Bear bagging was undoubtedly the highlight of the day. We may actually have hit the “12’ up, 6’ from trunks” prerequisites, but it’s still a little close to camp for comfort. There’s only so many options in terms of large trees near here that aren’t currently surrounded by water.
The weather today is more intermittent rain (big surprise there) so we alternated between being in the tent and kind of bored and standing under the tarp and kind of bored. I filtered some water. We discussed our options in terms of mileage once we hit the confluence. I finished my second Steve Berry mystery. (Verdict: “Venetian Betrayal” is better than “The Alexandria Link”, but not by much.) We played an interminably long round of the “squares game”, which Steve seemed to enjoy but mostly just made me feel stupid.
Eventually we decided that tomorrow Steve will put on his dry suit, take a go-bag, and hike downriver as far as he can to see if he can figure out both where we are and what our paddling options are. (We thought about doing this today, but my knee hurts and the water is high and the weather is shit.) I don’t like the idea of him going alone AT ALL, but he can cover more distance solo and we can’t leave all our stuff unattended.
The low point of the day was when I attempted to practice good dental hygiene and the floss ripped in half and left a tiny chunk wedged between two of my teeth. I got progressively more frantic about it and eventually Steve grabbed the tweezers and dug it out like a champion. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.