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A Seven Sport Day

By Terry Miller

It was Sunday, February 26th. It had been above freezing for 20 seconds and someone said, "Let's go to the Joe". Well, being the rocket scientists we are, Jerry Williams, Ryan Donahoe and I said, "Why not?"

Around St. Maries we started noticing that the St. Joe was one big ice sheet. But ice can't form in the rapids, right? There were ice dams all the way to Avery, where the snowmobilers looked at us as though we were kind of weird.

On the scout is Sport #1, "Four Wheeling". Now, you might say four wheeling is not a sport, but we were in Idaho and we passed the road closed sign miles ago. The road was pretty rough, which brings us to Sport #2, "Javelin Throw". We didn't have a javelin so we used the next best thing. On a tight corner we hucked a Huka Creeker off the top of the truck for distance. Luckily the guard rail stopped it from plunging over the cliff.

Next we scouted the put in - nothing but ice as far as we could see. Then we scouted the entrance to Skookum Canyon which was run-able down the middle, but you wouldn't want to get upside down as there were 15-foot ice shelves on both sides and in the middle of the rapid was an ice dam. So we came to Sport #3, "Mountaineering", as we decided to rope down the cliff with boats so we could start the rapid at the end of the ice shelf. Sport #4, "Luge", involved trying to get up enough speed (while in our boats) to travel across the ice sheet and up and over the lip into the current.

Sport #5, "Ice Slalom" described our progress through the pack ice in rapids! When we came to the cable car there was a long ice dam, so we went back to Sport #3. When we hit the road it was time for Sport #6, "Dog Sledding", only we forgot the dogs and had to pull the boats, using our slings, way too far!

Around the ice dam, we employed Sports #3 and #4 and finally, Sport #7, "Play Boating". No surfing, no loops, but a new kind of boating. You do a reverse seal launch onto the ice, moving or not and do a rock spin without the rock. Much easier. Cool when the ice shelf breaks free and you are floating high and dry on your own little iceberg! We floated down to the take out, reverse seal launched into Sport #4 and after another try at Sport #6 called it a truly GREAT DAY!

PS: Don't ask me to tell you about a game of "see who can walk out onto the ice edge without falling in and drowning while your so-called friends are huckin' big rocks on the ice behind you" because Ryan was there and he is the Club Safety Coordinator, and Jerry and I are way too sophisticated for such stuff!