Discover the Story of eight boys and a leader's Washington adventure. ( click to the left to get the full story)

An road was an old logging road. that we were on and much higher

This happened fifty years ago. Darn i'm going to give my age away here. I was seventeen, we were experenced river rafters. We had a crazy scoutmaster and generally crazy young men that liked excitment. We didn't have much televisioin, no computers, no computer games, no cell phones and parents that generally let us do anything and loved are experiences. It was different times, for sure! Here's one experience gone wrong.

         Date sometime in the year 1978

 (“Location:) In a Washington forest deep in the mountains, summertime, was hot, hot, and hot, but the exact location was never actually found or rediscovered.

 (Scoutmaster) owner of a race car, a two-engine beach craft airplane, and owner of a 44 Ruger magnum pistol: “The character.”

 (Eight 16-year-old boys: scouts, explorers.)

  One 1967 international truck and a trailer to haul; five canoes and eight live wire explorer scouts. Also, as a note, the canoes were aluminum. (heavy)

 So, the intrepid Scoutmaster realized he was getting high up on the mountain. He finally found a river. That truck of boys, led by Tom, was hot, sweaty, dirty, and in dire need of water. Water for the canoes, scouts, and scoutmaster. On later observation, it was determined that the wrong road was taken (it was the lower road, not the upper!) As Tom tried to make up his mind about going down this mountain with the canoes. His boys reminded him that they were hot and sweaty, wanting a sound bath of cold water. As Tom decided to proceed down the mountain to the stream, he prayed that if anything went wrong, they’d be strong enough to rectify the situation.

  They began their descent down the mountain with five canoes, carefully sliding them down the steep slopes to the river. The river that had looked so tiny from up on the hill was now a fast, ugly, flowing river. Really, the lure of water, cold, wet, wonderful, clear water was so strong that they misjudged the whole scenario.

  Tom,the leader was appalled by the fast river, but it was running shallow. Tom realized this river would be a challenge for him and the boys. “Could they do it?” Tom was a rigger by trade working out at the Hanford complex in Richland, WA.  He had been canoeing many times in not-so-fast water and loved it. He looked at the boys and could see that their young bodies were ideally suited for this canoe adventure. He knew they would pull together if anything happened.

  And, of course, they were just that. We can do it! Their short lives had given them a positive perspective on life, leading them to believe they were the best. The first canoe was put gently on the water. The boys carefully loaded the canoe with their provisions for the night and the next day. The first two boys leaped into the canoe, paddles churning the water, immediately followed by two more canoes and four scouts. The six scouts had lurched into the fast-moving river in record time. Tom, with worry etched on his face, could no longer see the first canoe; it had vanished completely. How could that happen? Then he noticed that trees had fallen into the river downstream. Tom had heard stories of canoes sucked under a long, half-buried tree in the water. Being a rigger, Tom grabbed a coil of rope with a pulley. He didn’t have to yell at the other four scouts; they headed downstream as fast as they could. Tom fast located the first giant tree sticking out twenty feet into the river and immediately spotted the two scouts still hanging on two branches in the tree. The canoe hadn’t been sucked all the way under due to shallow water. They were still half sucked under the tree with a tremendous volume of water pinning their legs down. Tom, being the rigger, set up a pulley-type rig to pull the scouts out of the water. With the rope in hand, he tied the rope around the first boy and told him to pray and know that he was pulling them out. The scouts were frightened and cold. The sun went behind the clouds, and the temperature dropped by ten degrees. As the sun went behind the clouds, Tom could see the other canoes overturned in the water. One of the funnier boys quipped, and we did pray, and then all we got was trouble. Sammy said, “If only our moms knew what was happening, we would be in so much trouble! Tom, in his tack-turn way, said, “No shit!” Galvanized, he carefully tied ropes to the cold, shaking boys; it took Tom and the four boys to pull them out. The canoe would have to wait. Robert, one of the toughest kids there, looked back up the mountain and, in exasperation, said, “Can we pull those things back up that mountain?” “How do we get out of this mess!”Tom assured him we’d get the stranded boys and to hang in there; he’d go back up to the truck and fetch more rope. The four boys on the bank assured the stuck ones in the river that help was on its way. Huffing, Tom arrived and pulled the rope across the swift water. He knew this was the deciding wade across the stream with ropes and heavy tackle. Four boys were on the other side of the river, ready to pull him in if he had slipped. He knew that lives were at stake if he fell on the smooth rocks. Tom had instructed two of the strongest boys to follow across the stream after he secured it to the tree. So the two boys were on pulley duty.

 He set up a pulley on the nearest tree and instructed them to pull when directed. He was let out into the stream by the boys. He was lowered down to the boys stuck on the rocks. The pulley pulled the first boy's canoe, which was stuck on the rocks, back up the river with the two boys and Tom hanging onto the life-saving rope. He had two of his toughest boys on the pulley. Once they arrived at the portage tree, Tom then helped the boys over to the other bank of the river. Then back across the river again to extract the second canoe and the boys from the rocks further down the river. The last boys and canoe were pulled back up the river to the portage site, then Tom escorted all the boys to the safety of their temporary camp, where the boys had built a fire to warm them up. Tom then retrieved the pulley and rope from across the river and slogged across, holding the rope that probably saved their lives.

  The one canoe sucked under the log had to be pulled out by six of the kids and Tom. So now it was getting hot again, and the heavy canoes had to be pulled back up the mountain. Four kids, using ropes, pushed and pulled the heavy canoes back up the hill one at a time. Tom had five badly smashed canoes to bring back to the Boy Scout Council. Luckily, he, being a rigger, had a special heliark for the aluminum canoes. A rule was made to never, never go with one adult, but if you did go alone to bring along a Rigger like Tom who literally saved our bacon. As a note the boys and i didn't contine our adventure but traveled home to many cuts and bruises and i think a few broken fingers, etc.

Ric