Jax the Guide

Teresa took family and friend on a hike to Skinny People. She wanted to take the high route back along the top of the cliffs but wasn't 100% sure of the route. She lured Jax to go with her with string cheese and everyone came back saying what a great guide he was. Knew every inch of the trail and they followed him back on the high trail.

Vanessa Keating

All the side by sides needed work and one of the trucks so last week or so I drove something injured in almost every day and uninjured back. During one of thos trips Jax and I hit the bottom of Hurrah and there was a woman pushing a cart with a dog and a heavy pack and the likes in the cart. I pull up and say "What's the plan?" She says on a qwest bo make folks aware of the water problems in the Colorado River, or something like that. She says "Think I can push this up Hurrah Pass. I said "No but then you'll probably just try harder so I"ll be heading back this way in a couple hours and if you're still here I'll rescue you. Two hours later about half way up Hurrah is Vanessa, her dog, and the cart. I pull up and say "Want a ride?" She says "Yes I do." We pack everything in the side by side and over the next day or so I talk her out of going down Lockhart Basin where I won't go rescue her. She's been on the trail for about five months or so. Sponsored by the Weather Channel. It was nice talking to her and her travels. I told her what was coming and she caught a ride with Taresa to town the next day and began pushing her cart with dog down Hwy 191. She's interesting and good people. You can find her on Instagram and TikTok under the Nomad Diaries. Two or three days after she left I found this little note in the porch mail box.

"Tom and Teresa, Thank you both so much for your kindness. I wish I could express exactly how much it means to me. I"m pretty sure you saved our lives(Or at least saves us from an embarrassing SOS call.) We love you. Vanessa and Bryce s

Some Stuff Since the Rescue

After the Kobae rescue I wss exhausted for days. When I got back with him I went to take a shower and Linny had apparently taken one just before me because there was tamarisk from the river stuck to the shower curtain. I got an hour's sleep, got some work done, one more hour's sleep, some more things that had to be done, and a third hour's sleep then it was to town for errands and pick up Teresa at the airport. I was so tired I could barely stay awake on the way to the airport. I told Teresa the Kobae story but I could hardly focus on it. She ask me when it happen and I said three days ago and when everyone kept telling me it was that very morning I clung to my three days ago I was so exhausted I apprently thought each time I went to sleep for an hour was a day. Teresa drove on the way back. I couldn't stay awake.

We've taken some short hikes with Kobae since but even he doesn't seem like he wants to do a long one.

I'm in town a couple weeks ago and I go to Walker to buy some more gravity chairs and they are $100 each. I go back a couple days later and there are four of them there. One has a $100 sticker on it and the other three have $50 stickers on them, all the same chair. I buy the three $50 chairs then head to Nations to get some work on the 250. While they're working on it Jax and I wander the yard with all the wrecks in it and in the corner is the bunch of gravity chairs all piled up. Chris says that's a truck that wrecked in 2017 full of gravity chairs and he's been trying to get rid of them ever since. We're deep in gravity chairs now.

I couldn't take a picture of the whole car as the plates would show up on the Tesla and it's a rental.

Just got a second generator installed at both sides side of the property. If the batteries get low in the middle of the night and the generator won't start you flip a switch and it goes to the second generator.

A week or so ago the first Hayduker summer fall hiker came through. Ulysses S. Grant. This is Green Grass who just came through a couple days ago.

