Yet another beautiful day to be on the river. Our paddling party meets at the take out to drop off shuttle vehicles only to discover a newly installed gate across the access road. Hmmm, that's interesting...the area isn't posted and, look, there is a chain & padlock - but they're just loosely wrapped around the gate and not actually locked. Why then, I guess its OK, no worries, lets drop off the cars and head back upriver.

At days end we arrive down at the take-out, rack boats and gear and drive up to the gate.

LOCKED.

OK, first lets all perform the "vehicle-in-distress" drill (in other words mill about aimlessly for a while) and then we'll consider our options. Well, I have a pair of bolt cutters in the back of my truck at the put-in (Yup, right there on my anal-paddlers gear checklist, between "ammo box" and "come-along"..."bolt cutters"). I'll just hitch hike back, get my truck, nip that baby off and away we go.

I catch the guaranteed ride all the way back to my truck (doing the color commentary as vehicles crest the hill coming towards me; "Young mother with toddler in a station wagon -nope" ..."Yuppie suit in a gleaming, late model SUV - No freakin' way"..."Old man in a rusty pickup truck - Hot damn, here comes my ride"). I hear a few war stories, listen to some bitching about "Them damn lawyers down in Warshington" (nodding in agreement) and get chauffeured straight to my truck door.

So, I fetch my truck and arrive back at the take-out to discover that another member of our party has hitch hiked off in the opposite direction, found a yard sale and bargained down the cost of a used hack saw to the amount of spare change he had in his pocket.

Fortunately, before commencing work on the lock, we spend a few minutes at the gate admiring each others implements of destruction and while we're jawing away ("H.K. Porter #5's, these are damn nice cutters", "$1.27?...man, you got a good deal on this saw") the local farmer who - surprise - owns the gate, lock and chain, not to mention the access road, pulls up.

Trying to look innocent while holding a conversation with a local whom you need to favorably impress while concealing a hacksaw hurriedly stuffed down your pants leg ain't easy. Well, maybe it wasn't that hard; he probably calculated, judging from my stiffened gait and awkward posture, that I paddled C1.

That calculation may have helped convince him that I was just a harmless, though muddle-headed, paddler and he produced the key and freed our cars. In fact, I suspect my apparently debilitated condition caused him to feel so sorry for us ("It was a pitiful sight. Martha, that young feller couldn't hardly stand up straight and he hadda drag one leg along behind him...I 'spect he paddles on his knees") that he showed us where he lived; so we could pick up the key in the future.

The moral of this story is: Speak softly and keep your hacksaw in your pants.