5 days of guiding - Sat - 65 walleye, Sun - 67 walleye, Mon - didn't take the clicker out, one of my guys caught a 47 inch northern, Tue - 113 walleye, Wed - 123.

One more dock to build, one trip to Winnipeg for steaks from Costco, one more trip to Fort Frances for Cuban Cigars and Labatts, one more week to walleye season and we will be open for our 38th season at Lake of the Woods.

Welding docks, hooking-up water, installing pressure tanks, fixing water leaks, starting sewer pumps, ice machines, freezers, minnow tanks, cutting dead trees, splitting firewood and building docks and decks on the cabins. 16 days to walleye season.

Despite the afternoon winds blowing up canyon from two until six, it was a perfect river trip. The shuttle timing was flawless. The food was delicious. Each night we watched Jupiter and Venus drop over the western canyon wall and Mars rise in the east and the Big Dipper would point to the North Star in the center of the canyon and before sunrise the moon would move across the southern sky. The rapids were enough of a challenge to make things interesting and we had no mishaps or equipment failures. Not knowing a blizzard would move in Saturday night, we got out of the canyon a day early and avoided a muddy mess at the take-out on Lake Powell Sunday morning. Various River Rats: Joe Bennion, Adah Bennion, Ali Gate, Ryan Gate, Shonpa the Tibetan et moi.

Did the annual Frost brothers truck camp on the West Clark Bench. We hiked down the middle trail into the Buckskin Gulch and found the bottom dry. I decided to hike the 10 miles through to Wire Pass and since I had no takers I struck out on my own and made it through in 3 hours. The Buckskin is one of the awe inspiring natural places in the world - it's a little spooky to be in there alone and hear a jet far overhead and wonder what a 100 foot wall of water would sound like coming down the slot. A camera is no match for the experience of this place.

A link to 20,000 years ago.

I've known that there are a number of famous pictographs and petroglyphs on the San Rafael but I was always in too much of a hurry to go run a river or hike somewhere or go to Canada or Santa Fe to stop and look. This winter Jeff had some business in Moab, so we decided to take the time and look at some of this rock art. Photos never do justice to these things because the places where they are located are an absolute part of the experience and one is always inspired to wonder "how?" and "why?" and "who?" It's claimed that the Barrier Canyon Style pictographs are up to 6000 years old.