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Much, much later -- more story to tell, but I was too busy to take pictures, so please bear with the following verbiage.

After reaching the far shore I thought, "Maybe I can actually pull this off!" Here I was in the lee, so the waves weren't too bad. I scooped as much water as I could out of the raft, blew it full of air again, and noticed the bubbles leaking out of a new pinhole in the back. Hmm... No time to screw around or rest much, I'd better keep going!

I "just" needed to go half a mile more, mostly along the steep or muddy shoreline, to get to the boat ramp. Unfortunately by this point the two smaller bottom chambers on the raft must have deflated, and I couldn't reach to refill them, so the rock rode lower and started acting like a sea anchor. The raft insisted on drifting sideways. I could barely make forward progress paddling hard, yet all the while reminding myself, "don't jerk on the line!"

I got to the South Red Hills boat ramp where I found Tim and his family (wife and her sister plus five combined kids), up from Rawlins for the day, swimming in the water, catching crawfish, etc. I told them that as soon as I emptied my stuff out of the kayak they could use it to play with, and they did, for nearly three more hours!

Here, I pulled on the tow line, trying to drag the raft further ashore -- whereupon the blue attachment loop popped off, and the raft, never to be used again, instantly deflated! Well OK then... I was going to deflate it anyway to get the rock out of it, and I was sure it had lots of new holes in it too.

I walked up the ramp, borrowed some firewood to use to try levering the rock up onto a temporary platform to roll it into the back of the car, and drove down the ramp, where I parked on the gravel next to it and the lake. Tim says to me that he used to be called "The Human Forklift", and despite not working out, he can lift a washing machine...

Well! He drags the raft and rock up to the car, holing the bottom of the boat further... No big deal! Then he tells me he can pick up the boulder and put it in my car -- and he does! He says, "I think it weighs about 120 lbs." Good thing we didn't know it was over 200, or he might have not tried!

And that's the story between leaving the far shore, and this picture!

0712F_TimAndRockInCar.JPG (285 Kb) (under photos/13/0702-15_BIF_Boulder/)

By Alan Silverstein, ajs@frii.com (page updated Sun Mar 9 14:33:54 MDT 2025)