Impassable River

Dream snippet from last night.

I was hiking around Massacre Rocks (though the trail I was on actually looks a lot like one at Cherry Springs; the high, dry one). There were a whole bunch of grade school kids there as well on a field trip, led by Mrs. Adams (my junior high speech and drama teacher). I ignored the kids and followed the trail I was on, trying to remember how to get back across the Snake River. I knew that I'd followed this trail before and there was a way back. But the trail dead ended at the water's edge. Deep water. I couldn't see even a hint of the bottom.

About two hundred feet away (or more) I could faintly see the rock bridges I "remembered" but they were almost buried under water as well. I saw a rock five feet from my perch at the edge of the water: a large boulder sticking out of a sheer cliff face, its top under several inches of water. I decided to try and make for that rock. I began testing the ground, looking for a good jump-off point. For some reason, I began scraping my foot along one segment of edge, scraping the surface dirt off. Under it was bare red rock, possibly carved with a pink symbol that I did not look at.

I gave up trying to get to the submerged boulder and decided I would just swim for the bridges. Then I noticed the net. A large plastic net that looked like an oversized version of the ones sometimes put on pickups in place of a tailgate (and which, according to the Mythbusters, atually increase gas mileage). It stretched the whole way across the surface of the water at a narrow point of the canyon. I couldn't tell if it went clear under the surface or not, but I didn't want to swim all the way out to it and get stuck. I turned around and wondered if the school bus and driver would be willing to drive me back to my car instead (which must have been on the other side of the river). I woke up before I got to find out.