Taking Buffalo Gal for a Walk

Buffalo Gal with the NFCT decal on the bow.

Katina Daanen’s “Through-Paddler’s Companion” lists every portage, but more importantly, it breaks each portage into what portion is wheelable, and what is not.  She even breaks some of them down to ‘wheelable with difficulty,’ indicating where roots, rocks, or other problems may make using a cart difficult.  Unfortunately, most of the hand carries, versus portage cart carries, appear early in the trip, and one is 1.3 miles.  Later, the portages are longer, but are mostly wheelable with an appropriate cart. 

With a new hat on top, and my Keen hiking shoes on the bottom,

it was time to give it a shot.

With the canoe yoke done, it was time to make a portage and try everything out.  The wind yesterday was blowing about 20-25 mph, but I tried to make a portage as we took a break from watching the radar for tornado development.  It was like carrying a sheet of plywood on a windy day, as the wind tried to spin me and the canoe first one way, and then the other.  The pads pressed into my neck muscles and caused a lot of strain.  I went about a quarter mile, and was done.  After a bit of thought, I decided the pads must be too close, so I moved them outboard on the yoke so they had a 20 cm separation.

This morning, I tried the portage again before the wind got up to normal strength.  It was only about 15 mph.  The separation of the pads made all the difference in the world.  I walked a full mile with two short stops of 2-3 minutes to give the shoulders a break, one at a half-mile, and the second at about eight-tenths of a mile in.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but upon my return, I took a tape measure and measured the spread on the Adirondack pack canoe yoke.  It is 19 cm, so I know now I’m in the right ballpark, and am happy with the results. 

The Yoke's Final Touches

The finished yoke.

With the end fittings installed so the yoke can be attached to the gunwales of the canoe, this is what the finished yoke looks like.  (I don’t think you can beat the beauty of cherry wood.)  Instead of probably $110 for the commercially created yoke with shipping cost and hardware, I probably have less than $10 in this, plus the satisfaction of creating it myself.

End clamp detail.  To keep the bar from twisting and coming undone,

the outboard end is routed to grip the top of the gunwale, and the

inboard end is cut to sit over a brass key set into the step or post.

 The pads are two pieces of 4 X 8” by ¾” inch marine Harborlite plywood.  Harborlite is certainly not cheap, but I had this on hand from previous boat projects.  Any exterior plywood with the end grains sealed and the entire block then painted would provide good service.  I contact-glued four pieces of closed-cell foam together to fit on the plywood.  Two bolts were set through the plywood and epoxied in place, and the end grain of the ply was also epoxied.  The bolts are 3.5” apart so they will span the width of the yoke regardless of where the pads cross the yoke.  Two pieces of aluminum bar stock were cut and drilled to fit over the bolts and grip the yoke, and two wing nuts completed the need for quick but secure tightening.  The finishing touch was wrapping the pads in vinyl covered material.  I would have preferred stapling the vinyl on with Monel or stainless staples, but had depleted my supply on hand, and such things are not available in NW Oklahoma.

The yoke and pads fitted on Buffalo Gal, the Mohawk Odyssey 15.

Here’s something you may wish to consider if you haven’t already done so.  In the lower left corner of the picture with the yoke in place on Buffalo Gal, you will see a bright orange sticker.  This is a USCG “Vessel Identification Sticker for Canoe, Kayak, or Rowboat."  The one I have on the boat is an earlier edition of the one pictured, but the function is the same.  Before attaching the sticker to the boat, you should take an indelible marker and provide your name and a couple phone numbers.  The rugged adhesive holds the vinyl sticker in place for years. The Coast Guard, along with Natural Resources departments and police agencies, have had problems for years with finding small craft sunk, stranded, or floating down a river with no identification on them.  They don’t know if the boat has been stolen, if it simply floated away from the shore, or if it means that someone is in distress.  Being able to establish ownership and contact someone with knowledge of why the boat may be where it was found, and if they know whether someone is supposed to be paddling with it, goes a long way to returning lost or stolen boats, or to initiate searches and rescues if there’s no apparent reasons why the paddler and boat have been separated.  The USCG Auxiliary has had the stickers on hand in years past, so they may be the first place to find several free stickers for your craft.

Great Salt Plains Lake, OK

Credit: Google Images

Indian Blankets are the Oklahoma State Flower, and the park

had a great display of blossoms on hand.

We got away for the weekend to take our granddaughter camping at the Great Salt Plains Lake State Park, north of Jet, OK.  The lake is formed by the joining of Medicine Lodge River, Driftwood Creek, and the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River.  In spite of supposedly being fed by three tributaries, the years have been too numerous that all of those have dried up leaving the outflow of the lake as dry as the empty riverbed below.  The outflow is just called the Salt Fork of the Arkansas, and seeing it with water flowing was a pleasant shock.

None of the canoes got to go for the ride as winds were forecast to gust to 25 mph on Saturday, and 30 on Sunday.  Down in the river valley between the surrounding hills, and below the walls of the dam, we could see the tree tops dancing, but we just had a good breeze in the campground.  Even that died down enough Saturday evening for a campfire, and for Maggie to make s’mores.

It would prove to be a wildlife weekend, and guess who forgot the camera.  Grrrr!  That’s the one thing a blogger should grab even before his pants, but I ended up with pants and no camera.

