We had tired of the lousy weather that has plagued us for the last 6 or more years, so with a hope for the best we decided on the 29th of June through the Fourth of July weekend for our fly-in. The weather had been lousy, extreme wind, cold and over all nasty. Then in the middle of the last week before the fly-in the weather turned hot with a vengeance. Oh well, better hot than cold and windy.
If there is ever a "normal" anywhere, we should have been all right. In case you are wondering, normals do not apparently exist. What should have been highs in the 80's quickly turned into 100's and 110's.
As a bit of a bonus adventure I had decided early in the year that a fly out camping trip to the Owyhee River to a place that I call "fish camp" would add a bit of fun to the fly-in. There is a nice level area and two track road that is about 1100 feet long or more that we could land on, and a nice shady glen with a good deep "Catfish hole". My last two video's were the last minute recon of the area and the trip out that John Hauck and I would take, since we would be going in on the Quads. The rest of the group would be able to take advantage of the planes, while we bumped our butts along the ground like frogs. A 45 minute flight compared to a 60 mile, three hour plus bumpy, wrist banging quad ride. Which would you choose?
John had decided with my encouragement to leave his plane at home and spend the rest of the summer and fall exploring the West with his new truck and fifth wheel. It just didn't make much sense for him to fight the weather for 2500 miles, then turn around and fight it back to Alabama. Then load up his fifth wheel and head back West again.
In preparation for the planes that would be here, I normally take some barrels and get fuel, so that the planes would not have to go off to distant airports to get fuel and burn a lot of it up again just to get back here. I had gotten a trailer hitch put on our Subaru, so I hooked up John's quad trailer, loaded it up with containers, so that we could get an early start the next morning.
One of our guy's, Boyd Young from Utah had taken off that morning and was being tracked with a Ham radio application. Before we were ready to go, I checked and found that he was slowed down to 38 MPH due to a nasty headwind. As we got in the car to go, I was relating that, and forgot that I had a trailer on. Well it didn't take long before a nasty crunch reminded me. After the dust and the self recrimination ended, the insurance company determined that a $1300 bill would set things right again. The trouble with doing things like that when you are getting up there in years, is the doubt that results. When you are young, it is just inattention, at my age, I start checking to see if I am drooling or something equally bad. Sigh!, Oh well this too will pass, and I have a good chance of forgetting it ever happened.
Eventually almost all of our people were in attendance by Saturday evening. Sharron, Karen's co conspirator from next door, had a birthday on Friday night. I had arranged to host her Birthday party at the house on Saturday, so we all chipped in and had a swim party, with a good feed for every one. I got to sing a "Happy birthday" solo much to every one's disgust.
Sunday morning was the start date to our fly out. John and I had loaded up our quads with every thing that we could carry, and hit the road by 9 AM. The others would load their planes and wait for us at fish camp.
The first 30 miles were quite pleasant and uneventful. The good road ended at a remote place called the Reinhart Ranch. From there it got a bit more adventurous. We had been averaging 30 MPH, but after the ranch that dropped to about 10 MPH at the best. I was quite surprised to bust a herd of 28 Elk around one of the hills. The terrain was rolling hills covered in Sage. There was some Junipers off in the distance, but I have to admit that the Elk surprised me a lot.
We finally topped over the last ridge in an area called the Owyhee breaks on my GPS. From there it was an 8 mile descent down the brow of the various ridge tops to the bottom. We had been fairly comfortable until we dropped down into the bottom to the 2600 foot elevation. Some of the areas that we went through on the bottom felt like a hot wall of air as we rode through them.
We found the group in exactly the right spot and added our tents to the camp. Roger Hankins, from the West side of the state was out merrily catching Bass for our evening meal. He was catching so many that he got a guilty conscience and was turning them loose. After he returned and got a scolding from me about how three Bass and one catfish was not going to feed all of us without Divine intervention, he agreed to go back as catch some more. I was surprised at how easy it was to convince him to return to his labours.
Gary Haley, a friend from Houston Tx. brought his 9 year old grandson, Drew, with him, and he had caught his first Catfish ever. so we were not going to starve. Roger came through however so we didn't have to supplement at all. Gary had made a quick flight back to the house and brought some proper cooking utensils for a fish fry, that neither John or I could carry. A little Zataran's , oil, a cast iron skillet , a whisper lite stove, and we were in business.
Drew had been described as having a "picky" appetite, but I could not see any evidence of it, as every time I turned a fish fillet over, his plate was sticking under my nose.
It was pretty hot, so we all got in the river and took our baths and cooled off some. In honor of Drew, we had a camp fire, and shot "bulls" the rest of the evening.
