My comfort zone is no longer in my rear view mirror….it is a hundred miles back there in the dust!  Today I dropped off Aaron at his first sleep away camp.  He and his good friend are getting to stay in the same cabin on a beautiful lake here in Northwestern Montana:

 

But that is not the comfort zone of which I speak.  After dropping our kiddos off my friend Dani and I were looking for a river to float with our kayaks.  We had thought about the Swan River, but had heard that there was too much debris in the river for it to be safe.  Well, I would say that the Swan might have been our better bet!

Since we were discouraged from our original plan we decided to do the lower portion of our local river, the Whitefish River.  Now I have done the upper portion many times.  Super tame and easy.  Just a calm, quiet float.  The same cannot be said for the lower Whitefish.  Dani and I put in at Highway 40 and pointed our kayaks downstream.

The beginning was calm and tranquil.  We paddled some, rested and drifted some, talked a lot and soaked up the river.  Eventually we came to a tree that had fallen across the entire width of the river.  No problem!  We simply pulled up to the tree, stood on the very steady log and pulled each kayak over.  No harm, no foul!

Feeling pretty amazed at our kayaking ability, I thought nothing of it when the river began to riffle on the rocky bottom.  Point your nose toward the triangle, paddle straight and easy peasy!  But wait, what is that up ahead…..oh, another log across the river, but this one has a million little snags on it.  We won’t be standing on this one to cross.  Hmmmm,

Okay, we pull over to the side of the river, climb up the steep bank and carry the kayaks through the bushes, past thorns (OW!) and beyond the log.  A few scrapes and scratches along the way, but we are off again, paddling with abandon!  Wild Women of the West!

But wait, whaaaaa?!  Oh my!  The river current is pushing me straight into that bush!  Paddle, paddle, paddle, scream!, splash!  The kayak gets caught up against the bush and rolls right onto its side dumping me into the drink.  I stay under the water long enough for the current to take me to the other side of the bush, pop up and grab my kayak…that wasn’t so bad!  Neither was the two other times the exact same thing happened!

6 tree crossings, 3 dumps into the river and 5 hours later we made the last bend of the river and saw the barn that marked our take out.  We made it as the sun was setting!  We made it!  As I talked about in my post on Day 11, I have been known to worry about the “big water” that is to come.  Today, when I least expected big water, there it was, and you know what….it was okay.  And I did not spend one minute worrying about what was to come.  Cross that tree, hold your breath, come up on the other side of the bush and catch your kayak!

Breathe (unless you are under water under a bush) and smile (especially if you are dragging a kayak across the wilderness) and I’ll talk to you tomorrow xxoo