My friend Gavin was married last weekend and his best man and friends planned a survival weekend instead of the traditional Bach Party. The plan was to camp two nights on the Buffalo river while canoing during the day, We would not be allowed to bring food or a tent, but would be allowed to bring fishing poles, sleeping bags and one change of cloths.
A Journey of Survival:
As we met up to make the trip down to the Buffalo river in Northern Arkansas, the forecast for the weekend was 90 – 100% chance of ran. But, being the testosterone filled men that were are, the 12 brave soles loaded up 6 canoes and the limited provisions the made the trek down south, an 8 hour drive..
On arriving at our first camp site, there were sprinkles but the rain had note moved in yet. I volunteered to drive the pick up vehicle to our take out point a 3 hour round trip, while most of the group stayed and setup camp. On our return to camp is started to rain, and on our return is was raining pretty good. The group set up a communal tent, for all of us to sleep under, the problem was it was not big enough the the 4 of us that drove vehicles to the take out point, so we had to make shift and addition in the rain. I actually sleep well in the conditions and only woke at 6:30am the next morning when I noticed my feet were wet, then noticed that my sleeping bag was soaked. I quickly exited the tent and got my rain gear on as it was pouring outside. The rain gear I brought was not very adequate, so I was thoroughly soaked with in a few mins. But the temp was good, a solid 50+ degrees. After we readied the canoes and broke camp, we set out down the Buffalo river.
The plan was to travel a total of 23 miles on the river, 11.5 the first day, then camp, then 5-10 the second day then camp then the last 2 – 3 miles the morning we would drive back to Nebraska. As we headed out the first day, it was miserable conditions, huge down pours and cool. We had 6 canoes and one capsized with in the first 10 mins on some pretty solid rapids. We tried fishing from the canoes, but had very little luck. It rained on us for much of the 3.5 hour canoe and we were ready to set up out second camp. We spotted a nice flat area that was river bed but was a bit higher to set up camp. It was about 12:30pm when we went ashore. We started the task of build a fire which took about 3 hours to get going (I choose to spend my time doing this as I was cold and had little interest in finishing or hunting). The rest of the group either started to build shelters out of tarps or other natural structures (trees), or fishing / hunting for game. Several of the men caught some small bluegill / sun fish and one guy – Travis caught a nice small mouth bass. We had no luck at catching the Trout (on trout lines) that the area was famous for.
It was a pretty quiet group all afternoon as the group was pretty miserable. But I also realized that this is what I was expecting on a “Survival Trip” It was going to be uncomfortable. I told the men during the trip down that ATTITUDE was going to make or break the weekend and that they were all going to need to find comfort in dis-comfort. During the afternoon of the first day, the ran stopped and it actually got warm enough to dry out some of out wet clothes and sleeping bags. I kept myself busy all afternoon with the fire and enjoyed keeping it going. After the fish were fried from the days catch, we noticed that the river was starting to rise at a solid rate, but nothing to alarming. We moved the canoes higher up the bank and it started to rain again. During the day I made a very primitive “A” frame shelter with a tarp as the roof and a tarp as the base right next to the fire that we got going. As the rain started to come down Travis and I took cover in the shelter. My sleeping bag was pretty moist from the rain but I crawled in with all my clothes on. I was freezing cold and the only way I could stay warm was to seal the bag and breath heavy inside the bag to elevate the inside “climate” of the bag. It worked and although I was wet I was warm. We took shelter around 6:30pm.
I woke up several times that night to relieve myself and each time I noticed that the water level was rising. At 12:00 midnight, I noticed that we (Travis and I) would most likely need to move our shelter, and at 3:00am I woke to see the water level only 12” from out shelter. I woke Travis and told him we needed to move. The rain had broke and the sky was clear then. I could see thousands of stars and the Milky Way! It was amazing. The most enjoyable moment of the trip as I took time to appreciate the vastness of God's creation. As I was accessing the situation I noticed the the canoes that we had moved were ½ submerged (we had them upside down). Three other guys Frock, Brandon, and Brent had set up their shelter at the same level as ours so I woke them up. Travis and I took down our shelter, moved the canoes to higher ground and then spent a couple of hours trying to make a fire as we were cold to the bone. At about 5:45am, I woke the rest of the group up and informed them of the situation. As they got up and got going the water was still rising, as we pushed off, the water was now at the level of the fire we had tried to start.
We pushed off at 6:30am, in a dense fog. The water level was amazingly high with a ton of dabree in the watter. We could tell there was clear sky and we all were anxiously awaiting the sun. The temp was cool but not cold and a bit windy, There was a strong current and were making good time. Gavin and I were canoe mates and I finally figured out the steering on the second day. The group was debating on what to do, do we bag the trip and go directly to the take out point, or do we find another camp site for another night of “SURVIVAL”? We stopped to take a break after 1:45 mins of canoing to enjoy the sun and determine out move. I think were were split 50/50 on the decision, but made the decision to continue down stream and access where we were at on the map. It was very hard to determine our exact location. We new we had to get on the White River and paddle up stream to get to the take out point. We approached a junction in the river and almost missed the White river. But we took it to be safe and it turned out to be exactly where we were supposed to go. As we were loading the canoes, we discovered that the river had been shut down yesterday because the water table had risen 16' over the last 24 hours and was considered to dangerous by the Game and Parks Commission. There was an additional 4' of water rise still expected in the next few hours. Park Rangers were actually looking for us!
We stopped for lunch my first meal in 40 hours. Yes – I fasted during the trip. Best Sonic chicken sandwich I have tasted. It was quite the site. 12 men pulling up to a Sonic fast food. We stopped in a town called Fricken, AK. Yes – you read that right. We got some great laughs out of the Fricken Police car that drove by many times.
All in all a great trip with a bunch of guys, my most memorable bachelor trip. Best thing about the trip was to see how people handle stress and discomfort. It is easy to think that a trip like this will be a blast and we tend to identify with the GLORY of it all, but after it has been raining on you for 24 hours you get broken down and it becomes a challenge.
Life is Survival -
Kevin
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