The next morning after coffee, I had determined to check out the hot springs that was down the river from us. I had the directions to locate it but I had never been told how to get to it. It was on the other side of the river, and from all appearances the water was much too deep to cross. Roger planned to fly down and see if there was any place to land a Kolb there.
It was early morning and it was so nice. There were Bald Eagles, Ospreys, and we were the only people on the river. The road eventually petered out. I could see the PVC Pipe on the other side, but the water was very dark and pretty darn fast. No way to tell how deep it was, and since it was about 30 yards across, pretty intimidating.
Roger after cruising around in his KXP Kolb, made an exploratory pass at the mud bank checking it out. Then came threading back through the Canyon to touch down lightly on the mud flat.
The mud had dried and cracked like an egg, but was solid. I went down and got him with the quad and together we looked for an obvious way across. All we could find was a post on either side of the river in what looked to be the narrow, fastest part of the river.
Nothing left but to try, so I stripped off and of course left my camera and every thing else that might get wet or hamper my swimming, and stepped into the mud. In some places the mud was much deeper than the water. The actual water depth was only about 24 inches, but the mud was mid thigh. I finally just leaned over and walked with my hands, letting my feet float free. Some wandering soul had packed in enough cement to shape a pretty good size tub, fitted it up with a PVC pipe and a shut off valve so that it could be filled. The water was a pleasant 102- 103 degrees.
http://vimeo.com/69917549 password - owyheeflyer
After we had our soak, we forded the River again and I waited while Roger taxied back and took off again. The heat kept building, and Karen later told me that the temps reached 110 degrees at the house. I am sure we were a bit hotter at the 2600 ft altitude that we were sitting in, and we took to the river quite often to cool off.
Roger, Drew, and Gary were out doing their best to gather enough fish for our evening meal. Roger had earlier shot one of the many Carp that are all up and down the edges of the River with a 45. I filleted it out and was using it for Catfish bait. I finally took Boyd's suggestion and started giving them enough line to hook themselves, and began catching Catfish. Since they were about 18 inches long, the 6 that I caught supplied enough fillets that we were in no danger of starving.
Our normal, if there is any such thing, temps in the early part of July are in the low to mid 80's. Our season for dry lightning is generally in Mid August. Well nothing is normal this year, and the storms were building each evening. So far we had not had any serious fires from it, but as hot as it was, with humidity in the low teens, it was only a matter of time.
Gary had been making trips in his Just Highlander, for ice, beer and Hamburgers. For some reason as soon as he got out into the great nothing, he got a craving for hamburgers. "Who am I to blow against the wind", so I didn't turn down the beer or the ice.
We finally fired up the Whisper lite stove and started the oil heating. I got a comfortable seat and began frying fillets of Catfish and Small mouth Bass. Roger and John took the fillets as they were fried and passed them around. Mr "Picky appetite", stuck to me like glue and was eating them faster than I could fry them. When every one was stuffed, there was still one or two fillets left over.
Mike Marker decided that the air conditioning in the fifth wheel that I had provided for him and Jan was calling him, so he left in his Rebel before the coming storm. He had to detour around a couple of cells to get there. He got tied down before the storm really started in earnest.
http://vimeo.com/69919580 password - owyheeflyer
Meanwhile down on the River, it was getting a bit interesting. We watched the front build, and lightening was hitting all over the Mountain tops between us and Idaho. Another storm had built up between us and home, so we had stereo booms and rumbles. Finally the rain marched up to our position and every one took refuge in our tents. It was late enough that I just went to sleep. In the night I smelled smoke, so my earlier conviction that fire would be the result of the nights fireworks, were confirmed. I got up to check but there was nothing close to us that would cause a threat, so I went back to bed.
When dawn arrived, John and I began packing for the return trip. It had rained hard through the night, so we had mud holes to contend with. We finally climbed the eight miles back out to the rim and began the long bumpy ride back to the truck.
After we passed the entrance to the Reinhart Ranch, I saw tire tracks that had gone in there and turned around. At first I was a bit puzzled as to who would have gone there. Then I began seeing dead Kangaroo Rats in the road. Then I understood that the truck had passed in the night and was most likely a BLM fire crew looking for fires.
We saw several Antelope on the way out, and a solitary doe that I passed about a hundred yards to the right of, just had to race. I cannot explain, but for some reason they feel that they have to cross the road in front of you. I was only doing about 25 MPH, and I could see the wheels turning in her head. Sure enough she couldn't stand it, and took off. At first she was just matching my speed, then she got lower to the ground, and being prepared, I matched her speed, holding my hat on with one hand, and trying to steer with the other. I got up to 45 MPH before she really buckled down and got far enough ahead ( 15 yards ) to cross in front of me. Duty now done and Antelope honor upheld, she was content to slow down to watch me stop so that I could laugh without crashing.
