Rafting down the Colorado

Here we embark on our magical journey down the Colorado River. I know when I hear about the Colorado River I think of amazing rapids and white water rafting, so I was expecting great things. After spending the night in Moab we headed over to the local church building where we met up with the river guide company and were given our sweet life vests. As you can tell we are all very proud to be wearing the faded vests that so many other rafters before us adorned. I wonder what stories these life vests would tell if they could talk. Were they lucky life vests or would they bring us bad luck as we started out on our adventure? For us these vests proved to be a great choice and kept us afloat later on in our trip.

We boarded the old elementary school grade bus making sure to sit back to back and seat to seat the entire ride. It reminded me of the many field trips that I took in grade school and how cool I felt to be riding on a bus. Haha I guess that's what walkers look forward to, is the day that we got to ride the bus to school instead of having to walk. Now I remember though how happy I was when I got my license and could drive myself to school because those seats were unbearably uncomfortable. We drove for at least 30 minutes on the winding roads of Moab that skirted next to the Colorodo River. Penny and I kept looking out the window in hopes of getting a glimpse of these incredible rapids. To our dismay all we saw were ripples in the water. We were saddened and a little discouraged. Here we thought we were going on a crazy white water rafting trip. We were expecting rapids like on the Deschutes, not the Clackamas. We tried not to be too disheartened we were at least going rafting and it was go to be a great day no matter how wimpy the rapids appeared.

As we began our journey the water was pretty calm. It allowed us time to take pictures of the beautiful scenery that surrounded us. If you look very closely on the left hand side in the very far, far distance you can see a stand alone rock. As our guide kindly told us this was gummy bear rock. Now I know it's hard to tell from this picture (ya gotta love disposable cameras) but the rock looked completely like a bear. As our guide pointed out gummy bear rock, one of our fellow rafters was like, "which rock are you all looking at?" and of course our guide replied, "umm the one that looks like a giant bear." It was too funny. I guess not all of us see things as easily as others but it still makes me laugh to think about our poor fellow rafter who was so confused by this gummy treat.

As our day continued, the clouds also continued to roll in. Here we were all prepared for 90 degree weather and major sunburns. Who would have thought it would have been better to wear a parka in the end of June when rafting. In reality though it was a perfect day for rafting. It wasn't too hot or too cold. The only time it got really cold was when the wind would blow after we had become victims of a water fight. Other than that the weather cooperated nicely with us. Now our guide had warned us about one rapid that he said was pretty tough. It would be right before lunch and we could skirt around it if we wanted, or we could hit it straight on. Well since the other rapids hadn't been too bad, we figured honestly how bad could it be.

So our new friend Tim decided that he wanted to ride the bull through this rapid and our guide told us to keep paddling no matter what. As the rapid quickly approached so did my heart rate as I saw the rapid we were about to enter. The closer we got the more I had wished we had skirted the outside of the rapid, but now it was too late. There was no turning back, the only way to get to our lunch site was through the rapid. So we paddled our hearts out. Now we were getting into the thick of the rapid when we went down and above us was a 15 ft wave. All I remember was saying, "Bring it on" and I dug my oar in to paddle. (Now the next 10 minutes for me are completely blank since I blacked out. But thanks to the other passengers in the boat we have an account of what happened.) Apparently after we saw the wave there were screams all throughout the boat and then our boat stopped on top of the wave. Then everyone from the otherside of the boat were gone along with 3 people from our side and the guide. I guess I was headed out of the boat but luckily Penny was sitting behind me and pulled me back in before I went over. I ended up in the middle of the boat in a complete daze not knowing what was going on around me. The next thing I remember is one of the guys in the boat running around the boat and screaming. The screaming jolted me out of my dazed state and I realized that we needed to pull all the other rafters back into the boat. It was a lot of hard work but we managed to get everyone safely back into the boat. Now we were all disoriented so we were all facing the wrong direction but adrenaline was going to get us all safely to lunch. Luckily other boats saw what happened to us and so they picked up our three fellow rafters who had to float that rapid out. Fortunately for us we didn't lose anything or anyone in our adventure and we had plenty to talk about during our lunch break.

In the end we all made it to shore and couldn't stop talking about what happened. When I got out of the boat Penny said, "Traci you're bleeding." Sure enough I had a cut on my knee that was now dripping blood down my leg. From the look of it it looked pretty bad but it the end it was just a scratch. We were so lucky that nothing serious happened to us and I think we were all a little apprehensive about getting in the boat again, but our guide assured us that we had seen the worst of the rapids. So we all got back in the boat after a nice lunch break and our nerves had had time to settle back down. The rest of the journey now the river was pretty uneventful and I was very grateful. After our experience I don't if I could have handled anymore excitment. When it comes to water that is something that I don't mess with. I try to respect the water gods so as not to upset them and enjoy my time in their company. Our four hour journey down the river was full of more excitement then I expected when we first started. I have to say that I was not disappointed at all by the section of the Colorado River that I had the pleasure of rafting down. We could not have been happier when we saw the banks that we would pull in to unload. By this point we were all emotionally and physically exhausted and were ready to call it a day. Just before our turnout we had to paddle through an eddy and let me just say it was the toughest paddle of the day. We started strong and we ended strong but most importantly WE SURVIVED!!!!