Jean sat at the picnic table Friday evening and watched a doe and two very young fawns.  Being on a major flyway, this area is always great for seeing birds, and this weekend was not going to disappoint.  We saw scarlet tanager, cardinals, orioles, gold finch, and of course egrets and Great Blue Heron, and all day we were fascinated by a pair of Bluebirds as they rushed about to feed their five young fledglings.  Then, each night we were serenaded by nighthawks and owls.  We also got to enjoy a full array of wildflowers that were in bloom in reds, oranges, yellow, white, blue, purple, and salmon.  Next time, I’ll even take the camera.

Making A Portage Yoke

Two of my three canoes came with portage yokes.  The Superior Expedition has an adjustable tractor seat, which if you remove it and put it back in inverted, a portage yoke was fitted to the bottom side of the seat.  My ultra-light Kevlar Hornbeck 14 also came with a removable cherry portage yoke which quickly attaches to the gunwales with bolts and wing nuts.  The Mohawk Odyssey 15, however, has no yoke, and being made of Royalex, is substantially heavier than the Hornbeck.  There were two solutions.  The first is to buy a yoke and mounting gear ($95.00 + shipping for an ash yoke and gunwale hardware from Piragis; or, from Jem Watercraft, the gunwale mounting hardware is $40 alone, without a yoke, or $57 for both yoke and hardware.). Or secondly, make a yoke and buy your own hardware.

This is the whole pattern with the panels taped together and transferred

to the rough-sawn wood.  If needed, you can zoom in for closer inspection.

The first necessity was making a pattern for the yoke.  Neither of the yokes from the other two canoes, due to their proprietary design, would work as a pattern for a classic portage yoke.  Jem Watercraft, however, does have a free pattern for making a yoke.  There is one little wrinkle you need to take note of.  For the pattern to be printed to scale, the printed pattern panels, of which there are five, need to measure 9-inches in length.  The first time I printed it, the panels measured 8 13/16”.  When I realized the printer was set to “fit” rather than “actual size”, just clicking “actual size” corrected the problem.  Not checking the scale will obviously make your pattern useless.  The pattern is printed as five panels, which you assemble by just joining the patterns, A to A, B to B, and so on, and taping them together.

http://www.jemwatercraft.com/proddetail.php?prod=Yoke

Then, there’s the choice of woods.  Ash is the most common, but cherry is also listed as a choice for those who care more about aesthetics.  My choice was simple.  I have zero ash in the shop, but about 1,000 board feet of cherry, so cherry it is.

The pattern will give you a long yoke that you can cut to length 

to fit your canoe.  This has been planed, had the edges rounded 

with a 1/2 inch router, and pre-shortened a bit.  A bit of wood was 

left for final fitting, as the Mohawk has both sheer and tumblehome.

Here the pattern transfer is done with a sharp stylus, awl, or tack.  To transfer the pattern to the wood, I use two methods.  To transfer a pattern to planed wood, I use carbon transfer paper.  If the wood is rough finished, you can either plane first, or with a hard wood, like cherry, getting rid of most of the wood makes the planing that much easier.  Make a series of dotted perforations along the pattern lines, remove the pattern, and pencil a line to join the dots.  For transferring patterns to smooth wood, there are several techniques illustrated on You Tube.

Camping's Top Secrets

Cover Credit: Rowman & Littlefield

Camping’s Top Secrets: A Lexicon of Camping Tips Only the Experts Know, 3^rd Edition,  by Cliff Jacobson

(Pub. by Falcon Guides, part of Morris Book Publishing, Guilford, CT and Helena, MT, 2006, 242 pp. plus appendix and index.)

The book lists subjects from A to Y and covers every potential subject from weather, rigging a canoe, treating drinking water, maintaining, improving, and selecting tents and shelters, animal and insect encounters, cooking, first aid, maps, compass and GPS use, camping clothing, gear, sleeping bags, wilderness ethics, knives and axes, lightning, packs, rain gear, selecting and using line, survival, and an appendix of recommended reading and his list of recommended suppliers and products.  How much more could you seek in a book review, or the book itself, other than to say that these are but a few of the 79 topics covered.  Unlike a lot of book that become dated, with the third edition, the author keeps his information up-to-date with the newest materials and techniques.

Ghost Town 2

This is the easily identifiable Oklahoma-style home of the period,

and many surviving cookie-cutter homes may still be found in almost 

any of the old towns.

The town of Lenora sprang up in the bend of the Canadian River on Cheyenne-Arapaho land when it was opened for non-Indian settlement in 1892.  The first post office appeared in 1896 when this little dot on the map was the largest town in what would become Dewey County.  By 1900, it would have a population of about 400, and at one time there was consideration of moving the county seat from Taloga to Lenora.  It then claimed a hotel, restaurant, two saloons (the mark of any successful Western town), two doctors that would make house calls night or day, three general stores, a meat market, confectionery, drugstore, hardware store, harness shop, a bank, lumberyard, a well-driller, cotton gin, gristmill, a school, churches, a weekly newspaper, and several civic organizations including the Masons, Eastern Star, Royal Neighbors, Woodsmen of the World, and Odd Fellows.  As the world marched by, Lenora withered, and even the post office left town in 1955.  At the time Morris’ book was published, the Methodist church was still in use and a gas station and garage still operated on Main Street.

One of a home's most useful tools just discarded.

