When the Squamish River unleashes a torrent from angry glaciers awakened too abruptly from their winter slumber, it commands the kind of respect you had better heed, lest it swallow you in a watery grave. Thus was the lesson for my partner and I, as we hit the water on the way to our river spot, top-heavy with a 10-bale load of Pro-mix and 50 clones in four-inch pots in wax tree planter boxes propped on top.

Now the last thing you want to hear when you are overheated, overloaded and at the mercy of a raging river is the sound of a chopper coming up the valley on your trajectory. But that’s just what we heard, as we bucked the surf, whooping with exhilaration, trying to maneuver the boat through the defiant current. I was on the bow, my partner in the stern, frantically plunging the paddle into the water to try and slow our momentum, desperately trying to commandeer the boat back from the clutches of the river.

By the time I heard the chopper over the foaming torrent, it was almost on top of us, coming right at us, about a quarter-mile away. "Chopper!" I shouted, hearing the faint clack of rotors as we came up swiftly on a hairpin bend in the river. My partner responded by cranking our tail perpendicular to the bank with one deep thrust so we could paddle with all we had to the cover of shore.

It was too late! We were sucked into the vortex of the river bend. Instead of hitting shore, we came up wide on the portside, heading straight for a huge deadfall snag jammed in the bend. With barely time to brace, we hit it broadside with a sickening thud and were pinned there, the boat unstable and taking on water - fast. The iciness of the glacial runoff took my breath away as it over-spilled the sides and soaked my legs on the boat floor. I went into flight/fright overdrive, my heart pounding out of my chest, and grabbed the slim log trapping us there. There were lots of branches, thank god, so I was able to balance and support myself.

Water thundered past us in foamy torrents. Over the roar, I barked at my partner to grab the machete. He frantically did and I ferociously chopped branches on the down-stream side of the log. We pulled the boat over the snag and set ourselves free, before the river could sentence us to a hideous death.

Judiciously, my partner pulled the boxes of clones out of the boat and balanced them precariously on the log. He managed to get all the bales and clones up onto the snag. I stuck the machete into the log to help him grab the filling dinghy and pull it out of the water, but the damned boat was so heavy with water we could hardly budge it. Our lifeline being snatched away in a tug of war with the mighty river, we yanked and pulled, balanced on that log, death almost a certainty on either side.. Using our bodies as counter- balance, we finally got the dinghy up onto the log and turned it over to empty out the water.

A menacing branch just below the surface was obstructing our launch point, so I went for the machete, kicked it lose by accident and watched it plop into a frothy eddy, gone forever.

No time to waste. We flipped the boat to the other side of the snag and into the water, then proceeded to load it again from the downstream side of the log. The current was diminished here because the log was acting as a dam.

With the goods aboard, my partner got on board the bow. I jumped aboard the stern and struggled frantically to shove us off with the paddle. With no time to worry about puncturing the hull, we broke loose and were sucked back into the river, almost instantly hitting white water and forced to shoot the raging rapids. As white water sprayed our faces and flung us about violently, we whooped and yelped during our little rodeo ride about our near-death experience. Finally drifting into the still, black waters, we paddled to shore right in front of the patch. And all this before morning coffee!

After working the patch, at the end of the day we returned to the boat only to find it deflated. The hull had, in fact, been punctured and had a slow leak. I looked out at the river, now swelled even more and realized that the once placid setting had again become a cauldron. Because of a single act of nature, our lives had hung in the balance.

We patched the boat with our emergency kit, pumped it up, and took to the water again to reach our vehicle before nightfall.

YouTube - brwndirtwarrior's Channel

Thou arte a fine author mr. warrior. I have done a bit of rafting down here in the bottom of the state so I can easily envision this escapade.

Great story,
I was gripped by the story line and captivated by the perils...
This is much better than the Lone Ranger and Tonto...
BROWNDIRT the "Daniel Boone" of Marijuana...

Peace
and
Happy Trails

__________________
Aging is GODs way of telling us there's no time to waste...

WAS MOSE'S REALLY SPEAKING TO A BURNING BUSH???
OR WAS IT ONLY SMOKING???

Great story Brown. What an adventure. So what ever became of the chopper ? or is there another adventure on the way, you will be sharing with us.

Cheers!!!!

__________________
Cheers!!!!! Shinningwind
current log @ HGS
Shinningwind's Outdoor Adventure/09

this story shows how dedicated you two were to saving the clones just as much as your own lives. Crazy, but cool

kailiwela44

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oh yeah, oh yeah.

It was the early days really --’93. The location was an hour north of Kamloops in a semi-arid land known as Barrier. Wonderful place to grow pot.

Our projected take that year was a million plus. But big dreams die hard in the de facto realm of the grower. This was a stark truth that was about to bonk me straight over the head and leave me dazed … for the rest of my career.

The official name for the place was “The River Patch” because it sat nestled in a clearing a few meters from a snake bend in the mighty Columbia river, miles from nowhere -- off an inactive logging road then kilometers over punishing terrain on foot, impenetrable bug and leach infested swamps, treacherous portages, and thicket that left you gnashing your teeth in stinging pain and indignation over not making headway.

