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My first experience as trip leader: Lodore in July

3K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  PBR62 
#1 ·
Thanks again to everyone who gave me advice/information that helped make this a super trip.

Here's my short list of lessons learned:

Communicate with group better and early on about common camp tasks, "procedures", and launch times: avoid confusion and streamline
Take less food, especially breakfast
Manage ice better: if you have ice, it should have food/beer on it
Take less propane
rocket boxes are too heavy for their purpose
Screen houses saved the day at Island Park (Thanks to Kelly at Dino for that)
 
#6 ·
We were able to re-supply water on day 2 of 4.
2nd propane bottle was a back up, no one in group had a small one. 2 10 lb makes sense for next time
We had "egg in a bag" for 3 breakfasts, uses lots of gas.

"Groover Tamer" worked very well.
We had a "pee bucket" for women which was much appreciated by them
Used a Partner Steel Johnny, awesome. Had the clean out funnel which made that chore a snap really.

My main take away was to make sure everybody was on same page as far as what to do when we land for the night. Locate kitchen, locate groover, unload group gear, then get your campsite. We had an abundance of campsites so that wasn't really a big deal. Questions should go to TL first who can decide, delegate, or seek consensus.

We had 3 boatmen with much more experience than me and I bounced stuff off of them prior to and on the trip to make sure things were going as well as possible and we weren't doing things that multiple trips had ruled out.

Have one person "in charge" of tasks like packing kitchen, groover, etc. They will have a system that works and can ask for help if needed. Can imagine in a large group "too many cooks" could really be an issue.
 
#7 ·
My main take away was to make sure everybody was on same page as far as what to do when we land for the night. Locate kitchen, locate groover, unload group gear, then get your campsite. We had an abundance of campsites so that wasn't really a big deal. Questions should go to TL first who can decide, delegate, or seek consensus.

We had 3 boatmen with much more experience than me and I bounced stuff off of them prior to and on the trip to make sure things were going as well as possible and we weren't doing things that multiple trips had ruled out.

Have one person "in charge" of tasks like packing kitchen, groover, etc. They will have a system that works and can ask for help if needed. Can imagine in a large group "too many cooks" could really be an issue.
You are on the right track here. I did a double permit Middle Fork trip for 27 people several years ago. Most folks react by saying "what a nightmare", but it was one of the easiest trips ever due to many idle hands.

I did a signup sheet type of thing ahead of time asking for people to volunteer for what they wanted to every night in addition to their one cook rotation. Firewood, groover setup, firepan setup, stove setup, two buckets of wash water and one for the fire, drinking water brought up and a back up (filter setup if necessary), kitchen box carry, handwash etc.....

That way you knew ahead of time what was your job and you picked what you wanted. Patrick is a beast with wood and brought his Silky handsaw and had a couple of others helping him carry wood, Eric brought the groover and set up and took it down, Eric did the firepan every night. It was hard for me to find a job to do other than drink. Everyone joined in on tarpology and we had to set one every night. We still had a ball.

Setting up that expectation of what needs to be done and how someone can help made all the difference. Sounds like you are on your way.
 
#8 ·
We also had a blast. Really had more help than chores.

All our food except lunch was pre-cooked and just had to be reheated so dinners were pretty easy. Once we figured out which rocket box had lunch in it we were good to go

River Runners out of Vernal was awesome and super easy to work with
 
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