Kobae Three

I didn't sleep at all that night. It's been a 22 year relationship and even though he's a lot of work, very expensive, and has no shortage of attitude issues, he's my friend and good friends are hard to come by. If there is a way to save him I will. As I was working all night, unable to sleep, I imagined a beaver coming to check him and he backed up and fell in the river. A raccoon comes out of the tamarisk, he backs up and he's in the river. We show up at first light and he's gone. We look for him but no way to know where he fell in or when. It's over. These things playing in my head all night. As I'm driving over to the beach to see if he's still there before waking up Linny and Lydia I realize I was pumping water in the Condo yesterday when this all happened and it's stil pumping. I call Linny on the walkie and ask her to meet me at the boat ramp while I race over to the Condo to turn the water off. I open up the pump room and the overflow light is on. I'm getting ready to call Lydia to tell her the Condo has five hundred gallons of water in it and to start dry vac ing but I can't find where any of it went. I shut the hose off and head to the beach and meet Linny. Mosquitoes are thick but there's no place left for them to bite after last night and my cramps have cramps so it will take a long mosquitoe needle to feel any pain. There's no pictures for a bit and all the paragraphs will run together. We're focused on Kobae. During the night I tried to think of anything that might assist us so during the night I have filled up the back of one of the trucks with shovels, rakes, post hole digger and every tool we have. We take two rakes and start barefoot walking towards where we last saw Kobae 500 feet or so down the river bank from the boat ramp. He's there. I put a rake in the water in front of me and I can support myself with it. It doesn't sink in the mud. Still the water is a couple feet deep. Linny takes the other rake and we're both to him in four or five minutes. He's dug a little hole and he's still sleeping. I have some energy back and I climb up the embankment and start pushing him around so he's facing the river bank. If we can steer him 40 feet or so there is a place where he can get off the embankment and straight on to the mud beach. As soon as he sees he's in the same place where he crossed yesterday he heads right for it. I try and pull him up but I can't. He's staring at the place he came across. I know it now. it's two feet of mud and two feet of water on top. He won't make it. Kobae charges into the river. Linny says "Tom, he's made his decision there's nothing we can do. It's all up to Kobae now. It's the first time I have relaxed since he crossed. He lives or dies now and we'll know in ten seconds. It was his decision. He's very floatable but he can't swim. He runs into the river. He doesn't sink. He has so much momentum going that he runs across the top of the water and comes up on the muddy beach. He made it. He's alive. He starts slogging through really deep mud and the further he goes it starts building up in front of him like a snowplow that never turns it's blade. He's so strong. I guide him with the rake trying to keep him out of deep mud as we head for the boat ramp.

Finally he gets to shallow mud and we turn him towards the creek bed. We had no energy left to try and pick him up to put him in the back of the truck and he's slippery muddy.

He gets to the creek bed and we turn him into it. Normally we would be home in twenty minutes but Kobae is walking along grazing on grass and plants like it's a normal day and he worked up an appetite. The sun is blazing and it takes us one hour and fifteen minutes to get home. I have to fight him to get him up the hill towards the lodge and out of the creek bed. He's fighting me after all I did for him and the most stressul and strenous battle I've been through out here for many years. I get him back to the lodge and guide him to his hole quickly closing the gate behind him and head for the shower. He's alive and he's home.

Kobae River Bank

Kobae hiked almost as far as you can see on the river bank holding on to the side of the bank with two feet and the other two in the mud of the river, then turned around and came all the way back. There wasn't enough room for me to walk on the bank so I crawled it. Linny crossed and crawled it from the other direction.

Kobae Part 2

Kobae and I are having a nice walk at the beach. Linny and Lydia are out in one of the trucks somewhere and call to see what is going on. I tell them I'm at the beach with Kobae but he's starting to wander out into deep water and the mud is getting deeper that I can't keep up. They are on the way. Kobae is getting into some pretty deep mud now and heading towards the river bank. He knows he can't swim, he's a tortoise, not a turtle. Between the beach and the river bank there is about a ten foot across area that has two to three feet of mud and a couple feet of water. If Kobae goes aross that we won't be able to get to him and he's headed that way.

Then suddenly Kobae leaps into the water. I'm thinking it's over but he just plows across the river. His head is up the whole time. We're stunned. We can't get across and he can't get up on the embankment. He's got two feet barely on the embankment and the other two in the water. If he loses his grip it's over. He struggles but finally gets up on the embankment.

