The Great Tent Caper in the Sawtooth’s

The sun was well-established in the sky at 7 am this June morning of 2024 as my wife, Lisa, and I lifted off in our GlaStar headed for the annual GlaStar Flyin at Smiley Creek, ID. The skies were clear with a slight trailing wind, and Seattle Approach Control cleared me through the Class Bravo airspace as requested. Life was good. We were winging our way from Sequim, on the Olympic Peninsula, across the Washington Cascades to Idaho.

After a fuel stop in Cascade, Idaho, we bumped our way through the turbulence around the Saw-tooth Mountains past Stanley arriving at Smiley Creek Airstrip around noon. After this magic ride of about three hours over beautiful mountains and rugged peaks, we arrived to greet many of our friends gathering together for the flyin.

As I was regaling those at the picnic table with aviation stories and a cool beverage in my hand, I saw Lisa putting the tent together near our parked airplane. All of a sudden, a big Zephyr came blowing through the area. The gust not only blew off her hat, but it sent the unstaked tent about 20 feet in the air! I looked out and said to those around me “there goes my tent!”. When it hit the ground, it bounced back up in the air and then rolled out of view.

There was no panic, because we expected the wind to stop blowing and the tent to get hung up on brush. But the tent disappeared behind the willow bushes. And behind the willow bushes was a fast-flowing mountain creek. The situation began to get more serious the longer we didn’t know where the tent went.

I ran down to the scene of the crime and started looking for the tent to see if it floated down the creek. It was not easy to access the creek because of the line of willow bushes on each edge. I finally found the tent hung up on a large round rock in the middle of the creek with water flowing all around it.

After crossing over to the other side, I took off my shoes and socks and waded into the water and grabbed the tent at the center of the poles. As I tried to retrieve the tent, one of the poles broke, so I tried to get it unhung as gently as possible. I continued to try to rock and pull the tent from the cold stream. I eventually got it free of the rock, but every time I tried to pull the tent in, the floor would fill with water making it weigh about 400 pounds. So here I am- I can’t pull it in, and I can’t let it go. I am knee-deep in the freezing water, pulling as hard as I possibly can, trying not to fall down, and not making much progress. I am amazed I wasn’t either pulled in or had my feet slip out from under me. But failure was not an option. If the tent got away from me, we would have no shelter for the chilly nights of Idaho above 7000 ft.

Remembering the definition of insanity, I realized something had to change. I started pulling the fabric of the tent sideways and tried to turn the tent around - which ended up being successful. In the process of actually extricating the tent from the creek, two more poles were broken.

Unbeknownst to me, the rain fly and the footprint of the tent detached and went floating down the river. Lisa saw them floating by and waded into the river up to her waist with all her clothes on to retrieve them both. The only thing we lost was the crossbar at the top of the tent.

I was physically exhausted by the time the tent made landfall. It took several minutes recovering before I could get my shoes and socks back on. But we resolved the great tent caper with only a few cuts and scrapes on the rescuers, the tent, fly, and the aforementioned poles.

There was great rejoicing among the GlaStar group for the return of the wayward and lost tent. Repair kits and Duct tape were offered by many, and before you knew it the tent was standing again. Would you believe another dust devil came up? Even with two people holding it, the tent made another escape attempt which was quickly thwarted. But in the fracas, another pole was sacrificed.

The great tent caper was ended shortly after that event. All the poles were battlefield repaired and the way-ward tent was securely staked down and served admirably for two more nights keeping us warm and protected.

Remember to always keep your tent under control - for everyone’s sake.