The Morning of the last Day

Tales from Kamchatka

By Lost Coast Outfitters

November 10^th, 2018

We had heard rumor of a tsiklon, Russian for and pronounced like cyclone , moving in. Cyclone is a hard word to ignore. The rumor was confirmed from our contacts in Petropavlovsk. The forecast was calling for a storm. In trying to monitor the weather there for 10 days, I mainly observed it was useless trying to predict it. It is also hard to accept the reality that the forecast means nothing out here. We convened for a "committee meeting" to discuss the tsiklon. Wherein Kirill the head of the program explained that "If we don't get out before the storm hit, that it would be real shit on top of the cake." Up until this point, the weather had been perfect and since no one was in favor of shit cake; we began to make plans for extraction a day earlier than scheduled. We took stock of supplies and implemented a firewood rationing plan in case we were to be stuck for an extended period of time. It would suck to freeze to death thinking about how warm you used to be when you were burning wood all night. We unknowing polished off our remaining vodka with 2 days to go.

On the morning of our last day we were instructed to have our gear in order and ready for flight by noon. The cold clear morning has left everything but the river iced over. The air stung our faces when left the warmth of dining room with a belly full of breakfast and hot coffee.The light in the early morning was incredible. The river was the lowest and clearest it had been all week, full visibility. We hiked down the river deviating from out normal jet boat transport as the rafts had to be hoisted out the river, deflated, and thrown on a helicopter. The plan was to fish our way down to a stretch, newly named cabbage. before we got there we found a few depressions that were holding fish. We could see wakes moving around in the pool. Our hearts raced as we watched the line slowly sweeping to a dangle followed by unmistakable V wake of pure uncut Kamchakan Steelhead. We worked down river switching off who was fishing between each fish. We had each hooked 3 or 4 fish in the span of an hour or two. So much for the cyclone, we joked, then wondering if we had just cursed ourselves. This was to be our last day full day of fishing and we are leaving early with no cyclone in sight. I didn't like the idea of continuing to fish, it felt gluttonous. I would like to think I would felt similarly at the start of the week but I doubt it. We decided to instead play a game of Russian skeet where we threw things in the air and shot them with a 12 gauge.

On the last day at camp, the crew prepared for reentry. Our moods changed until the remnants of personal booze that had been kept in our rooms came out. We adjourned what we thought may have been the last committee meeting by taking solace in that the helicopter would arrive right after we could hear it. Figuring when out the helicopter is going to get there is like booking comcast to come to your house. You need to block half your day to be ready when this thing shows up. They don't like keeping them on the ground so you better not hold them up.

I am not sure there is a lesson in any of this, but I often find my self running back over the decision trees that lead to great success or great failure. You can explore the the tree and you will find the trees branches explode into infinite fractals with every person who enters into the story. Then you find the trunk. I look forward to sharing these stories over time. There some many thoughts to unpack from this experience. I am so thankful for the opportunity, and thankful that there is an unencumbered population of steelhead in this world. This is a place is special.