None of us can get across the waterway to get to him. It's too deep and too muddy, quality mud. Then he turns down river, heading down the embankment towards the stairs beneath the lodge and where you use to get to the beach. I ask Linny and Lydia to keep an eye on him. I get in the side by side and head for the lodge. I run down to the bottom of the stairs but it's thick with weeds. I try and walk towards Kobae but the tamarisk is too thick. I have to crawl on my hands and knees. I get about 30 feet and he turns around and heads back the other way. I crawl for a couple hundred feet fighting the tamarisk. A couple times I partially fall in and just barely get back up on the embankment. One water shoe goes to deep in the mud and I can't get it out. I abandon the other one. It's getting dark. Linny has made it across and is on the embankment on the other side of Kobae and she's pounding the tamarisk down trying to create a trail. Kobae is just hanging on. Twice he slips and almost goes under. I reach down and try to pull him up but I'm trying to pull 200 plus pounds up a slippery steep muddy slope. Each time I think it's the last time I'll see him but he finds a way to get partially up on the bank. I finally catch him and try and direct him where we wants to go. He's coming right at me but I have one leg deep in the mud and can't move. He steps on the other one and breaks my small toe, toenail in pieces. I can hear the echos of my painful scream. Kobae runs right over me and is in front of me again. It's very close to dark. My head lamp is not on my hat anymore, a tamarisk branch has stolen it, my water shoes are gone as is my walkie talkie. If we can get him to go another 30 feet we can get him on a sandbar. He's exhausted and climbs up the embankment a little bit and goes to sleep. There's nothing we can do until morning. Linny crosses where Kobae did and I try but I sink waste deep in mud. Linny wades back out and I have to put my arms around her and she pulls me out. We're both exhausted and so is Kobae. It's dark. Nothing is going to happen tonight. We start walking back toward the boat ramp in the deep mud. I hope he'll be there in the morning.

Kobae Part 1

Phone rings, guy says he's looking for James Maybe. I tell him wrong side of the river. He ask what's his number? I say I promised I wouldn't give it out. He says "You're going to cost him a lot of money." I say "He has a lot of money." He hangs up. I email James and give him the number of the guy that called. He emails back and says "Want some eggs." I say "Raising chickens to get an agricultural zoning. He says "No, just like eggs."

The slow season is over. We're mostly full until late October. We have the disc tourney October 21, 22, and 23. If you are playing and you want a room, hogan, or house let me know soon so I can hold it for you.

We are the first aid station again for the Moab 240 running race and the second rest stop at the 34.8 mile mark.

It's a nice stroll with Kobae and Jax on the beach and then with the blink of an eye it turns into a life or death situation with the death of Kobae more likely.

More Stuff

I've had disc golfers in the past crushed when the lost their favorite disc. Sometimes it was the disc they've had the longest or their lucky disc that they used when they needed a miracle. Then it's lost. It's like a friend been with you so long. You hope it's not suffering, unlike my original smart phone that took my miracle flip phones place. Dan J, from New Jersey told me about his and I told him I'd keep an eye out. That was earlier in the year. Then he emails me a few weeks ago and said it turned up at a course four hours from here. Somebody found it on the course at Base Camp, never called the number on it, then lost it again a couple hundred miles from here while playing a different course. Someone found it and called Dan. Then I get this email. "She made it home Tom!!! A little sun baked from being lost by two different guys on two different courses in two different states. But she is safely home and I am ecstatic!!! I am torn between the thought of retiring her to wall hanger status for the story that goes with it. But at same time due to the weathering it has been subjected to, it is beautifully seasoned and can become a weapon in my arsenal. SHE LIVES SO SHE FLIES!!!! Take care buddy"

Across the river a lot of activity. Somebody at the shooting range every day. Two planes that take off and land most every day. They've bulldozed the north end of the property along the riverbank and there are five containers labeled Pod 1, Pod 2, and the like. I don't know how they are going to deal with two months of mosquitoes and another month of potential flooding but it's not my problem.

Adding some more kayaks to the fleet. Probably at least half of them have been patched at one time or another. We use to take people to town and drop them off and a four hour kayak back. But it's hot for a couple more weeks and I can't get anybody to get up at 6am and drive to town before stores open and so forth to put people in the river before it gets hot. We quite doing it after Covid but if I charge some money for it that might get it going again to motivate somebody to get them a ride.

Stuff

Linster

I remember when the reeds growing in the pond next door were my biggest problem. Then the red-wing blackbirds moved into the reeds and slept here at night and when they left the cow birds moved in. Now I would't want to get rid of them for most anything.

Linny spent several days, couple hours a day working on the property road and there is still work to be done.

I was thinking how nice hiking with Kobae was gonna be this year. I wasn't going to fight him. When I wanted him to go home I'd just call the lodge and have somebody come out in a truck, we pick him up and put him in the back.

Then he headed out to Jackson Hole. I fought him to turn him around then called Linny to come get him. We couldn't turn him at all. Linny parked the truck with the back wheel in a ditch and we dropped the tail gate where we only had to lift him two feet or so and we struggled to do that. Then had to four wheel it to get out of the ditch.