Sawtooth Challenge day 6 - the big push

Hello, My name is Royd, and I abuse meat.

Doing inventory the night before the big push, it is revealed that Royd has been holding out on the clan; in his possession are the makings of a Feast O Rama - steaks and plenty of them; unfortunately they have well, " turned "; meaning a bit more then aged, bordering on green.

This how-ever does not take away the fact that they are steaks, now basting on the fringe of a Smith Fire filling the air with the smell of a  back home county barbeque; we spend a fair bit of time discussing the what if's how bout's of throwing caution to the wind and digging in; as men are easily distracted, we turn to Sandy and Janet who are elbows deep into a "Smores - a borg"  So our thoughts drift from dead beef to rich sugary goodness.  " yes please ".

So the clan turns in and we wake  early for a 8:00am start; which means on the water at 7:45am if you are looking at Bob's watch.  Bud, Taylor, Sandy, Koa and I give way to the queens wave, finishing our breakfast and coffee as the majority of the Sawtooth Clan push on.

The day is filled with rock bars, riffs and an occasional," What the F was that? " as we skirt monster boulders that jump out of nowhere.  Discussion goes to the section called big rapids; oh Bud tells tale that we have been preparing for it the last couple of days with what would be riffs and boulders; hmm, well  guess we'll see what happens. So we reel in some of the group which has spread out over a 4 mile widening section of the Muskegon; nods waves and leap frogging our way down river.

We are entering Big Rapids the city; so Big Rapids the rapids should be close; yep there's the bridge, did Bud say stay left or stay right?... what's with all these damn gauwkers?  We make it through with out incident but almost roll it in the eddy, safe on shore we scurry to the bridge, it's the front group of the clan watching the rest of us paddle through.

Word trickles down stream that Paula and Janet have wrapped the Jensen up river on what is now being called P-J's Boulder; Bob is close by peeling them off; all is well, some cracks, but no leaks.  we push on...

"...day 6 - the big push" And the day Janet and I have a boulder named after us. Did a lot of praying on that day and apparently they were heard because despite floating backwards, hitting boulders going sideways in a big, well-loaded boat we made it without flipping. Way over my comfort zone but learned a lot. - Paula M

More photos - click here

to be continued...