Rafting Adventure in Idaho
So, the rafting trip was wonderful. I promised a good story and some photos today, so here ya go. Read on.
The first day of our rafting trip, we rafted a nice Class III, III+ run with lots of long calm spots called the Carbarton. We took the whole fam, all 10 of us, on this run. It was about a five hour run, and we all had a good time. Nobody got hurt! This picture is of our raft (which we lovingly named the ‘Grape of Wrath’) with Me, Heather, Lindsay, Eric and Steve.
Aren’t we cute? Okay. So that run was wonderful. Nice, peaceful, calm day. See, doesn’t Steve look happy?
Day two. Eric and Lindsay both don’t feel too well. So we are left with two boats, six strong rowers, and my li’l brother and sister (age 14 and 10), Heather & Cory. We still have to take two rafts, so each raft had three strong rowers and a kid. My boat ended up with Me, Steve, my cousin Neil, and li’l bro Cory. The run for day two was a little more challenging than day one. We thought it would be fun to run the Middle fork of the Payette, (including the Staircase rapid), into the Main Payette. The whole run was mostly Class III+ rapids, less calm spots than the Carbarton, and one big bang of a rapid: The Staircase. The Staircase is a Class IV+ rapid. AKA, Big. Scary. Dangerous.
We scouted it out from the road first, and it looked like just some simple maneuvering around a bunch of big boulders, followed by three or four minutes solid of some good Class IV rapids. Fun! Or so we thought…
Once we got on the river, and close to the Staircase, we realized it was trickier than we thought. The river ran extremely fast, and the current was taking us to the far left of the river, which was told to us by other experienced rafters was the ‘wussy’ way to go. So as we approached (very quickly, I might add) We tried to fight the current and get towards our desired point of entry to the Staircase.
Well, that is when disaster struck. Or, when we struck… into the biggest rock of all, that is.
We hit Whale Rock. The biggest boulder in the rapid. Our raft didn’t only get lodged against it, the river was so fast, it pushed the edge of the raft under us, and the raft almost tipped.
It tipped enough to dump us out, though. Yes, right at the beginning of the four minute long Class IV+ rapid. We all fell in, at the worst possible spot.
I just remember my train of thought: “Oh shit! Oh my gosh, we’re tipping over, aaah! Okay, there goes Neil and Steve into the water. Here I go! Feet first… *SPLASH!* Okay, your getting sucked under the boat, lodged against the rock! Oh please don’t get stuck underwater! Oh man, the river is still pulling you, oh where is the surface?! I need air! PLEH!! Okay, finally air. Oh man! I’m above water. Okay, keep feet forward, don’t get on stomach, you can do this…” See, the way to survive a ride in the rapids in only a lifejacket is to lean on your back, and keep your feet forward and up. If you don’t do this, you’re going to get screwed.
When I came up after falling in, I saw Steve right ahead of me. He said, “Where is Cory!?” Oh man. I hadn’t yet realized that we had a 10 year old with us on that fall. I peeked behind me to see that our raft had miraculously not tipped over, gotten back on it’s belly, and was heading down the rapids with only Cory in it! A ten year old kid! With no oar! This was very bad.
This is when Steve performed a Superman ‘act of adreneline’ act. He somehow swam upstream in this fast river, and pulled himself into the raft. If you’ve rafted before, you know how hard and nearly impossible it is to pull yourself into a raft-even in still water. I don’t know how he did that.
Well, after that, it was all about survival for me. I had no time to think about Steve, about Cory, about anything at all except to keep my head above water, not suck in too much water, not choke, and to keep my feet in front of me and up. This was much harder to do than it sounds. The river was so fast, and so rough, and so shallow, that my legs were constantly being drug underwater and back behind me, my limbs and butt were constantly getting tangled in rocks-cut up and bruised, and I was getting sucked into a suckhole, rapid, or waterfall every 1 second or less. There was hardly time to breath. The worst part? It didn’t end. It lasted for what seemed to be 15 minutes. The stuggle to keep my legs in front of me was crucial… if you get on your stomach, you’ll get tossed and torn and probably get head injuries. These were my fears. I paddled my legs, my arms, did everything I could… and luckily only got minor cuts and bruises.
