High Adventure Recap Part One

Day one of the 2013 adventure, June 25, was longer and more interesting than we planned when the canoe trailer I was towing suffered a leaf spring failure which caused a flat tire and we had to pull off the road in Burlington. After changing the tire it became obvious that the trailer needed repair and we could not continue to tow it.

By this time a couple of hours had passed and through phone conferences we decided to continue West without the trailer. Bro. Stoddard, Peery, and Younce would rent a couple of canoes at the river put-in and we would make arrangements for the Raleigh Stake, which owns the broken trailer, to repair it.

At that point I realized I had been hauling a heavy, poorly maintained trailer with seven canoes when we only needed two canoes from that trailer.

Despite the setback we launched into the New River and paddled for more than five hours, arriving at the 211 access of New River State Park just as dusk was enveloping the river.

The trailer breakdown was not the only challenge of the day. One of the Raleigh Stake canoes from the other trailer was leaking. Thomas Day and TJ Johnson  were paddling this canoe. Dallin Despain and I were assigned to be the last canoe in the convoy and we stayed with Thomas and TJ while the others moved faster, proceeded out of sight, and we felt alone.

I know that the Young Men said some prayers and at least one of those prayers was answered immediately. Despite the safety issues of running a leaky canoe into sundown we reached the night's camp safely, set up, had dinner, and a short devotional (although I slept through the devotional on the first night).

It was a challenging day due to the use of poorly maintained gear: a suspect trailer overloaded with too many canoes, and one canoe that had a significant leak.

Nevertheless we adjusted to conditions, met our objectives for the day, and learned some important lessons.