A VERY High Adventure, Part III

(Make sure you've read parts I and II first!)

Yikes, it's taking a whole ton of space to document this trip in it's entirety! :o

All right, so we came home from rafting, and we all just kinda lazed around. I followed Bro. Carpenter off down the river, and deeper into the forest, where he was fly-fishing. While out there, I saw a bunch of puffy clouds in one side of the sky, but no other clouds were up there. If Michael Sawyer hadn't come running to us with news from the bishop that we had to go back, I never would've guessed that those weren't clouds, that was smoke from a forest fire that had started on the other side of the river!!

Bro. Carpenter, me, and some of the guys who were out there as well (Luis Ocasio, Donnie Lake, and some third person) raced back to camp as fast as we could (we had to climb around fallen trees to get back there). I, frantic, had my stuff packed up in practically 10 seconds flat. We couldn't really go anywhere yet, though, because there was no way to make the rangers aware of us being in potential danger. We prayed and then had our dinner (spaghetti again), while I was still convinced the fire would be on us within half an hour (overexaggerating the speed a forest fire moves through the trees), and really didn't have much of an appetite (I was convinced to eat anyways, so I would have "fuel" to run from the fire).

Luckily for us, a certain park ranger was looking out for us, and told us we weren't in any real danger, as the fire was NOT headed for us. Also, a nice old man named Mike Barnhart (he and his wife Nancy are photographers who have had a number of photo collections published) took us all in the back of his truck, along with some shovels and other digging tools, not to mention a few gasoline containers (we didn't use those...), to some of the historic buildings so we could help save them from the fire by removing any firewood near them and digging around them. One was an old building of which I can't remember the purpose, and the other 2 were the old Stehekin School (built in 1921, top photo; I went inside there earlier on the trip to explore and found an issue of LIFE from April of 1940!) and the new one (built in 1988, bottom photo)

We then went back to our campsite at Harlequin, and packed everyone's stuff into Mike's truck, and then Bro. Bateman, Donnie, and Javonte' climbed in with all the stuff and rode all the way back to town, where we'd stay outside the Golden West Visitors Center, on the grass (they usually prohibit camping on the grass; we were very privileged that night). Mike turned around and went back after we got all of the stuff out of the truck, and just 15 minutes later the truck returned with everyone else, safe and sound.

None of us put up our tents, instead just lying there on the grass on our sleeping pads. Some guys stayed up to watch the fire to see how much further it would spread (admittedly, though I didn't think so at the time, it WAS kinda cool).

Next day, we ate breakfast, packed up, I took a short swim in the lake, we all wandered (I bought a 3 Musketeers bar and a Stehekin shirt as a souvenier), and then boarded the ferry back to Fields Pt.

We got there, drove back to 25 Mile Creek Park, and stayed one more night there. Most of us went to take a swim that evening, with this being the first time I can remember jumping right in instead of inching into the water to "get used to it" like usual, another change for the better. We had a devotional and went to bed, most of us without tents...

Some time around 3-4am, I woke up, and I could've sworn I saw a flash of lightning, and I was proven right by the thunder that sounded shortly afterwards. Bro. Carpenter got right up and told me to move over so he could get his tent set up, and that I should set up my own too, as it was starting to rain. (God was proud of us for our efforts during the whole forest fire thing, so he decided to give us one more good challenge to make it through)

I personally thought the rainstorm was cool at first, with the lightning and everything, but after I got my stuff into the tent, I was glad I had done so, because that's when it just started POURING down on us. I had to go numero uno around this point, but was smart enough to hold it until the storm finally died down.

(As a side note: my tent partner for this night ended up being Loren Franz, who graduated from Curtis High School this year, and also has Asperger's Syndrome. Most of the guys in my young men's have poked fun at how he "snores like a bear", which has irritated him to no end, but frankly, I didn't really mind, since the storm and the lack of a pillow kept me from getting to sleep anyways. Not to mention his snoring wasn't THAT bad; have you ever heard YOURSELF snore? Try it sometime.)

So we all got up around 7 or 8, ate breakfast, packed up, and drove out of 25 Mile Creek Park for the final time. We then finished off our trip by going to Slide Waters Waterpark (also in Chelan).