I’ve never experienced that kind of terror. The feeling of being completely out of control of your fate, or your direction. Being completely controlled by an angry river and it’s rapids. I fought this fear, these rapids, these rocks, the river for 3 minutes solid. Thats a long time, if you think about it. I barely survived. This is not an exaggeration.
After much screaming and yelling for help, Steve and our raft finally appeared out of nowhere, and my hero of a boyfriend pulled me into the raft. Finally! After that, we went and rescued my cousin Neil, who had taken the same ride as I. After everyone was safe, we beached the boats, to make sure we were all okay.
Thats when the reality sunk in… what I had just done, just survived, my little brother Cory would not have survived. He wouldn’t have stood a chance. If Steve hadn’t somehow jumped back into the raft, it surely would’ve tipped again, and my brother would probably be lost. How terrifying. It makes me sick, still. Thank GOD Steve was able to get back in the boat, and raft by himself those crazy rapids, and come to our rescue. Wow.
After a while, Neil and I became stoked on our intense ride. We compared battle wounds, (which are extensive, to say the least.) But I still haven’t been able to shake the sick feeling of ‘too close of a call’. I will never take a child on a raft again. Later, we went back near that stretch of river, to look again at what we had survived. Here’s a photo of Neil and I in front of a section of whitewater that we ’swam’.
The photo doesn’t do it justice. If you would like, here are a few videos of the Staircase rapid in higher water with less rocks (from Cascaderaft.com). Check them out, you’ll see what kind of whitewater we had to swim. Just imagine those videos… with equally as fast and big of rapids, and add rocks to hit, and Jenny in a lifejacket. Then you’ll sorta get it.
Later, the boys braved a nearly-as-difficult rapid called Slalom. Check out their bad-ass-ness on that rapid:
*sigh*, so there it is. The story as promised. All in all a good trip. I’m glad I survived it. I’m glad we all did. Thank god.
Something kinda creepy just happened to me. I was on my way back to work from lunch, waiting at a stop light. I am temporarily driving my Moms $500 beater Toyota lowrider truck while my Rodeo is being fixed. So I’m sitting there at the light, when the guy next to me starts beeping at me to roll down my window. So I roll it down a bit, and he says, “Hey, you interested in selling me your Toyota there?”
Me: “Uh, how much would you pay for it?”
Creepyguy: “How much you sellin it for?”
Me: “Um, $800? $1000?”
Creepyguy: “Pull over up here, we’ll talk about it.”
My consience: “Don’t do it! He wants to rape you!”
Me: “Uh, I can’t, I have to get back to work.”
He then gave me his number, which I didn’t memorize, and I gave him my home number. (the one where I’m not listed, and have no voicemail. It felt safer.)
But now I’m kinda creeped out. Why would some guy want to buy my beater truck? Who in gods name tries to buy cars right off the highway? It seemed odd to me. When I want to buy a chicken sandwich, I buy one. I don’t try to buy the one off the guy sitting next to me about to take his first bite.
Should I be scared? Is Creepyguy going to hunt me down and kill me?
Back from River Rafting in Idaho
I’M BACK!
I know, I was gone forever! Well, I was in the wilderness with my fam, river rafting, camping and the like. But don’t worry, I’ve brought back with me many stories to tell, along with one about my near-death river experience. Okay, maybe not death, but what seemed to be death. It’s a good story. I’ll tell you tomorrow when I get my pictures back, so I can show you.
All in all, the river trip was fun. The whole fam+Steve was there, and we goofed off, played, rafted, sang, ate, camped. It was a good escape.
We stayed at the beautiful Pine Flats campground in Idaho. I had no idea Idaho was that pretty. Mostly what Idaho I’ve seen has been big yellow flat boring fields. But no, they have forests too! Who would’ve thought?
At any rate, I’m glad to be home, home with my kitties, my apartment, my computer, and my life. I’ll tell you stories soon! Thanks for stickin’ around…
