This last weekend we went white water rafting. My parents, Levi, Alisa, Dasha, Sabre, and our little family drove 10 hours to Colorado. Wesson did pretty good on the way there, but he didn't take any naps. We arrived there around 6pm and started setting up camp before it started to too hard. Irving, Emilie, Garth, Caroline, Hannah, Mathew, Marie,
Zerin, Ryan, Jared, and the
Checkett family met us there. Some of us went swimming at the pool and the rest sat around visiting. It was
alot of fun. We then woke up early the next morning to get ready to ride the rapids. There were two
different groups. My aunt and uncle went with the younger kids on the Big Horn Sheep (which had class 1-4 rapids.) The rest of us did the Royal Gorge the Grand Slam. Which means we did it twice! I
unfortunately could only go down once, because I had to feed Wesson. It was
soo much fun. The Royal Gorge is made up of mostly class four and five rapids. Once you go under the bridge called "The point of no return" there is no turning back. You lock your legs in place, because that is the only thing keeping you in the boat and paddle for what you are worth. The whole time your guide is yelling "Forward hard! Left Turn! Back paddle! and Together!Paddle Together!" We did good no one fell out of the boat, but there were a couple of close calls. But that's what happens when you are suddenly hit with a huge wall of water that swamps the boat. Here are a few pictures for the "Sunshine" rapid. This is always a class five rapid and one of the most dangerous ones. There is a ten foot drop going into it. Check these out!
It was so fun! Before each rapid the guide would call out the name of the rapid like sledgehammer, the wall, boat sinker, and the narrows. Then he would tell us how he would like the boat to go, and which way to swim if we fell out of the boat. Some time there was nowhere to swim. For example, on "The Wall" the guide would say "Now don't fall out on this one, because if you do, you are hitting the wall (a rock wall)" or others he would say "if you fall out don't swim right, and don't swim left just stay in the middle and swim the rapids. The railroad lines left a ton of
re bar so you will get all sliced up. Just try to stay in the middle!" So you would make sure your feet were tucked in tight and paddle and try not to fall out. One time I almost lost my paddle because the water is so strong it almost sucked it out of my him. On one of the rapids our
guide's oar got caught between two rock and got lost. He
grabbed my cousin's oar and kept
paddling. It took us awhile before we could catch the oar again. Luckily we came out of it with some small sun burns, sore muscles, and a few bruises.
Here are some pictures we took back at camp. It rained a lot of the time. In fact there was a big storm right after we got off the river. Lightning struck across the road from our camp and you could see the smoke from it. Several boulders fell into the road and the ground was swamped with puddles and hail.
This is the Arkansas river that ran right next to our campground.
Uncle Levi with Wesson.
It was cold so Wesson spent alot of his time in this fuzzy sleeper. He looked like a sheep.
It was so fun! Before each rapid the guide would call out the name of the rapid like sledgehammer, the wall, boat sinker, and the narrows. Then he would tell us how he would like the boat to go, and which way to swim if we fell out of the boat. Some time there was nowhere to swim. For example, on "The Wall" the guide would say "Now don't fall out on this one, because if you do, you are hitting the wall (a rock wall)" or others he would say "if you fall out don't swim right, and don't swim left just stay in the middle and swim the rapids. The railroad lines left a ton of re bar so you will get all sliced up. Just try to stay in the middle!" So you would make sure your feet were tucked in tight and paddle and try not to fall out. One time I almost lost my paddle because the water is so strong it almost sucked it out of my him. On one of the rapids our guide's oar got caught between two rock and got lost. He grabbed my cousin's oar and kept paddling. It took us awhile before we could catch the oar again. Luckily we came out of it with some small sun burns, sore muscles, and a few bruises.
It was cold so Wesson spent alot of his time in this fuzzy sleeper. He looked like a sheep.
2 comments:
WOW that looks like SO much fun!! we'll have to try that sometime!
Oh my goodness. I could never do that. You're amazing!
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