High Adventure 2021 - Upper Priest Lake

This year, our ward Young Men planned a High Adventure trip for all the boys, deacon through priest. They decided to take the stake canoes (and any personal kayaks) up to Priest Lake in Idaho, then canoe up the narrow river to Upper Priest Lake where there is a secluded first come, first served camp site. Each quorum planned activities for their time there including archery and a swimming, canoeing, running race. Brother Michael Webb planned the menu and, thanks to the Burchs' power boat, was going to transport all his cooking gear up to the campsite to act as camp chef. Must be rough.

The plan was to depart from the church at 6am on the morning of the 4th, Jacob's birthday. He, of course, said that it was perfect so that he didn't have to celebrate his birthday. However, I talked to the bishop in advance and said that I would bring some donuts that morning, so the boys could sing him "Happy Birthday" anyway. hehe. I picked up three dozen donuts from Mike's Old Fashioned Donuts the day before, and then waited until Jacob and Brendan left for the church to jump into the Hyundai and deliver them to everyone. Jacob was surprised, but I think he was happy. He got his maple bar. Then, he would get to spend the rest of his birthday in his happy place, the outdoors. 

The trip paddling up the river to the campsite was a rough and choppy four hours. All the boys and dads got a solid work out. 

Aaron Johnson, Brother Nate Wilkinson, Brendan and Brother Ken Young chatting and playing some chess.

Jacob "assuming the position" in his happy place.

There was an incident on the trip while going up the river to the campground. Some of the brethren had to go back and revisit the site following day and asked Jacob to go along to assist. The previous day, Brother Ken Young had brought along a special kayak which had a pedaling mechanism, enabling him to "paddle" with his legs instead of his arms. However when some of the boys were struggling to paddle their own canoes up the river, he had offered to switch with them and take a turn with the regular paddles, allowing Mitch Burch to use his. While going along, however, Mitch found that the pedaling mechanism was breaking. The power boat came up along side to take the boys and pick up the dying kayak, but when they went to pull the kayak into the boat the mechanism broke off completely and immediately sank into the lake and disappeared. The passengers had to find Brother Young later at the campground and let him know what had happened. Fearing that Brother Young would be upset about the kayak, they received even worse news when a saddened Brother Young explained that there had been a black dry bag INSIDE the mechanism which held his car keys, wallet and cell phone. They were now at the bottom of the lake. All things considered, he had taken the news very well, but it was then that the brethren realized that they had to go back and help find that dry bag. During the devotional that night, the boys had prayed for a miracle that Brother Young's things would be found. 

The brethren worked out a grid system plan to try to look for Brother Young's bag. The Burches brought scuba equipment in their boat and then took the boat out to the approximate spot of the incident. The brethren tried to use the shoreline landmarks to guestimate where that spot could be. President Burch stopped the boat and Brother Webb got into the lake in his wetsuit. Before attempting a scuba search, he decided to just try free diving first. He went down one side of the boat and saw just how dark it was down in the lake. It was pretty black down there and the mechanism AND bag were, of course, also black. He couldn't see anything. Then, Brother Webb decided to try the other side of the boat and used the anchor line to free dive straight down. Almost immediately, he looked up and right in front of him he saw the faint glimmer of light reflect off the tiny chrome pin that attached the pedal to the mechanism. He was able to retrieve the mechanism with the dry bag and bring them right up. Only the larger housing for the mechanism could not be found. It must have been swept away by currents in the lake. How the smaller, lighter part did not get swept away was indeed a miracle. Within about 15 minutes of going out in search of that tiny mechanism in that massive lake, they found Brother Young's things. President Burch had nearly parked his boat directly over it! 

The cell phone was dead, but the keys and wallet were just fine. Now Brother Young would be able to drive back home with the van full of boys he had transported!

Brother Michael Webb, free diver.

Bishop Brent McAllister, Regan Young, Dallin Howard and Max Maughan

Brendan and Aaron Johnson about to do their portion of the relay race, paddling the canoe.

 The smoke from wildfires wasn't too bad. The boys and brethren ate well, thanks to Brother Webb, and enjoyed the activities and spiritual messages. It was a High Adventure to remember.