Word: patly
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...guides," says a boyish young man from the floor, where he's kneeling on a bulging bright blue bag, squashing it into as small a shape as possible. He nods cheerfully toward an even younger man, who looks like he's just woken after a big night. The bags Pat hands around turn out to be as much cargo as we're going to be allowed to take. About twice the size of our sleeping bags, they will carry a meager array of clothes and, if we're lucky, keep them dry. After putting in two pairs of thick socks...
...cold water, which is thought to plunge 20 m in places. Clouds of bugs flutter on its surface, and delicate mosses hang from crevices. Beyond it the river wanders into a large pool, where we camp above a gravelly beach, resting in exhausted contentment on large boulders while Pat conjures a stir fry out of the food barrels. After dinner some of us take a raft back up to the Irenabyss and slowly paddle through it as the dusk fades over its ink black water, the eerie calls of currawongs echoing through the rainforest...
...keeping the water out of our bags quite another, and much worried attention is paid to goosenecking them, an origami-style process that involves repeated twisting and tying. A dry night's sleep depends on such art. The campsite must also be kept as pristine as possible, which, as Pat explains to a shocked group on our first night, necessitates the use of a pile of clear plastic bags sitting next to the roll of toilet paper. Lugging to the raft the tightly sealed steel box in which those bags will accumulate is no one's favorite...
...which we emerge bruised, tired and electrified. It's here that we truly slough off our normal lives; we might be journalists, public servants and businessmen out there, but in here we're hopelessly mortal, relying on our guides, ourselves and our next slippery foothold to get us through. Pat and our other guide, Dan, warn us that a fall here almost certainly means death, even as they have to leap onto wet rocks themselves to unsnag the rafts. We pull our little craft on ropes, use them as bridges to clamber over, tugging them as we inch backward along...
...pressure is now building on the President to make Scowcroft?s report public, or at least show it to lawmakers considering major intelligence reforms in the wake of the hard-hitting 9/11 commission report. At a hearing last week, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts said he had recently ?begged [Scowcroft] on hands and knees to release the report? to the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services panels. Roberts indicated that Scowcroft, who chairs the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, said that decision was up to Bush. Roberts hopes to call Scowcroft to appear before the committee, at least...