bivvy saks to the test with several hours of unexpected rain.  By the time we got up it had stopped but putting away wet sandy gear is its own treat.  Nevertheless we dove into the river to untie our anchored sun tarp guy lines and scrunched them up into river bags along with tents for those who erected them.

Chris Day showed us his skills in the IK through some lively sections of whitewater in the lower reaches of The Salmon.  If you followed the river map and looked hard you could see where Slide  Rapid is located but today instead of an unrunnable giant it was a mere riffle and definitely overshadowed by lesser known rapids such as Sluicebox and Eye of The Needle.

We flushed into the Snake River and the stream of jet boats greeted us and a few motorized rafting parties passed us on their race to Heller’s Bar.  We were in less of a hurry and found a beautiful beach at Monument Rock where we set up riverside cots and tarps and our conversation evolved into how many first graders we could kill.

Will and Carl took turns fishing and elicited a cheer from party central every time they displayed their catch.  Bocci ball came out as did the sun, so beach swimming was again popular or retrieving beers that would get swept out with passing jet boat wakes.

That night I woke up to head lamps and Blair questioning himself about his cot placement.  The dam controlled Snake had come up about two feet and Blair was awakened by a soaked sleeping bag that was draped into the river.  He got up and moved his cot as did others and then someone realized we had beers floating in the lagoon, our tarp was set up over the river and most of the bocci balls that were on the beach had been swept away. 

Kyle got into the IK and paddled out to our tie off rock to release one of the tarp guy lines while others were gathering in the less inundated ropes.  Boats were pulled back in and retied shorter and other housekeeping issues resolved.  The tent people high on the beach were unaware of the night follies.

 

Since enthusiasm for paddling IKs across Snake Lake was absent they were rolled and the paddlers were enjoined in sharing oar time.  Not often does one see a thunderstorm in the morning but we had plenty of flashes and booms on the paddle out.  The bimini top serves as rain protection as well as sun shade.  The storm passed after about an hour and the sky was clearing for our landing at Hellers Bar.  My rig was not there and it turned out the take out date on my form was a month prior to the launch date.  If only we could have that time machine to get back to that take out date plus to become kindergartners again and show them rafters they could only handle 7 of us!