There is now little evidence of any of this Land Run prosperity.  There are a couple of the old houses still standing, one of which stands by itself, while another one or two are so entangled in weeds, brush, and trees to be made unidentifiable.  The Methodist church was abandoned for a new one, and I believe we found the old garage with a painted admonition still visible on the wall to keep work areas clean.  Beyond that, even the ghosts have left town, and Lenora exists in name only.

This is the South Canadian River.

Found in the woods near the new bridge is the trestle of the original

bridge that the settlers would have used.  It is interesting in some of

these areas to find old relics.  At one site, I found the remains of the

original bridge trestle written about as the one used by covered supply

wagons carrying settlers and U.S. Army supplies from one fort to another,

like from Fort Reno to Fort Supply and beyond.  If interested, you can

read more of the Fort Supply and wagon train era in archives for June

10,11, and 12, 2012.

Lenora Ghost Town

The church is buried in wild vegetation, but the gate at the end of the

sidewalk that led to the door can't help but make one think of the families

and newlyweds that ventured into the world from this sanctuary.

I asked my brother if he had been reading my blog.  He said that he had found it, but it just looked like a bunch of stuff about Oklahoma.  I apologize to my paddling readers, but in a state where there is more history than water, it is easy to go adrift.  I feel justified in some of it, because my paddling takes me into the history, like the articles about Medicine Park and Comanche Village, but some of it is just the result of life’s twists and turns.  This is one of those.

In the church's entryway was an old Lehman cistern water pump, which

has a series of cups on a continuous chain that rotate down into the water

as one cranks the handle on the side of the pump.

It was one of those days when nothing was happening, and nothing was going to happen, and we felt imprisoned in our little burgh.  We just needed to get out of town for a while.  It was time for a drive.  I had seen a short piece some time back about Oklahoma ghost towns, so I did a quick internet search.  The closest ‘ghost town’ to us was Lenora.  There was little information to be found except that it was once called “The Pearl of the Prairie.”  So, it was time to go pearl hunting. 

The pulpit, a couple old pews, and heater were left behind in the old

church when the congregation moved to the new Methodist Church.

 I went digging for more information later, and the history was not easy to find.  Most of what I found started with a book, “Ghost Towns of Oklahoma”, by John Wesley Morris, 1978, Page 120.  Lenora was named for two of its earliest settlers, Lee Moore and Nora Stovall.  It was home to John “Joe” Ventioner, a U.S. Deputy Marshall, who ended the criminal career of outlaw “Red Buck” Weightman.   I don’t know if this story is about Deputy Ventioner, but a lawman in town swore he would give away all of his guns.  He uttered his vow in disgust when he failed to hit a dime thrown into the air on his 86^th birthday.

An old garage and store are all that are left of a once prosperous

Pearl of the Prairie.

The story about the demise of George ‘Red Buck’ Weightman, one of the most ruthless outlaws of the West, began before Ventioner’s involvement.  Red Buck, so named because of his red hair, was part of the Doolin-Dalton gang.  He had killed numerous men, plus three U.S. Deputies, was a horse and cattle thief, bank robber, and would kill any man for $50.  He had tried to shoot Marshal Bill Tilghman in the back, but was stopped by Bill Doolin.  After a train robbery in Dover, OK, the gang tried to hide out on a minister’s farm, but Red Buck murdered the Baptist preacher while stealing his horse.  While stealing a rancher’s herd, he shot the rancher for objecting to the theft.  Doolin felt Red Buck was such a liability, he kicked him out of the gang, but that didn’t do a thing to slow his criminal career.  After assembling his own crew, Red Buck committed several more murders throughout Oklahoma and Texas.  Hearing the Red Buck was back in the area, Ventioner and two other marshals gave chase.  They followed the crew to a farm near Arapaho, OK, south of Lenora, on March 4, 1896.  In the gun battle that followed, Ventioner killed Red Buck, whose partner, George Miller, shot Ventioner in the abdomen.  Red Buck went to the Arapaho Cemetery.  Ventioner went home to recuperate.

George 'Red Buck' Weightman on display when no one

claimed his body.  Credit: True West Magazine

Something Old, Something New

No we’re not planning a wedding, or I’d also have to find something borrowed, something blue.  However, this part of the country is hardly more than about 150 years old, for the most part, so old and new can often be found side by side.  We were just out for a ride when these two presented themselves.

I have had several pictures of homesteads that were established by folks from the Land Runs.  Even when they disappear, there are traces left behind, like old fences, gates, foundations, and here, a concrete silo.  The farm itself has disappeared long ago, and the land that surrounded the home and barn are now part of a field of wheat.  The silo was well built, and may even have survived a tornado or other severe weather, and would prove too difficult to remove.  So, it has remained, and a tree had grown up through the cylinder to provide a huge shock of vegetation, and is all that remains here of perhaps an entire generation of folks that lived close to the earth.

One of the cleanest, best maintained well sites around.

Traveling in any direction will clearly highlight the Oklahoma state symbol, the oil well.  I know, the state bird is the scissor-tailed flycatcher, and the state flower is the Indian blanket, but the oil well is the true Oklahoma symbol through and through, and much more evident than either the flycatcher or Indian blanket blooms.  There is no aspect of Oklahoma that is not over-shadowed by the oil and gas industry, from the legislature and governor, to education, to the state budget and tax structure, to law and order, elderly care, medical or psychiatric care, to science, which one Oklahoma U.S. senator claims doesn’t exist, to anything else you care to mention.  The real state symbol, therefore, is not hard to find.  At least a bright yellow field of canola adds a bit of color to this one.

