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Friday night Jeff and I left work a little early to head over to Bear Creek Canoe Run and get our campsite. We arrived about 3:30 to find the place closed and gate locked. So we drive 20 minutes back to town, call leave message and piddle around dollar stores. The owners returned about 5:30 (some emergency kept them away). We set up our tent in some drizzling weather. 6pm - no sign of friends. I guess about 6:30 we drive back up the hill a couple miles to get cell signal and leave messages. The brothers are lost but found some cool Bluegrass festival with old men missing teeth. I think a little after 7 the others get there. Claire brought a pop up tent which turned out great since the rain didnt stop. We also had portable tiny charcoal grills which we had to cook on since we couldn't get a fire. About 10pm the bottom dropped out and lots of rain came down. I was ok with rain, but the lightening kept bringing flashes to mind of all the downed trees in our neighborhood last weekend and I knew our tent would not stand a chance against a tree. The heavy storms lasted about 2 hours - no sleep for me when the ground kept shaking! Afterward the slow steady rain was nice except that I had drips on my legs (yes rain guard must have leaky seams). It kinda reminded me of chinese water torture - when was the next drop going to fall. So I guess I got about 4 hours sleep that night.
For breakfast we boiled omelets in a baggy -pretty easy and tasty. We went kayaking about noon for the half day trip. We went down lower bear creek, that had class I and II rapids. I think there were only class I rapids though. The water was a bit murky after all the rain, but it was a pretty float trip. In the middle we found a beautiful waterfall that you walked over shallow rocks and under a cliff edge to get to. The guys went in the swimming hole which was freezing. They guys also jumped off a rope swing a few times in another spot. After we had floated for 4.5 hours we got worried that we somehow missed our exiting spot, but we found it - guess we were just slow paddlers. Sunny managed to flip her kayaking 3 times I think. Jeff did once and had to struggle to get the water out and get back in (sorry noone stopped to help). So there were a few bang-ups in the bunch, several bug bites, one ankle twist, and one puking incident, but that was about it.
We returned home Sunday morning exhausted with alot of wet muddy stuff to clean up.
For breakfast we boiled omelets in a baggy -pretty easy and tasty. We went kayaking about noon for the half day trip. We went down lower bear creek, that had class I and II rapids. I think there were only class I rapids though. The water was a bit murky after all the rain, but it was a pretty float trip. In the middle we found a beautiful waterfall that you walked over shallow rocks and under a cliff edge to get to. The guys went in the swimming hole which was freezing. They guys also jumped off a rope swing a few times in another spot. After we had floated for 4.5 hours we got worried that we somehow missed our exiting spot, but we found it - guess we were just slow paddlers. Sunny managed to flip her kayaking 3 times I think. Jeff did once and had to struggle to get the water out and get back in (sorry noone stopped to help). So there were a few bang-ups in the bunch, several bug bites, one ankle twist, and one puking incident, but that was about it.
We returned home Sunday morning exhausted with alot of wet muddy stuff to clean up.
