River Miles: 9 Steps: 5,613 Wildlife: Beaver swimming by the boat, tons of ducks, 9 or 10 mountain goats by the riverside, ring tailed cat at camp Faith in Humanity: Nice of my trip mates to so willingly share extras with Caroline as she lost quite a substantial amount of gear! Wow, what a day! Sleeping on the boat went pretty well.l: Comfortable, neat to wake up and see the stars, only a bit of condensation in the morning. Today was the big day: starting our trip! Woooo! First we woke up, made coffee and tea, had a briefing about how a bunch of gear works, had a regulations talk that the ranger led and then tied a whole bunch of bags to the boats, triple checked everything and boom! On our way! I shared a boat with Shawn (our Captain) and Caroline (Puppy). We certainly shared a ton of laughs! I got to row my first rapid!!!!! Only a 2 on the scale out of 10, but that’s a first for me. I’ve certainly got some learning to do, but it was incredibly fun! We left camp really late today: 1pm so we only made it about 9 miles. 9 beautiful miles! At camp we tackled some pretty big tasks: we have so much freaking gear! Set up the tables, the camp chairs, prep a fire, cooking, cleaning, tiki torches. The whole works! A freak wind storm came in quick and I first ran down to check the boats and my gear. Everything was ok but as I went back to camp it turns out Caroline’s tent flew into the water, breaking through 6 stakes and defying our into the river!!!!!!! We didn’t recover it, either! She took this with amazing stride and we will continued on the river tomorrow. Bummer that she lost her tent, sleeping bag, pad, cell phone and more! Amazingly, our group had a spare sleeping bag, sleeping pad and some clothes! There’s some hope we’ll find the lost gear tomorrow but that’s certainly a bit up in the air! Crazy times! In less dramatic news: we had quite a nice fire, I decided last minute not to sleep on the boats and set up my tent near the water. Good times!