No Parking

I guess this is Native American humor.  When you have little, look on the light side, so here's a 'no parking' sign on the prairie, in the middle of nowhere.  In spite of what the sign says, there's no place to park, there's nothing to look out on, and there's no point.  Oh, maybe that is the point.

Comanche Village Destroyed

The original Comanche settlement was along the stream believed 

to flow through the line of wilderness between the field and the

mountains beyond.

We hoped to seek out the location of the Comanche settlement on the North Fork of the Red River.  The path we followed through the remains of the village finally ended at a white, chained and locked gate.  The sign on the gate proudly proclaimed “Winters Farm, Est. 1889,” the year Pres. Benjamin Harrison chose to open 1.9 million acres of Indian Territory for white settlement.  This first parcel was called “unassigned” land.  It was Indian Territory, but it had not yet been assigned to a specific tribe.  The process of whittling away at Indian land would continue until nearly all promised Indian land had been wrestled from Indian control.

It all comes back to America’s less than proud history of ‘dealing’ with the Native Americans who called this land their home.  Greed, corruption, land speculation, the undying thirst for getting something for nothing, and yes, the starry-eyed dreams of poor settlers looking for a better life, caused all eyes to turn toward the Indian lands.  Land encroachment always started with the cattlemen, as it continues to even today with cattlemen grazing on public lands.  In “A Field of Their Own, 1830-1941,” John M. Rhea explains how the west was really won.  By 1880, Texas cattlemen moved 4,233,487 Longhorn cattle onto Indian grasslands for a year at a time.  The following year those cattle would be moved to more Indian land further north and closer to markets in Kansas, and would be replaced by another herd.  This eventually led to the establishment of the Great Western Cattle Trail, which was used to move the cattle straight through to the rail heads and transportation to Northern and Eastern markets.  Some of the cattle were furtively or forcibly just driven onto the land, and some land was acquired by grazing permits obtained through agreements with the tribes.  However, the methods by which these permits were obtained were so irregular that word of these practices traveled all the way to Washington.  “The degree of graft, exploitation, coercion, and violence perpetuated by the range cattle operations, most of which were organized as companies by this time, shocked Congress.”  Think about that!  That Congress would be shocked by anything should in itself tell us how pervasive and criminal these practices were.  “With no effective voice to lobby in their defense, American Indians were at the mercy of Western representatives who favored opening their lands.”

The cattlemen had other enemies besides the tribes that rightfully owned the land, and those would be the Boomers.  The Boomers were an organized, loud, forceful, persistent, and often militant group that advocated the claiming of Indian lands by whatever means possible.  They felt all land should be open to white grazing and settlement, and they lobbied for Congress to make it so.  Feeling that Indian lands were public lands and available to anyone able to claim them, they overran the land a full decade before official opening in 1889, forcing the U.S. Army to expel them on more than one occasion.  John Rhea said all this wrangling and overrunning of their lands made the Indians ‘resentful.’  Imagine that!

The Indians and cattlemen shared one thing in common.  Neither wanted settlers on the land.  For the Indians, settlers and cattlemen alike disrupted the movement of what buffalo remained, and signaled the end of a life of plains hunting and dependence on buffalo.  The cattlemen didn’t want settlers coming in and running barbed-wire fencing that disrupted cattle drives or removed land from open use for grazing.  So the Indians had the land, and everyone else wanted it.

For an understanding of their claim to their hunting lands, the Comanche were originally Shoshone, but broke away from the main tribe in what became Southeast Wyoming and moved south some time before 1700.  When the U.S. Government began taking an interest in the West, it promised 3,000,000 acres to the Comanche, Apache, and Kiowa.  By the time all this fighting over the land was taking place, only 235,000 acres still remained in native hands, meaning the Native Americans had already lost roughly 92% of their promised lands.  And they were resentful?  Anyhow, I’m starting to go far afield here, and was initially wanting to speak just of the history we encounter while paddling.  The crux of this is there were a number of failed opportunities to put an end to the Indians’ fears of losing their lands, losing the opportunity to make a life for themselves, and to prevent the subsequent hostilities.  Sam Houston had the chance to put the conflicts to bed as early as 1833 when all the Comanche were asking for was a clear line delineating what was their land and what wasn’t.  He failed to follow through, and was replaced by Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas, who only wanted to use war as a means of dealing with the “Indian problem.”  The Comanche responded in the only way open to them, and of course the government responded with war and the desire to annihilate the Comanche and their way of life.  The history that followed is embarrassing, but very interesting to read and study.  I’ll leave that to you.

This was the site of the opening of the Christmas Day attack.

For the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other tribes on the plains, it ended usually the same way.  The winter campaign of 1868-69 planned to attack the tribes in mid-winter when they would be at their weakest.  The campaign led by Lt. Col. George A. Custer first massacred Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village on 27 November 68.  (Read about the Battle of Washita in achieves for 29&30 June 2012.)  A month later, on Christmas Day, they opened fire on the Comanche village here with howitzer field artillery before rushing in to destroy the village and kill its inhabitants.  Kiowa, encamped downstream, heard the cannon fire and rushed in to provide support.  They held the army at bay long enough for women and children to escape.  Initial claims by the army were that 20-25 warriors were killed while fleeing, but more detailed reports later proved that three soldiers were wounded, one fatally, and one Comanche was killed, a sub-chief named Arrow Point.  With the village now empty, the soldiers destroyed it and then marched on. 

