I got to spend the fourth of July in the Narrows. I was not incredibly excited about it because I knew that there would be a lot of rangering to do since it was a holiday weekend. I got to spend the trip with Matt, which was good as it would not have been fun to spend the fourth of July alone. We ran into a rattler again on the walk out from Chamberlain’s Ranch. We were probably only about half an hour in when we stumbled upon it. Surprisingly, I actually
spotted this one as it slithered right in front of us on the road. He seemed to not be too worried about us, so we continued on our way. I was right, there was a lot of rangering to do as there was a guy who left his group to hike out, not good. Then there was a big group of twenty somethings and someone was smoking. When we are under fire restrictions, that was no good. We found them at t
he waterfall, which I almost convinced Matt that we were going to have to rappel. This trip would be fun because we were going to stay the night in Deep Creek since we were doing Emergency Beacon Locator testing. Well, it just so happened that I screwed up the test because when I thought that the beacon was on, it was off. I figured it out when I tried to turn it off and I turned it on. So what ended up happening was I set the beacon off at a time when I was not supposed to. We were all stoked to explore Deep Creek in our free time, but since I screwed up the beacon testing I was in a pretty bad mood. I got burned out on it after about half an hour and Matt and I made it back to our campsite to spend the evening. I made fun of him for his MRE while I enjoyed my Deluxe Mac & Che
ese. I was nice and shared a bit with him. I got to sleep that blissful backcountry sleep after I took a nice refreshing dip in Deep Creek to clean the day’s grime off. The Narrows is beautiful, don’t get me wrong, it is just hard when you have to pump yourself up when you wake up in the morning to deal with all the chaos that can go on. We ran into a group with an inner tube (bad). We had a group that had 10 people in one site (bad). And then we had a group of people who stayed in a site that was closed instead of their own site (bad). I just wish people could follow the rules to help keep our Park pristine and beautiful. The worst of the whole day was when we came to Campsite 12 and someone was kind enough to defecate in their boots and leave them in the campsite. I deferred to Matt and let him carry the stinky surprise out. We debated for a bit about continuing because it actually began to rain. It did not seem particularly strong though so we continued on down. We ran into a group of ladies a ways down who were staying in site 6 the night before. They were very nice and probably one of our only positive contacts we had in the backcountry section. Well, after that we were down to where more and more people were appearing. By the time we got down to below Orderville it was like a giant line. We did some graffiti removal, but Matt was hankering to get rid of those boots so we picked our way through rush hour traffic and made it to the Riverside Walk. It is hard to believe the amount of people on that trail, but most city sidewalks are not as busy as that trail is, especially on the fourth of July weekend. The last ranger business of the day was to escort a 12 year old boy back to the bus stop who decided that his dog should go on the trip with him in his backpack. Not happening, so I got to do the dirty work of saying no way. Well, back to the shuttles and Matt got to dispose of his boots. This was definitely one of those trips where you debate whether you enjoy mixing business with pleasure.
spotted this one as it slithered right in front of us on the road. He seemed to not be too worried about us, so we continued on our way. I was right, there was a lot of rangering to do as there was a guy who left his group to hike out, not good. Then there was a big group of twenty somethings and someone was smoking. When we are under fire restrictions, that was no good. We found them at t
he waterfall, which I almost convinced Matt that we were going to have to rappel. This trip would be fun because we were going to stay the night in Deep Creek since we were doing Emergency Beacon Locator testing. Well, it just so happened that I screwed up the test because when I thought that the beacon was on, it was off. I figured it out when I tried to turn it off and I turned it on. So what ended up happening was I set the beacon off at a time when I was not supposed to. We were all stoked to explore Deep Creek in our free time, but since I screwed up the beacon testing I was in a pretty bad mood. I got burned out on it after about half an hour and Matt and I made it back to our campsite to spend the evening. I made fun of him for his MRE while I enjoyed my Deluxe Mac & Che
ese. I was nice and shared a bit with him. I got to sleep that blissful backcountry sleep after I took a nice refreshing dip in Deep Creek to clean the day’s grime off. The Narrows is beautiful, don’t get me wrong, it is just hard when you have to pump yourself up when you wake up in the morning to deal with all the chaos that can go on. We ran into a group with an inner tube (bad). We had a group that had 10 people in one site (bad). And then we had a group of people who stayed in a site that was closed instead of their own site (bad). I just wish people could follow the rules to help keep our Park pristine and beautiful. The worst of the whole day was when we came to Campsite 12 and someone was kind enough to defecate in their boots and leave them in the campsite. I deferred to Matt and let him carry the stinky surprise out. We debated for a bit about continuing because it actually began to rain. It did not seem particularly strong though so we continued on down. We ran into a group of ladies a ways down who were staying in site 6 the night before. They were very nice and probably one of our only positive contacts we had in the backcountry section. Well, after that we were down to where more and more people were appearing. By the time we got down to below Orderville it was like a giant line. We did some graffiti removal, but Matt was hankering to get rid of those boots so we picked our way through rush hour traffic and made it to the Riverside Walk. It is hard to believe the amount of people on that trail, but most city sidewalks are not as busy as that trail is, especially on the fourth of July weekend. The last ranger business of the day was to escort a 12 year old boy back to the bus stop who decided that his dog should go on the trip with him in his backpack. Not happening, so I got to do the dirty work of saying no way. Well, back to the shuttles and Matt got to dispose of his boots. This was definitely one of those trips where you debate whether you enjoy mixing business with pleasure. 
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