At the park there were a couple of "kiddie" (as in not too big, but still pretty fun) slides, then there was the new downhill racer, in which three contestants raced down water slides neck-to-neck on mats. There were 7 "main" slides, which were numbered according to excitement. The first 4 were all white slides that kind of intertwined with each other, like the green slides at Wild Waves, called the "Sidewinder", "Devil's Corkscrew", "Bonzai Pipeline", and some other name for the first one. Then #5 was the "Thunder Rapids", where you went in an innertube and continuously got stuck in these little "rapids" pools, which you had to make it out of by holding onto a rope attached to the wall (or a lifeguard held out a pole for you to grab on to so they could push you towards the slide to the next pool).

#6, probably my favorite, was called the "Tube Blaster", in which you rode in a single OR double innertube (for two people) down a twisting blue slide. Then there was #7, called "Purple Haze", a completely-closed tube slide (colored purple, of course) on which you mainly had to lie on your back, and you got going super fast; but the best part: it was pitch black from beginning to near the end, when you could see light from the exit. I took a long time to convince myself to finally ride that one, though everyone else had gone on it, but I eventually did it, and ended up doing it twice more (conquering another fear). :)

We went to a place called "Tony's Pizza" (I think) for lunch, where we got Pepperoni, Meat Lovers, House Favorite, Supreme, and Ranch Chicken (that last one had ranch sauce in place of regular tomato sauce on it, mmmm...). After that, we headed off for the Tacoma area. In the middle of our drive back, we went through a torrential downpour, which we were convinced would totally soak our stuff that was packed in the trailer behind Bishop Betteridge's truck, but luckily it had dried off by the time we got back to the church parking lot.

Well, that's the whole trip for ya! I think it's something I'll remember years from now, and be telling my children about. Hope you enjoyed reading about this as much as I enjoyed living through it! (at least in retrospect!)

Andrew Brinkerhoff, back in the house and signing off!

(P.S.: Thanks Uncle Eric for letting me use your camping gear for the trip!)

A VERY High Adventure, Part II

(Make sure you've read Part I first!)

So much to tell...

OK, so Wednesday night for dinner we had spaghetti, and then after an evening devotional from a couple of the seniors in our group (Loren Franz, Christian Bateman), headed off to bed.

Day Two had some big surprises in store for me. We had a pancake-and-sausage breakfast, then we hiked up the road towards town to reach Rainbow Falls:

The top picture shows the top of the falls, while the bottom one shows the base of the falls, which is where we were (the trail to a viewpoint higher up was closed, darn it!). I took off my shoes and managed to cross to the other side through the water. Then Ben Betteridge and Christian Bateman, as part of a dare, stripped down to just their underwear and got their entire bodies in the water. I kinda wanted to do it too, so I stripped down to only my undies, and slowly but surely got my whole body into the water! I only stayed in for a minute or two, because it was cold, but it was one of my big accomplishments of the trip, doing something I thought I wouldn't do at all.



Next on our agenda was whitewater rafting down the Stehekin River. When the guide ran off his safety spiel, I actually got a little bit tense when he mentioned that if we fell out of the raft we would have to stay in whitewater swim position (legs pointing straight out in front of you), something I wasn't sure I would be able to do, or we might end up breaking something due to the current. Sounds silly now, but I was pretty nervous at the time.



Turns out it was just a waste of energy, as it was a fun ride through and through. A couple of times we hit rapids that send up plunging through a whole boatload of water, totally soaking us, but I just laughed it off instead of getting freaked about it. Nobody fell off once! (we were split up among two rafts, one of which held a small family along with some of the guys).



The guide on our raft, Rory, a big "pumbaa-looking" guy, told us to paddle "forward two", or "all forward hard", or "forward left only", and pointed out some cool stuff, like some houses that got washed out in the flood that happened back in '03. He told us we would be going off an 18-foot jump, but I didn't understand initially that we would be STOPPING at a big rock we'd be jumping off of, and I instead jumped to the conclusion that we were going off the jump IN THE RAFT! No, I wasn't super scared about that or anything, just a little thrown; I figured if they'd been doing this for such a long time, that last bit was probably safe enough.