Comanche Village

Doe, a deer, a female deer, ray, a drop of golden sun.....

Like our stay at Lake Latonka, the forecast was for winds of less than 10 mph.  In the middle of the night, however, we again were struck with strong wind gusts that peppered the side of the RV with dirt, leaves, and debris.  By morning, the winds had died to 25 mph with 29 mph gusts according to updated reports.  Large whitecaps were rolling the full length of the lake.  It was obvious that paddling was off for the day, but we had a nice surprise during breakfast. 

Right on time, morning and evening, like they could tell time.

We were parked next to a ravine.  Five deer came up the ravine to graze in the grass around our camper.  With the heavily tinted windows, they couldn’t see us, so they walked right up to within 25 feet of the RV and munched grass while we munched breakfast and watched them.  We were just about done eating when another 15 deer came through the campground.  We knew the wildlife were protected here, but the mystery of why so many deer congregated around us wasn’t solved until we saw the camp host come out with a bucket of corn, which he poured on the ground.  Since there was no hunting permitted, this was not baiting, but it certainly drew a crowd.  The camp host did this twice a day, morning and evening, and the deer knew exactly when to show up.

Mount Teepee, near Comanche Village

While on paddling trips, we enjoy learning about the history of the area our paddling takes us through.  With paddling being impossible for today, we climbed into the pickup and went exploring.  We drove east from the state park to Mount Teepee, an area referenced in historical writings, and the nearby Comanche Village on the north branch of the Red River.  The Mount Teepee Baptist Church was in use until 1963, but is now gone.  Several one-room schools served the area and village, built as part of the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, but all of them are gone except the remains of Mount Teepee School, which was last used in 1953.  The owner of the land had been asked by the state’s historical society to allow them to use the ½-acre that the school sits on, so they could save the structure and preserve it.  The owner couldn’t spare the ½-acre of weeds and debris, and a bad wind storm recently removed the roof and allowed the walls to collapse, making it a total loss.  

Mount Teepee School, the name still legible above the door, blackboards

still on the walls, the chimney for the coal stove on the back wall.

I don’t know who the owner of the school property is now.  It’s easy to think they are being small and cheap in allowing important history to disappear.  In fact, that was my immediate reaction.  However, if the owner is Native American, there’s another way to look at this.  They may not feel all that grateful for the schools from the Medicine Lodge Treaty, since they resented being forced to have their children schooled in the ‘white man’s ways’.  They may also quite reasonably feel the schools were a poor trade, since the treaty also required the Kiowa and Comanche to surrender 2,001,933 acres of tribal land to the U.S. government, in addition to another 23,000 acres to accommodate the Fort Sill Military Reservation.  It’s hard to tell.  At any rate, there are 58 archaeological sites in the area that confirm that Native Americans resided in the area since pre-historic times.

The Submerged Town of Lugert

In the distance to the left of center stood the Town of Lugert.  If we

were speaking of bad luck, it was first destroyed by a tornado, and

then drowned by a lake.

The name of the lake comes from two towns in the area.  In the 1901 land rush, Austria-born Frank Lugert filed an 80-acre tract of land on Kiowa and Comanche lands as the site for the town of Lugert.  He built a post office, train depot, and a general store which handled about anything a settler would need.  At its zenith, the town also had a bank, 2 hotels, 2 restaurants, a saloon, lumberyard, and 2 pool halls.  On April 27, 1912, a tornado struck the town of 400 at noon.  Forty-one of the 42 businesses were destroyed with one death, as well as a large portion of the homes.  They struggled to survive until 1927. In 1927, the town of Altus built a 458-ft dam across the North Fork of the Red River to provide for a reliable water source for the town.  The remainder of the buildings were leveled, and when the lake is low, the foundations of the homes and businesses can still be found in the southeast corner of the lake.   

Several stone foundations are visible when the lake is low.

The 4,984 acres that comprise the park were developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps starting in 1937, and many of the structures they built are still in use today.  Lake Altus-Lugert provides another 6,700 acres of water with a 47 mile shoreline. 

As evidence of the inland sea that at one time covered the whole Plains

area, we see where mountains have slumped and collapsed due to 

saturation and uneven drying.  In the center, we see a whole section

of the mountain collapsed, leaving a bit of a crater.  To its right are a

couple other areas that slid down partially creating a stair-step effect.

Lake Altus-Lugert

Our next paddle trip was to Lake Altus-Lugert.  I had visited there to paddle the lake two years ago.  The sight of the lake when it was down 35-feet was sickening.  With the first wet spring in ten years, the lake filled, so I was anxious to get back before the lake disappeared again.  Agriculture is the largest user of water, and in the southwest part of the state it is used to irrigate cotton, with a little going to cattle.  There is little restraint in water usage.  As long as there is water, most everyone feels they have the right to take as much as they want, without thought for conservation, so in just five months the lake is again down 12-feet, but still a happier scene than in the past.  If you would like to see the earlier pictures for comparison, the original post on Lake Altus-Lugert can be found in archives on 12 December 2012.

Trying to find our way around Hobart found us out in the boonies.

We are pulled half-way off the road here, and as the road tracks show

there's still barely room for another vehicle to pass.

The sudden 30-degree drop in air temperatures had deflated the RV tires substantially.  The first thing I needed to do was to find an air pump where I could end my own ‘deflategate’ and get the tires back to proper inflation.  It took 18-miles of running slow before we found the first gas station with an air pump.

