Whitewater Rendezvous

Nitro 58, a couple of Mambos for beginners, and a Necky Orbit Fish, if you’re familiar with those.”

“I’ve tried the Fish,” Pat said. “They’re nice boats.”

“You’ll get to try them out down there.” Chaz pointed out the window to the wide, deep creek that ran behind the lodge. “I’ll go over paddling fundamentals for those of you who need it, and you can spend the late morning getting a feel for your boat. Then after lunch, we’ll have some individual training sessions to make sure everyone knows how to do a wet exit and an Eskimo roll, and I’ll spend some time with those of you who need extra help on anything.”

Individual training sessions. Megan’s heartbeat picked up a notch at the thought of spending alone time with the guide. I hope to God Ipick this stuff up fast.

“Sally will be back right before dinner tomorrow,” Chaz told them.

“We’ll turn in early so we can get going right after breakfast. We’ll be ferried to the Odakonya in two groups by Twin Otter. The trip there takes about a half hour.”

“How far do we go each day?” Elise asked.

“We’ll spend four to six hours a day paddling, on average.” Chaz glanced down the table at Megan, who seemed to be off in her own little world, staring out the window. “We don’t want anyone to get so sore they aren’t enjoying themselves, and we want to give you plenty of time to do day hikes to get up where you can really see the surrounding scenery and wildlife. So we keep a fl exible agenda. We also have a day built in to take it easy, or to stay off the water if the weather turns foul. That’s the one constant up here—the weather can change in an instant.”

“When do we get where we can see the caribou herd?” Justine asked.

“Three or four days in, we should start seeing them. It’s a truly amazing spectacle. One you won’t soon forget.”

“The picture of them on the brochure was awesome,” Yancey said.

“Why, thanks!” Chaz beamed. “I took that last summer when I was scouting out the Odakonya for this trip.”

Megan looked over at Chaz. You took that picture. The picture that was responsible for her ending up here. That brochure would haveended up in the trash, and I wouldn’t be here admiring how nicely those

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muscles in her upper arms move when she takes a bite of food. She forced herself to look out of the window again as Chaz continued.

“We at Orion follow the Leave No Trace principle on our trips, like every other outfi tter who leads groups into the refuge. The arctic ecosystem is very fragile—easily impacted by human activities. Are any of you at all familiar with Leave No Trace?”

Pat and Linda nodded their heads.

Yancey stuck a hand in the air. “I’ve heard of it, anyway. It’s packing out all your trash, right?”

“That’s a part of it,” Chaz acknowledged. “There’s a lot more to it than that, though. It’s about choosing the right campsites to minimize our impact on the environment. Taking care of how we wash up and how we dispose of human waste and leftover food. It’s about respecting wildlife. Watching where you walk when you venture away from camp.

And leaving behind souvenirs—no bringing home antlers or fossils or any artifacts we might fi nd. And there’s a distinct possibility of that, I might add. This area has been home to the Inupiat Eskimo and Gwich’in Indian people for centuries.”

Another page of the fi eld guide she’d read popped into Megan’s head. There are more than 300 archeological sites in the refuge. That had really appealed to her. The idea that she might fi nd some ancient relic. Her eyes skimmed over the wide expanse of tundra out the window. You’ll be walking where wooly mammoths and saber-toothedtigers once lived.

“I’ll give you handouts to read tonight that explain the Leave No Trace principles in more detail,” Chaz went on. “And Sue and Paul have a number of books on the refuge if you’d like to study up on some of the animals and birds you might see on the trip. Sally and I will be pointing things out as well, of course, as we see them.”

“What about fi res?” Linda asked. “Part of Leave No Trace is not building campfi res, isn’t it?”

“We don’t get a campfi re?” Yancey asked with obvious disappointment. “I love sitting around a campfi re.”

“The rule of thumb is to evaluate the wood resources and the potential impact to the environment,” Chaz said. “And if you do decide to build a fi re, you leave no trace of that fi re. We will be using stoves for all of our meals. But there are a couple of places on our route where

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Дата добавления: 2015-11-14