I promised you a laugh at my expense a few posts back, so here it is. On Thursday of our Montana trip Tyler took me extreme flyfishing. As soon as we survived the ordeal I typed up what happened so as to not forget any of it. It is numbered off just because my brain was tired, and that is how I wrote it. Enjoy!
1. Long walk until we see cows and a barbed wire fence that goes straight into the side of the hill.
2. Amy suggests going back a little way to where the fence was easily crossable and river was near by.
3. Tyler said we needed to go up the hill to the dirt road because George told him we needed to go down two dirt roads.
4. We hike up hill #1.
5. Once we make it to the dirt road, and see the only two options are to go back down the way we came or head over a second hill Tyler says, "Maybe this isn't right."
6. Tyler decides we should go over the second hill since we had come this far. I asked him if he was trying to recreate Maria's opening scene from the sound of music.
7. We hike hill #2.
8. We now have to go down said hill to get to the river.
9. As we are making our way down with rocks slipping under our feet, we see a large moose among the trees by the river. When I ask Tyler if moose are known to attack he reponds, "a little". Awesome.
10. In an attempt to make the moose run away Tyler starts to throw rocks at it. I won't even comment on what was going through my head. Finally the moose starts to trot a little before stopping again. He throws more rocks, and we hear a "thud". Tyler exclaims, "I think I hit it!" I then see the moose run away with two babies following. Poor things. I'm pretty sure that mama moose would have attacked our dumb asses.
11. We finally make it down the hill at 11 am. We drink most of the two bottles of water we brought along because we are beat from our 1 hour hike through the Rockies.
12. After some fishing, walking upstream a little, fishing more, walking upstream a little, we hit a cliff with very deep water around it. Here we have two options again. We can go back to where we were able to cross the river before, or we can rock climb up an insanely steep cliff where 95% of the rocks are not stationary. Tyler decides we climb.
13. We climb, we slip, Tyler yells at me to use my hands on the planted rocks like a true mountaineer, we make it to a semi-level spot, and see that the opposite side is straight down.
14. We then start to try to go back down the rocky cliff. At one point I was pretty sure I was going to slip down. We did make it down and walked back to cross the river. It was now 3:45. We spent an hour on the mountain climbing adventure.
15. We are now on the opposite side of the river. There weren't many places to fish, so we walked through the high brush along the bank, often crossing barbed wire fences, back towards the cabin. All the while looking for a safe place to cross back over the river.
16. Occassionally we would stop, rest, suck on ice cubes from the cooler bag to rehydrate, and fish a little. We were too tired to really do any serious fishing though.
17. Close to the house Tyler decides we'll cross. The first half is ok. Rough, but do-able. The second half was up to my waist and flowing hard. We hold hands, he takes a step, then I take a step, the entire time letting him block the flow some for me. Many times I cannot plant my feet. I'm pulled down stream and he grabs me a few times. It was very scary. When we finally make it across he says, "I promise I will never do this to you again." I responded with, "Which part?"
18. We made it back to the cabin at 5:30. As we are sitting down guzzling water Tyler says, "I've done some dumb shit before, but that pretty much takes the cake."