So after reaching the jump location, basically a big ol' rock we had to hike up a trail to get to. I was too nervous to try it, yet everyone else was jumping off and not getting hurt in any way (including a kid about half my height, who just loved it), so after some back-and-forth I finally built up the courage to try it. I got my running start and kicked off, screaming "BANZAI!!!!!".

I've never fallen from this high before, so it was new to me to feel wind rushing up past me as I fell for just a couple seconds. I hit the water pretty hard, but it didn't hurt much (maybe the shirt I was wearing, along with the life jacket and water boots helped with that), and it wasn't too cold either. I ended up trying it again, and probably would've done it a third time had we not had to move on to our last stop. This was my second accomplishment on the trip.

(continued in Part III)

A VERY High Adventure, Part I

Whew... been a while since I last posted here, huh? Well, I just got home from possibly the most adventurous trip ever just an hour and a half ago, and it was cool enough that I've decided to resume blogging starting with telling all about it!

To start, I borrowed some really neat camping stuff from Aunt Linda and Uncle Eric when we visited them last Sunday night: a huge hiking backpack, a light sleeping bag, and a self-inflating sleeping pad! Cindy and I went shopping for all the stuff it said to bring on the info sheet for the trip (called our "High Adventure", last year it was the Oregon Coast bike ride which you can read about here), like snacks, a mess kit, etc., at REI and Tar-jay (for those who haven't heard it called this before, it's our way of saying "Target"). I also got $60 of spending money, as well as my very own tent!

I took advantage of some of my spare time by practicing putting the tent up and taking it back down, and packing it away, first with Cindy's help, then eventually all by myself.

The fun began when our young men's group and three of our leaders (Bishop Betteridge, Bro. Bateman, and Bro. Carpenter) met at the church at 5pm on Tuesday. We packed our stuff up in our three vehicles and took off for Lake Chelan!

We stopped at the McDonalds in North Bend for dinner, where I went all out, getting two McDoubles (double cheeseburgers), a Reeses McFlurry, and a medium fry, all paid for with my own money. We then continued on over to the dry side of the state, headed up US-97 to US-2, and from there to Wenatchee, and from THERE to 25 Mile Creek State Park.

We stayed the night here, and the next morning drove up to Fields Pt. to catch a ferry that would take us across the lake to a nice little place called Stehekin.

After the long 3-4 hour ferry ride (going clear across the lake, lengthwise), we got off, grabbed our stuff, and wandered around for a while, eating a quick sandwich lunch at some point. Then we boarded a "shuttle", basically a short school bus with the words "School Bus" painted over with black, though you could see "YAKIMA SCHOOL DISTRICT" through the paint ;).

We rode up to Harlequin Campground, where we were staying for the majority of our trip, and got our tents set up and everything. We were then going to go out for a swim, but the bus left before I even got on!!!!

All right, before you get angry at any of our youth leaders for doing something like this, let me explain: there were 15 of us total on this trip, so the shuttle was very crowded, and as it was explained to me later, everyone was split up into two groups, and each group figured I was with the other group, so it wasn't until some 20 minutes later that they finally realized I was missing, at which point Bro. Carpenter broke into a run back towards our campsite to find me.

Meanwhile, I was initially appalled that my group would just leave without me and not come back. I ran down the road a ways, then went back, then again and back, thinking they might have returned on some back road after they realized I was gone, and they'd come back and see I was missing... Anyways, I eventually decided this was a job for my Heavenly Father, so I sat down and prayed for help. On my third attempt to run back towards town, a couple that I had run by twice already spotted me and asked me if everything was OK, and I told them about my situation, and they said they would head back to town (they were on bikes) and give my group a message that I was alone back at camp. Shortly afterwards, the guy (never got his name, unfortunately) rode into the campsite to tell me he had flagged down a shuttle to take me back to town for free!

In the end, I was reunited with my guys, and Bro. Carpenter met up with us back at the famous Stehekin Bakery, and was VERY relieved that I was all right. We all got something good (I got Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream and a bottled A&W root beer), and made the long hike back to our campsite. Oh, and apparently I didn't miss much, most of the guys said the water was freezing cold, and if you weren't already aware, I'm not a huge fan of freezing cold water...

(continued in Part II)