July 8 - 13, 2008 Middle Fork River Trip

What a trip! When we launched the river was at a fun level of 3.1 feet. Our lead guide, Carl B., thought he had seen it all, that is until Door's rock where Jason decided to take the more interesting route.

Although he appears wrapped,
Jason is just "stopped" briefly to "scout" the rapids downstream:

Later that night, while camped at Fire Island, Momma bear and her two cubs came down to see if we had any left overs from dinner. She was disappointed to see though that we had strapped down all of our coolers-except for one-so she settled with drinking five of our beers and eating Skip's bagels. All the guides stayed up that night, to make sure our "guest" wouldn't get into too much trouble. Around 6 AM the bears said good bye to our camp and headed off downstream.

Dutch oven master and IRJ guide, Andy Wilkin,
cooks up a delicious meal for the bears:

The bears were after the cake, but luckily we ate it first:

Other highlights include the wild surf at Tappan falls (shown in the video), night five elephant croquet, Ken's many swims, beautiful Vail falls and of course, Miss Lick-a-Chick!

Thank you all for a fantastic trip. We had a wonderful time and we're looking forward to seeing you again in 2010!