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IMHO, when in nature (even if near civilization) one can never be too prepared or paranoid. It saved your life too.
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Originally posted by MR EDD -
Yeah its really hard to make people understand the complexity of getting out of there. And of course I lost all my photos. People also are like, "why didn't you just get in the kayaks and paddle?" Not happening in this type of flood. Super dangerous.Originally posted by talisman View Post
@Ceyko, you can never underestimeate the power of 'ol Ma Nature. We are pretty experienced and were well prepared, I'd hate to have seen someone not prepared. This is actually the first trip we've taken a sat phone and it paid dividends, I'll never do another long trip without one.
In the helicopter we actually found two other groups of kayakers that were a couple miles down river (unkown to us), a teenager from one of the groupls had somehow gotten in the river and got washed away. They found him a mile or two downriver on a little island by himself. The flight officer emailed us some photos of them hoisting him out. Our sat phone call may have inadvertenetly saved his ass also. The game warden told us we are the most prepared people they've had to get, that usually people dont get found till they get reported missing.Comment
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Yall went right by where I was fishing last year.
I wouldn't be surprised if it got close to the ranch house there. You can see it down in the valley with the river behind it.
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That's funny right there! I mean if you had NO OTHER OPTIONS, maybe - but only to get off ASAP. Either way, you have no control when in that sort of powerful water.Originally posted by Danny46 View Post
I'll go ahead say it - since you're alive and everyone else is - this is a great story and reinforces my paranoia. Frankly, I would have done that trip without a sat phone (cost, not because of thinking wuss for taking one) - I probably would have slept in as well w/o knowing the weather issues.Originally posted by MR EDDComment
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That sucks. Read about it on Texas Fishing Forum.
Hope you get your stuff back.
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Glad y'all are alright man, I also read about this on the fishin forum. Tragic stuff.Comment
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Honestly while we are always well prepared, this is the first long trip weve done WITH a Sat phone. I'll never do another with out the phone again. It was like 85 bucks to rent, split between four guys, not to bad. We are pretty river savy, and I think we would have realized the severity of the situation even if we didn't have the phone, however it definitely gave us some lead time and got us the helicopter once we got out of the canyon. If it wasnt for the phone we would have been hiking for miles/days.Originally posted by ceyko View Post
@GraystangGT is that by Pandale? Do you live in Del Rio?Comment
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It is just down the river from pandale, you turn into the ranch north of pandale store. I live in Midland, a friend of mine had a lease down there.Comment
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Ah I see. Beautiful river, I'll be back to finish the paddle.
Thanks to everyone else for your help/concernComment
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It is beautiful down there, I wish he had kept that lease, in the summer you can put in at the store and then float back to the ranch. The old man at the store is hilarious to sit and BS with.Comment
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Here is a quick snippet that one of the guys madeComment
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Damn.Originally posted by Danny46 View Post
Did your SAT phone have GPS? Do you have the 10 digit for where you left your stuff? Obviously I am not asking you to post it....just curious. I hope you can recover it all and make the trip.Fuck you. We're going to Costco.Comment
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That shit is GONE, dude. lol
Great story though. Glad to hear you all made it out okay!When the government pays, the government controls.Comment
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Do you have to pay for the helicopter ride?Comment
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This screen shot from a gopro vid is of a couple minutes after the river started coming up, we ended up egressing towards the wooded area about five minutes after this video was taken. We are in the habit of picking our campsites based on egress routes and it saved our ass. Even with two egress routes we were still almost trapped.
Untitled by Photography by Daniel Rodriguez, on Flickr
Here is a littel before and after
Untitled by Photography by Daniel Rodriguez, on Flickr
@kbscobra. The sat phone had coordinates built in, 911 was able to get our coordinates from our phone. We also had to GPS units that had coordinates. We know exactly where our site was though, I could look at google earth and pick it out. My dad is down there now and we managed to track down the rancher, who gave us access. They found some small stuff at the campsite but basically everything of value is gone (the kayaks, cameras etc). Since we have access now I may be heading down there tonight to paddle about ten miles of river tomorrow in search of our stuff.
@46TBird, yeah its something I"ll never forget. If I wont complain if I dont almost get killed by a natural disaster for a while though.
@strychnine negative we do not thank God. This was actually a concern of ours, we figured they would send a truck or something to come get us since we were not actively drowning in the river. I wish I had a picture of our faces when they told us a helicopter was coming to get us. We asked the Officers if we were getting charged and after giving us a bit of a hard time they said no. We actually ended up helping them find two other groupls of kayakers which led them to rescuing a teenager who had been washed down river via hoist and swiftwater rescue.Comment
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