Our trip would take us through the town of Hobart where Rt. 9 had been closed for construction.  Going southwest, the detour was not clearly marked.  Signs simply suggested that we find an alternate route, so we ended up on a narrow, dirt, washboard road that didn’t allow two vehicles to pass without one getting part way off of the road, especially if both vehicles had West Coast mirrors.  With slow speed and patience, we finally returned to a blacktop road at the town of Lone Wolf, named in honor of Chief Lone Wolf the Elder, Chief of the Kiowa.  (After his death, Lone Wolf was buried in an unmarked, undisclosed location near Mount Scott.)  Going south from there, we rounded the south end of the lake and arrived at Quartz Mountain State Park.  While the local mountains are called the Quartz Mountains, they are still part of the Wichita Mountains.

Tonight, Ibi sleeps atop the Dodge Ram, but we're both wanting to

be paddling tomorrow.

As soon as we pulled into the Live Oak campground, we encountered about a dozen white-tailed deer roaming through the camp sites.  Shortly another herd came through with several fawns.  Here’s a video of the area that will give you a nice overview.

https://www.oklavision.tv/home/video/aerial-view-of-quartz-mountain/document/aerial-view-of-quartz-mountain-profile

The area is covered with mountains of granite divided by deep wooded ravines.  Early residents included Wichita and Kiowa Indians.  Until the 1500’s, the area where the lake and state park are were under Spanish control, but then it was included in the Louisiana Province of France.  After being sold to the United States, the area was laid claim to by Mexico and the Republic of Texas, until a Supreme Court decision gave control back to the U. S.  It was then assigned to the Indian Territory that would become Oklahoma with the land run of 1901.

These deer are in a game preserve, and pay humans little attention.

Happy (?) Tax Day

Taxes are never a happy time.  While you are dealing with one

of life's drudgeries, here's a picture from Claude Delorme to help keep

happy thoughts and dreams in your mind.  Just hang in there, get the 

crap out of the way, and then head for the water for some recovery time.

The Mighty Mississippi

Photo credit: GoodReads

Mighty Miss: A Mississippi River Experience, by Gary Hoffman (pub. by Mighty Miss Press, Chanhassen, MN, 2009, 284pp plus notes and glossary)

There is a lot in this book---a lot.  I usually finish a book before starting a review, but I started early for fear that I’d miss some important points.  A big part that is brought out in this book is that long trips, expeditions, if you wish to call them that, create a lot of stress.  There is stress in preparation, deciding on the right gear and provisions, garnering the support of family, finding a compatible paddling partner, if you wish to go that way, maintaining communications and good rapport with that person, and all of this is before the trip even starts.  Once you push away from the shore, there is mud, toxic waste and litter, snakes, insects that either want to drive you insane or cause life-ending or debilitating diseases, poisonous plants, high adverse winds, freezing cold and brain-baking heat, injuries that get infected, aching muscles, fanny fatigue and back strain, bouts of pain and numbness from inflamed nerves, and self-doubt, and the last is the big one.  Of all the things that you need to fear on a long trip, it is not tugs and ships, whirlpools, snakes, bears, sharks, and alligators.  What you need to fear most is your own brain.  It will torment you all day, try to keep you awake all night, flood you with dread, make you hear slights and insults from your paddling partner that were never there, and never meant to be there.  You’ll be homesick.  All the things you needed a break from now won’t look so bad.  You’ll even start thinking about all the work you can do when you get back.  Then, you will get settled in, and when the trip is almost over, you begin to realize that you don’t want it to stop.  Yup, your closest companion, your own head, will be your worst enemy.  Most people that do long-distance, endurance trips, marathons, or expeditions all seem to agree that the physical aspect, the part most people think about, comprises only 30% of trials to be overcome.  The mental aspects make up the remaining and most critical 70%.

The trip down the Mississippi had been the author’s dream.  His son, Darrin, had just gone into the army, and they agreed to make the trip together when he got out.  In the meanwhile, Darrin married.  The first roadblock to the trip was his new wife.  She was against the trip, and against him being away.  She did not support her husband or their adventure, and her demands cast a shadow over the trip.  They found themselves constantly in search of a phone in the wilderness so Darrin could check in and placate his bride.  It created more stress that gave rise to constant fights between the two paddlers.  The author had hoped the trip would bring him and his son closer together.    By the time they get to St. Louis, there was doubt that they could continue without destroying their relationship, perhaps beyond repair.  They slowly sought ways to understand each other and what was happening to them.  They feared this was as far as they could go, but they continued. 

As for the good news, all of this stress and conflict is manageable.  It can be overcome.  Experience helps, as does patience, tolerance, acceptance, and a Caribbean state of mind.  “Don’t worry, be happy.”  If you are an alpha or Type-A personality, never go paddling with another alpha or Type-A personality unless one of you can accept a subordinate role and commit to that in advance.  Now, this is some experience I carried to the book, rather than from it, so feel free to consider it personal opinion, but this clearly screamed from the pages.  I’ve used a word above that I hate---partner.  I didn’t use co-paddler or team member, because initially you wouldn’t have known what I meant.  Any business attorney will tell you that of the three types of managerial or organizational types, (sole proprietorship, partnership, and corporation), the partnership is the weakest, has the most pitfalls, and is the most likely to fail. Contrary to popular opinion, a partnership in a marriage, business, or paddling trip is poison.  Partnership comes with the expectation that both parties have equal rights and authority to make the same decisions about the same things.  That is the formula for resentment, and non-stop and destructive battles.  The better concept is that of a teammate.  Both are on the same team, with the same goals, but each has their own specific jobs that the other does not share in and should keep his or her mouth shut about---in other words, a clear division of labor.  There has to be a hierarchy.  One person is in charge, like the pilot of a plane, and the other, like the co-pilot, should be equally qualified and able to take over if needed, but accepts that the leader has ultimate responsibility, and therefore has the ultimate tie-breaking vote.  If one of the two ‘partners’ can’t accept that role, they have no business being together, and likely won’t be for long, at least not happily. 

