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As the Oarlock Turns Part 7: Don’t Feed the Wildlife

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There I lay on my inflatable sleeping pad. Two inches of foam wrapped in synthetic material. My sweaty back makes contact. Sticky. Gross. I scoot the sheet over the exposed plastic. A sleeping pad and full-sized pillow are a luxury on the river. My lumbar moans as gravity relinquishes its grasp on my muscles. Muscles that have been lugging heavy boxes, tables, and sometimes small children when they fall out and under the boat, over awkward terrain all summer long.  Lying beneath the stars never felt so damn earned.

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It’s August now and the wear and tear is finally kicking in and catching up.  Feet have odd sandal sun-tans, heels have fissures the size of the Grand Canyon running through them. My hands need an industrial metal solvent to remove the aluminum concentrated throughout the microscopic cracks. My knees creak every time my compatriots and I carry the 150-pound drink cooler from boat to camp in the evenings and vice versa come sunrise, as if walking to the raft for a beer is too far. In some cobblestoned-ankle-breaking cases, it is too far. Lying beneath the ponderosas never felt so good.  I don’t realize until this moment, between vertical and horizontal orientation, that this body hasn’t stopped moving once since 160 decibels blasted me from slumber 16 hours ago. Damn that tiny alarm.

Just as my head finds the perfect resting place to usher in the much welcomed sleep, CRACK! A table falls. Strange. The evening is as calm as ever here at Survey camp on night four in the impassible canyon. I resist the urge to check on the situation. BAM! An aluminum side box is side swiped with a carpenter’s hammer. A carpenter’s hammer? Who is swinging a carpenter’s hammer into metal dry-boxes at 11 pm on a rafting trip? Headlamps start flicking to life.  From the ether of the ponderosa forest, I can hear inquisitive river guests.

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In a southern accent: “OH MY GAWD! A BEAR!”

“I think it’s a mountain lion!”

FINE. I think to myself. I’ll get up! Upon further inspection, approaching warily, I find that the killer beast marauding throughout the camp threatening to rape and pillage. This monster with blatant disdain for well-rested guides. A deer. A doe to be more precise. Pushing over tables and kicking its hooves into the side of our latched food boxes. At the root of these thuggish acts, stood an aggressive, sleep-disturbing deer. The horror.

Guides assembled, trying their hands at lassoing, spooking, quarantining and booby-trapping. All to no avail. Thank goodness Andrew was there to guest guide from a lifestyle that allowed him a more regular sleep schedule than a full season of living on the river allots. In other words, he had the patience to stay up most of the night and defend the kitchen with a stick and military grade flash light set to stun.

There is a fine balance between nature and nature lovers. As enthusiasts of the outdoors, we interact regularly with wildlife, flora and fauna alike. Just today, Andrew’s face has returned to a human-like formation following an allergic reaction to pollen. Sometimes, we interact more personally with nature than we would prefer on multiple occasions throughout a season of “living in the wild.”

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The trip prior, I stumbled out of my sleepy haze by the starlight, stood two feet from a snake (I can only guess at its precise species) proceeded to groggily pee on it  in the darkness of night, unbeknownst to me, and drift back to sleep to the sound of rattles. At the edge of Cliffside rapid, guides slapped their hands together aggressively in hopes of persuading a badger to swim out of camp. Trying to coax a badger into doing something it doesn’t want to do is a poor idea at best. At the river’s edge, Mr. Badger turned in repudiation, strolled within inches of a dumb-stricken guide, hissed, and continued his way upriver. Luckily for the guide, Mr. Badger left his ankle intact.

We trip into patches of poison ivy, remove three-foot buzz-worms from camp with glorified-trash tongs, relocate “troubled” ground squirrels with paddles to opposing river banks, coax grouse into fellow guides tents and cuddle far to often with Melvin the mouse and friends as we dose dreamily in our sleeping bags. Occasionally, on hot, steamy nights, when it’s impossible to sleep with any clothing, one can witness guides running about in the buff, banging pots and pans when rogue bears roam into camp. A spectacle to be witnessed and depending on who is on the guide crew, my favorite.

So majestic. The wild outdoors. There’s no place like home.