The newly initiated would be rendered useless getting to the River Patch, as they finally arrived on site and plunked down to catch their breath, feet bleeding and blistered, forlorn strewn across their faces at the excruciating work that had not yet even begun.

Yes, it was absolute hell getting there, and preparing yourself for it required a full game face and the acceptance that you would be scraped, bruised, soaking wet -- and just plain ready for a nap by the time you arrived. I had my own name for this place, and would mutter it from time to time en route: The Hell Patch.

You could get to the Hell Patch easily by motorized boat against the pull of the river, but that risky mode of transportation was only used to bring in huge amounts of payload for growing. With illegal pot farming, hardship is your best insurance policy.

The spot was super remote, but every spot has its Achilles heal, and this one was no accept ion. The river was dotted with cabins every couple of kilometers, with one cabin in particular nestled at the top of this gorge around the river bend just up from where we were growing. So even though it was out of sight, we suspected that the water-filled gorge acted like a megaphone and would funnel any loud sounds we made up and down the river.

Being heard from up there by someone visiting their cabin, was always a concern when we went in there by boat. We tried to use the boat method of entry only during the week, late in the day, when there was less likelihood of anyone visiting their cabin.

The plot was only supposed to have 100 holes. In fact, all plots were only to have no more than 100 holes ( to diversify)but we went in late, and things always get compromised in unsuspecting ways when you get behind the eight ball with illegal outdoor growing.

So the spot ended up with 400 holes -- a 100 of which I dug myself in one day, the crew looking on in stunned amazement as I tore up thick roots and dug huge 3x3 holes all day long without breaks. By the end of that first day, my forearms had seized from swinging a pickaxe for hours on end, making my fingers stiffen and cramp up so that I could no longer grip. They hadn’t come up with the name Brown Dirt Warrior yet, but they would.

With every hole I dug that day, every shovel full of hard won dirt, that cabin up around the bend, that Achilles’ heel of the whole operation, gnawed on my mind like flesh eating disease.

Many growers came and went that year on Hell Patch. In fact, we used it as a litmus test to see if the help had “the right stuff“. If you got on Hell Patch and actually did an honest day’s work, you gained instant respect and were welcomed into the “brotherhood of the guerrilla“.

By the time middle of summer arrived, the plants on Hell Patch had grown to 6ft, and our conservative estimate on this strain was 1000 bucks per plant if they reached maturity. That., of course, added up to 400 thousand bucks. The anticipation was palpable, as we’d approach the opening to the patch after two weeks away, bristling with excitement over how big they might be. And then, when we’d break out into the opening and see them all still there much bigger than before, a kind of self-satisfied euphoria swept over us. The mood would instantly elevate and smiling eyes and glistening faces roamed the patch for the initial inspection and the only fun time we got to observe and enjoy. Then we got to work, all pumped and enthused, the promise of a bumper crop coursing through our veins, feeding the adrenalin rush.

It was indeed a thing of beauty, after all that punishing work throughout the seasons, arriving on patch and seeing what amounted to a Christmas tree farm of maturing, high-grade marijuana … worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The fall snuck up behind us like a caravan of nomadic thieves, and before we knew it … there were leaves crunching underfoot, steamy breaths, and the promise of harvest lingering in the back of our minds in a place we dare not linger, lest the fates intervene and snatch it all away with cold indifference. I had always been told not to count your chickens before they hatch out here, but a glistening black Heritage Soft Tail all covered in chrome, always danced across my mind to mask the pain about to be endured on Hell Patch.

It was our last day in before harvest. We had to go in to inspect and gather supplies, the river now low from a dry summer, with lots of mud holes to negotiate off the banks where the woods were just too thick to hike. Both my feet were covered in muck from my boots being sucked off my feet at one time or another, and my legs ached from the heavy trudging. By the time we got on patch, I was sticky with dry sweat, soaked from head to toe with swamp water, covered in blood sucking leaches, bug bitten … and spent.

Entering the plot, it didn’t register in my mind that the first plant signature plant to always signal you were on patch , wasn‘t there. I had to check my bearings to see if I was in the right place, but noticed the empty hole and stared into it.. Kind of stunned, I went to the next empty hole, which prompted me to scurry out into the opening to the bulk of the patch where I stopped dead. All that could be seen was a huge, open swath where all the marijuana used to be. One of the crew then yelled out, in a blood curdling voice, what no one else wanted to hear -- IT’S ****IN GONE! . I then heard one of the tougher guys in the crew whimpering, and looked over to see him shaking his head and beating his fist down into a rotted stump.

Slowly and stiffly, I planted myself down and blew a huge sigh from my cheeks, too stunned to swat away the giant mosquitoes that were now gorging on my face. I looked around at this now violated place which one held such sanctity and thought about the punishing year out here. Why was I doing this; I pondered briefly: subjecting myself to such a ridiculous craps shoot?

There would be some soul searching to be done before the year was out. This changed everything. But for now it would be getting dark soon. No point being in this godforsaken place anymore.

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