As we got nearer to the end of the road, we began to pass other BLM rigs. At that point I knew that things had gotten a bit interesting last night. I told John that I would be able to tell how bad it was by how cranky Karen was. When she gets scared, she gets cranky, generally at me, because I had left her alone. I met Tami and Dave at Burns Junction talking with the BLM fire crew, and it was obvious that a fire had started on the Ranch below me. They had put out the fire, and was mopping up the line.
When we pulled into the drive way, I knew that I was in trouble, and that it had been high on Karen's scale of cranky. The contractor that I worked for last year in Winnamucca, Nev. had called and wanted me to come and get a water tender, and take it to a fire in Paradise Valley, Nev. Wonderful! Just what I needed, a house full of people that I really enjoy, and I have to go off to one of the Cluster @#*^'s that are generally associated with the Government agencies.
While I had been gone, the water line that feeds the sprinkler system and the remote water for the animals had separated. Boyd Young who had been a plumber before he retired had kindly crawled down in the header box and stuck it back together for me. So nothing left but for me to make my apologies and head South. Sigh!
One of the contractors other employees met me at the turn off to Paradise Valley with the Truck. It of course was not ready, and had a few vital parts missing. After a bit of delay while they were delivered, I began my search for the fire crew that I was supposed to be supporting. After stopping in the only commercial establishment in Paradise, a bar, I got the general direction that I needed to go, and began my search for the fire crew. I got lucky and found one piece of tape at one of the two track junctions and just kept going until I ran into the fire crew. They had pretty well wrapped up all the active fire by the time I arrived. My function was to refill their tankers which will hold about 800 or so gallons of water. They had been using a Ranchers portable water trailer whose normal function was to provide water for his cattle.
Their operations area was a cattle corral that was on a pretty good slope. I had just dug out a semi flat area for my cot, when they all drove up, told me to pump the rest of my water in the tank, and come to Winnamucca after I refilled the trucks tank at the fire station in Paradise.
It was a bit of an adventure getting down off the mountain as my headlights were pointed in all directions. Picture Marty Feldman and you have an accurate idea. By the time that I had gotten into Paradise and was filling my truck, the plan had changed at least three times. The final plan was to drive to MP 158 on Interstate 80 to a different fire. I finally arrived at about 1100 hours, and set up in a closed off Rest area. It had been closed because of bad water, and that of course meant that there were no toilets available.
I pumped my last water at 0400, and went to sleep with my cot on the asphalt beside the truck. I was up again at 0600 and throughout the day until about 2000, filled tanker trucks. There was no supplies or water, or crappers for that matter. I had water, no ice of course, but as long as I was in the shade it wasn't that much problem. I had brought some MRE's, and of course I had enough fat around my middle to be able to survive for quite a while.
About Wed. they began ramping up, and crews were coming from all over the West. An Indian crew out of Arizona, hotshots from John Day Oregon, and various locations in Nevada. They began hitting the trouble areas with "Seats" ( Crop duster types), Twin engine tankers as well as a pretty good size twin engine jet, and a chopper. They hit it all day long, and finally got the last hot spot out. There were cats and crews crawling all over the mountains grubbing out the hot spots.
They brought in porta potties, MRE's, and Gator aide with water. That night we had a really interesting evening, as a front blew through sometime in the night. I was still sleeping on my cot with no tent. I woke up in time to grab my chair and the few loose items that I had stored under my cot. When I woke up in the morning, I discovered that three of the Porta potties had blown over. Glad that I didn't have to clean that up.
That day they sent me up in one of the canyons to support the Indian crew from Arizona. I found that Karen had sent my Kindle along and I spent a nice restful day reading. Having nothing else to do but read and drink water, I finished an entire Patterson novel well before time to leave. The crews were lining up about 10 feet apart and were marching over the entire burn grubbing out hot spots. Some of the hills were very steep, and my respect for their hard work grew. They were packing tools, survival gear, food and water.
I finally got tired of seeing all the grime under my finger nails and took a shower, shampooing my hair under one of the pipes that was used for one and half inch hoses. There was a little creek in the bottom and I washed my shirt there, hanging it on the outside mirror to dry. It took no time at all.
There was another rock and roll storm that night, only this time it had rain in it and it soaked every thing quite well, so the next day they started demobilizing the camp. I finally made it home after 5 days. I had not had a real shower or a cup of coffee in that time. Luckily I seem to be able to do with or without caffeine without any distress.
Of course every one had left the day before I got home. On the way home Andy Slinkard from Washington called and said that he was on his way down. So I at least got to play host for one day.
