weekend
Out of context: Reply #23
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- k0na_an0k0
it's a long story, but a good one.
actually. it's a scary one.
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the wife and i with two other couples embarked on our yearly 3 day weekend canoe trip to sauk city wisconsin.
friday night went off without a hitch. lots of beer, lots of great bbq food. great times camping out on the campgrounds at the start of our 20 mile trip.
saturday morning started off shitty. we had a light sprinkle in the morning while loading the canoes which briefly turned into rain.... fuck it. start drinkin.
saturday morning into early afternoon was terrible with a real strong headwind that made it slow going. finally at 3pm the water turned to glass and we tied the 3 canoes together and started the party. at 6 or so we got close to our stopping point in arena wisconsin and set up camp on a 200 yard x 100 yard sandbar on the east side of the river with our backs to the forest. turns out this would be our biggest mistake of the trip.
at 12:30am i was woken up my the sound of rain on the tent. but it didn't quite sound like rain. it was weird. so i peaked out and to my surprise it was raining sand. i had only seen this once before years ago and it meant that the wind from the storm was so strong that it had picked up sand and blown it ahead of itself raining it down on our campsite.
i laid back down and thought 'oh fuck' and just then a huge blast of wind ripped into our tent ripping off the rain tarp. the wife screams as the tent was actually blown up and over, with us in it. i throw the tent back just as a buddy from the large, 4 man tent had run over to help us pull our tent back down. the wind was unreal. we were being sandblasted by the sandbar. it was amazing. our rain canopy was totally fucked. the hooks to attach to the tent were bent clean back. then the wind really started to pick up. time to get everything from the small tent into the big tent.
it was a mad dash trying to hold down both tents, throw our shit from one to another and keep our feet planted in the ground.
we had the girls stay in the large tent to try and hold it down while the guys kicked out the fire, which was now being blown 30 feet into the large tent.
we got lucky and two of our canoes were pointed directly into the wind, the 3rd we had moved and rolled over on top of the firewood to help keep dry. as we're kicking out the fire a gust of wind picked up the canoe and tossed it into the darkness of night. that's about when i shit my pants.
we grabbed what was left of the small tent and as fast as we could broke down it's legs and threw it into the large tent just as it's rain canopy was ripped from the seams and tossed into the night.
now we're fucked.
for 45 minutes the 6 of us sat on the wind side of the tent holding the tent down to the sand with our weight as the rain came pouring in.
everything was soaked and it was freezing. we're sitting in puddles of water that were forming in the tent and throwing each other whatever we could find for blankets, which were now soaked so we could try and keep warm. twice the wind was so strong that it picked up the corner of the tent and tossed us guys to the other side. it was unreal.
somewhere around 2 the storm let up enough were the guys could go out and put up the small tents canopy over the big tent to try and give us cover.
at 2:30 when the storm had completely passed it hit us how fucked we were.
everything we had was soaked, our firewood was soaked, our fire was out, our shelter and everything in it was soaked.
we got really lucky though and our newspaper somehow stayed bone dry in the garbage bag we put it in when we called it a night. so while my buddy dan tried to get a fire going james and i, flashlights in hand walked the entire sand bar gathering whatever wood we could find. there were a few large stumps/branches lying around from previous fires so we dragged them over to ours.
from 2:30 - 6:30 in the morning we all had to sit huddled around the fire to stay warm.
somewhere around 4am we saw a couple flashlights trying to come our way (we had the only fire we could see on the river) and i remembered seeing a family of four a half mile below us setting up camp. so dan and i took one of the canoes down to make sure they were ok.
a husband and wife with their two kids were trying to make their way to us as their tent had completely blown away durning the storm when they ran to the woods for cover.
we loaded them up in our canoe and headed back to our camp so they could get warm.
it was fucking crazy.
we could hear the rescue boats above and below us on the river running back and forth all night, most likely picking people up because a steady stream of canoes, lifejackets, pillows, whatever were floating past our camp.
it was fucking crazy.
when morning finally came we ended up finding our 3rd canoe and the canopy from the tent.
it sucked ass loading up the canoes again with all the wet gear.
sunday when we got home the wife and i showered and cleaned up and just kinda laid in bed together thinking about how close we came to the worst case scenario. it was pretty bad.
but, that being said, i can't wait till we do it again next year. :)