Here’s the best example of the successful team I can give.  It is a blueprint that can be employed in any paddling trip, marriage, or business venture.  I knew a couple that had been married for over 50 years.  They were both officers in the air force.  He was a colonel, but she, as a full bird-colonel, outranked her husband.  When they were working and in uniform, he deferred to his ranking wife.  She was the boss.  When they crossed the threshold at home, their roles immediately reversed.  She deferred to him.  He was the boss.  The change was so sudden and obvious that an unsuspecting observer couldn’t help but get mental whiplash, but it was how they kept conflict, personal or vocational, out of their marriage.  They had their own realms of responsibility, and the other respected and recognized his or her authority in that area without interfering.  They did not have a partnership, but they made a great team.

The book explores detailed aspects of the trip that are glossed over or omitted in most books.  If you contemplate this or another long trip, this account of what they faced gives one of the best insights I’ve seen into what may be encountered.  One of the strongest recommendations the author made was to not be in too great a hurry, but to always make time for the people you will meet along the river.  They will always be the best and most memorable part of the trip.

My First Falcon Paddle Sail

The new Falcon Sail on Ibi as we relax a few minutes in 

a quiet cove out of the wind.

Since moving to the Great American Desert (Zebulon Pike’s words, not mine.), I’ve really missed sailing.  That should be obvious since my personal slogan has always been, “The only thing better than sailing is breathing, but neither’s of much use without the other.”  So, having watched the Falcon Sail site videos for quite some time, I’ve hoped that putting the appropriate sail on the canoe might offer a solution.  With the rig installed, today would offer the opportunity for a first paddle-sail with the new Falcon rig.

The question I often see stems from people’s concerns over how long it takes to get the rig on and off the canoe, so I timed them.  The very first time I took the rig off the canoe, as I got ready to slide the canoe on the pickup, took 60 seconds from the time I walked into the garage until I laid the rig in the back of the truck.  When I got to the ramp, getting the rig back on the canoe and rigging the stay, shrouds, and sheet took a bit longer: 2 ½ minutes.   Once you’ve installed the rig, the understanding of what everything is and where it goes makes handling rigging really simple, and the time needed to rig or derig the boat is so insignificant that it fails to be an issue.

The paddle up the lake was almost dead into the wind, which was fine on the starboard bow, but much too close for sailing.  Just above the buffalo bluffs to port, I had a brief chance to see a bald eagle in the top of a cedar before it took flight.  The wind was supposed to be light today, so I started to get concerned about my first sail when whitecaps began building and rolling down the lake.  I called Jean at home, and she checked the weather page.  The wind was now gusting over 20.  Against the wind, I was paddling 2.5 to 2.9 with a bent-shaft Bending Branches paddle.  This alone was a big improvement for me.  I had spent the last couple weeks watching MicroTom’s videos in his WaterTribe 2016 Ultimate Florida Challenge and tried to pick up a couple hints about improving paddling efficiency.  They seemed to be working.  I’ll put a link at the end.

Once I was up beyond the Big Bend, I switched to a two-blade Bending Branches paddle for faster bracing, if needed, and popped the sail.  Falling off on a port broad reach, the sail immediately added a big boost to the ride.  Without paddling, I was sailing 3.8 to a bit over 4.  An occasional half-hearted paddle stroke held it over 4.  I practiced some with bracing and balancing to meet the force of gusts in the sail.  Gusts would put the bow up on a boiling bow wave.  It was exciting, but the wind would then soften and the ride would slow.  The nicest thing about the experience was that the rig was self-tending.  I didn’t have to do much of anything in return for the ride, which is a big improvement over my WindPaddle, which I find I have to fiddle with way too much to keep it drawing.

After getting back to the ramp, and with the wind now even a bit stronger, I decided to duck into a quiet cove for a picture, and then turn and try sailing back upwind.  The sail was trimmed all the way in.  With the sail’s deep draft, close hauled would be impossible, but the draft is needed for other points of sail.  I suspect it also helps maintain drive in a chop.  Watching for the sail to draw, I realized I could hold a close reach.  I would manage 1.9 paddling without the sail, but setting the sail on the same heading would then give me 3.9 mph.  I was paddling, but lightly, and with the pull of the sail, found the strokes very light for going to weather.  There is leeway without a board, of course, but the leeway was much less than I expected, and I was clearly making steady headway upwind.  Keep in mind that this was all under first-trial conditions.  I’m sure that I can do better with practice, and then I’ll try to put some real numbers on the points of sail and leeway.  In all, the Falcon Sail is great and does all the builder claims it will.  Best of all, it was a blast.

