Last year when I arrived, aside from the snow on the tops of the mountains, everything had long since melted away. A week before I arrived this year our little city was hit by what has been described by most of the guides who were here as the "Great Healy Blizzard." It wasn't so much a blizzard as it was a day or two of substantial snow fall, but any snow falling in early May deserves such a grandiose title.
Consequently, Travis' little boat was full of snow and ice in its winter resting place on the shore of the lake below our house. It took a week or two of some decent sunlight and temps in the high 50s to mid 60s to melt it away, leaving in its place a puddle of water that required four guys to turn the boat on its side and empty it.
Travis and I had been working on building the deck on our now finished employee housing. You may remember last year that we spent the majority of our time between tours building a thirteen bedroom structure to house the employees beginning this season. After putting in 5 or 6 hours constructing our new deck on this day, Travis and I thought it'd be nice to get away and check in on the progress of the thawing out of our noble vessel. When we got down there to find the puddle of water where the ice and snow had once accumulated, plans for the first lake adventure of the 2011 season started coming together quickly. Those plans were quickly dashed when we realized that we couldn't upturn the boat to empty the water. But no sooner had we started to realize our maiden voyage would have to be postponed, Tim and Brian came walking down to see what we were up to. The four of us together were able to get the boat up on her side and empty her belly of all that water.
The electric motor that we used last year wasn't charged and ready to go out. Though I think all the ice in our little cove wouldn't have allowed us to use it anyway. The four of us decided that we wanted to see if we could make our way through the ice field into the open water using the two orrs we'd left in the boat from last year. I stood at the back while Travis stood at the front and we shoved off from the icy bank with me using the orr to push the boat along from the lakes bottom and Travis rowing up front to steer us into the thinner sections of the ice. We didn't get far before we ran into our first thick section and became stuck. Travis and I started stabbing at the ice around and in front of us to free our boat and try and keep moving on to thinner sections and hopefully out to open water. We freed ourselves and repeated the process 3 or 4 times before we finally became STUCK. At this point it was either turn around and head back or get out and start really chopping some ice. I had my big boots on and work jeans and figured we were probably only still in knee high water since the lake is only 8 feet deep at its deepest point and we were still in our cove only a hundred yards or so from the shore. So I volunteered to jump out and start hacking. The ice held me fine. I could hear it whispering quiet warnings to me as it cracked in the thinner areas and used this to navigate my way to more stable patches of ice.
I kept stabbing and eventually found myself floating on an island of ice no bigger than 4 feet by 4 feet. At this point we were all laughing and the boat was beginning to drift back to shore away from me. I thought they were messing with me and were going to leave me stranded but I guess keeping control of the boat with only one orr was pretty much impossible. So with my work mostly done and the boat freed I started making my way back to the boat jumping to a larger piece of ice and trying to inch my way to where they were floating. As I got within two bounds of the boat I heard a loud pop and felt my left foot start to sink so I lunged forward to try and regain my footing but my right foot just plunged through the ice and into the water below.
The water came up to about two inches over my knees before I got a grasp on the boat and pulled myself in. We rolled around in the boat laughing as I lay their soaked. We all knew I'd go in eventually but the way it happened made for a really good laugh. We pulled it together though and started on our way through the last couple yards of ice.
We eventually made it through to open water, but our excitement didn't last long. It turned out the ice that we'd been working so hard to get past had been protecting us from the waves being made by the blowing wind. With just two orrs we were making little to no progress on making our way out into the open water and already drifting back into the ice in our cove. So we agreed our victory against the ice was enough for the day and decided to head back. Unfortunately the path we'd created with our boat through the ice had already closed up and we would have to repeat the entire process all over again.
We worked faster now like seasoned deckhands (I am an avid Deadliest Catch fan after all) and made our way into the thick of the ice quickly. But as we got closer to the shore we found ourselves in the same situation; stuck with no where to go but backwards unless someone got out and chopped a path. I jumped out and started making quick work of the thick ice but noticed the cracking was more consistent and louder where I was now standing. The ice was definitely thinner. We were almost out so I started to make my way back to the ice when suddenly there was a loud crack and I looked down and realized I was standing with both feet in water up to the top of my thighs. I quickly pulled myself into the boat, but the damage was done. Water had soaked my jeans and, worse yet, made its way through my water proof boots. Major bummer. My efforts weren't in vein though. We made it through the ice, pulled ourselves ashore and I waddled back home to change with my first lake adventure of the season under my belt.