https://www.facebook.com/MicroTom-2016-Ultimate-Florida-Challenge-1333007946725339/?fref=ts

www.falconsails.com

Nige Ayers' Video Blog

Credit: Nige Ayers

Allow me to introduce Nige Ayers, a Facebook friend from England.  If you don't know him, it's about time to make his acquaintance.  He is a biker, hiker, paddler who does a couple video blog posts a week, what he calls his vlog.  By whatever mode of self-propulsion, he will take you through some really beautiful countryside and small towns, the likes of which you won't see here in the states.  One thing I really enjoy is that the countryside and roadsides always appear to be clean, something else you will never see here in the states.  He puts a lot of work into his posts, which I think we all do, but he sees so little feedback, participation, and subscription to his videos, that he gets a bit down at the mouth occasionally.  To help turn his frown upside-down, please check out his Facebook, vlog, and subscribe.  And, here's an added advantage.  While you're at it, you can just go ahead and subscribe to Log of Ibi as well.  We'll try to keep you informed and entertained.  Cheers.

https://www.facebook.com/Nigel.Ayers?fref=nf

 

Paddling is a Lot Like Sex

Credit: Google Images

Way back in October, 2005, SAILING magazine carried an article by Chris Caswell titled, “Sailing is a lot like sex if you take your time.”  I enjoyed the article so much I tore it out, folded it about six times so it would fit in my wallet, and have been carrying it around ever since.  In the intervening 11 years, we have moved to the Great American Desert, which put pay to sailing, and have reverted to our early days of canoeing to stay on the water.  Reading it again, I find the comparison applies to paddling as well sailing, so offer the following.  I’ve changed it substantially, so don’t have to worry about plagiarism claims, but since the subject idea and development were Mr. Caswell’s, I offer him his due.

Here is the comparison of paddling and sex, and how, in many cases, paddling is better and safer.

Like sex,

--paddling is better if you take your time.  It is better if you linger.  Indeed, unlike sex, you can continue paddling all day, all week, all month.

--you don’t have to really know how it all works to still enjoy it.  You can do your strokes all wrong and still enjoy the ride.

--no matter how many books you read or whitewater classes you take, the best way to learn is still by doing it, over and over again.

--some people are naturals, while no matter how hard they try, others will always be hackers.  That’s just the way it is.

--some paddlers have a freight canoe, and others have a surf ski.

--some paddlers like to talk, even brag, about their exploits.  However, most admire the strong silent types that just go out and do it well.

--the ones that complain the most about the weather, the bugs, the raccoons and bears, and seem to have the worst time, are still the ones that tell the wildest stories around the campfire.

--paddling alone is simpler and faster, but nowhere near as much fun.

Unlike sex,

--it isn’t scandalous to go paddling with a crowd or someone else’s paddling partner.

--you can ask strangers to go paddling without getting slapped.

--you can take children paddling without getting arrested or having to enter a national registry.

--you can take all the secretaries in the office paddling without being sued for sexual harassment. 

--if you feel you need to learn how to do it better, you can ask for guidance and advice without blushing.  Indeed, many will give you advice before you ask.

--you can solicit the services of a paddling pro without getting arrested by the vice squad.

--no one will think you kinky or start rumors about you because you went paddling.

Best of all, unlike sex, paddling is something you can enjoy just as much at 90 years of age as at 19, and without taking Viagra.

Both, however, are a lot safer with personal protection.

Falcon Sail Installation

 I was very impressed with the Falcon Sail kit from the moment I picked up the box at the post office.  The attention to detail is reflected not only in the quality of the sail, spars, rigging, hardware, fittings, etc., but also in the details related to shipping and assembly.  When shipped, each component is heat-sealed in its own plastic bag.  Each component or portion of the rig, from standing rigging, boom vang, sail tie-downs, fairleads and pad eyes, etc., come in their own appropriately sized zip-lock bag.  As long as you don’t open more than one bag at a time, there is no possibility of getting parts confused, and one can be confident that everything needed for that assembly is included, right down to every screw, bolt, nut, and washer.  One bag had additional instructions included applicable to that installation.  I thought the attention to detail was amazing when I saw the Allen wrench in its own little bag.  It isn’t even part of the install, but is included in the event that the set screw holding the mast onto the mast step, which is supposed to be finger-tight, becomes too tight to undo.  But then I saw the last little bag.  All the bags are labeled, as was this one.  It read, “Falcon Sails, Nail for hanging sail/storing sail.”  Yes, a nail is even included to hang the sail by the eyelet installed in the head of the sail for when the rig is not in use.  Unfortunately you have to provide your own wall or stud to put the nail in.

Rig and sail furled and out of the way for paddling.

To accompany all the components and the sail are 19-pages of instructions with color illustrations.  A repeated theme throughout the instructions is safety.  There are recommendations that some of the rigging parts, like the boom vang, not be used right away, but after some practice and experience is acquired.  A template is provided that can be taped to the deck once the mast location is determined to help in aligning the shrouds and stays.  Some thought and planning will undoubtedly need to go into the placement of deck hardware, but the photographs help the new sail owner picture how previous applications have been done, so the rest is just a matter of common sense.  The bottom line is that with the help provided by Falcon Sail’s owner, Patrick Forrester, the installation was fun.  Now, it’s just a matter of getting on the water and having some of that fun the sail was intended for.  In other words, there’s more to follow.

With the sail set.  The mast is supposed to be raked (leaning aft).  It 

looked like it was in the shop, but in the open, the mast is clearly erect.

A bit of fiddling is part of any tuning process, and just part of 

getting to know the rig.

See www.falconsails.com