Rafting the Arkansas

Last weekend marked perhaps the most adventurous of my summer thus far. My parents, a car load of four friends, and I made the trek up to Buena Vista, Colorado, home of the Arkansas Valley Adventures rafting company for an attempt at a full day of Class 3 rapids!

Since the trip happened kind of last minute, I was actually at Water World (Colorado's water amusement park) with the same group of friends I ended up rafting with when I heard about the trip! As such we didn't leave the city until about 8pm for a 2 1/2 hour long drive! Most of the last 45 miles or so of the journey felt as though I was driving on a long winding road in a sea of blackness through what we unanimously voted would be the creepiest pitch black road to break down on!

The AVA camp is located just outside Granite, Colorado, and has a set of 5 small authentic log cabins. I wish we had been able to get up there earlier because we didn't roll into camp until about 11:30 and everyone was exhausted from Water World and wanted to be fresh in the morning for the rafting! They had a huge firepit with all this pre-cut firewood, but we were only able to enjoy it for about an hour before we were all nodding off and went off to bed.

The next morning we were outfitted in our stylish yellow life vests and plastic helmets and loaded into a converted school bus to be driven to our drop in site. Once there, our guide Steve gave us a quick rundown of the rafting commands he would be using to help us navigate our way down the Arkansas! Basically our commands were:

Forward One - Everyone rows one stroke in the direction that would propel the raft forward

Back One - Everyone rows one stroke in the direction that would propel the raft backward

Left Forward Right Back - Everyone stalls in confusion while trying to quickly remember which side of the raft one is located on and then remember whether your side is supposed to be rowing forward or backwards in an attempt to reorient the facing of the raft

Left Back Right Forward - Same as above only flip flopped

Once we had established how we would be attempting to control the raft, our intrepid crew hopped aboard!

The first 4 or so miles of the river were very calm and quiet, giving us time to figure out the rowing, and get acquainted with Steve. As it turned out he was a 19 year old Dallas, Texas native who had never guided a raft with 8 passengers before. He informed us that the extra weight would equate to extra speed, but left it to us to ponder what that might mean for our chances of survival.

The first bits of white water we encountered were nothing spectacular to a seasoned rafter, but were great fun for our inexperienced crew! It wasn't long before we were happily whooping and shouting to the river about our awesomeness as we looked forward to whatever else the river could throw at us!

The main difference between Class 3 and Class 4 rapids is that the Class 3 rapids generally have calm pools and eddies in between each rapid and Class 4 does not. Since we were in the Class 3 variety this gave us plenty of opportunities to dive out of the raft into the 50 degree water to cool off!

After we had shown skill and promise navigating the first sets of rapids we had encountered, our guide suggested we step it up a bit for the next rapid. He queried whether we would like to go over the next rapids standing up, or floating in the water hanging onto the raft. Of course being invulnerable teenagers, we elected to hang from the side of the raft in the water over the next rapid, while my parents and the guide remained in the raft to guide it.

One thing I had forgotten about returned to my mind very quickly as we started going over the rapids while floating in the water... Rapids are caused by ROCKS!!!! Although we had been instructed to float with our feet ahead of us in case of falling overboard I was not expecting the pummeling that ensued as I crashed through the rapids. Luckily for me James and Dan were in front of me and provided a one or two second warning of impending collisions!

We made it through no worse for the weather save for a few bruises to the area where we would be having lunch. We enjoyed PB & J and some chicken Fajitas under the mid 80 degree beautiful Colorado sky before returning to our raft for the second half of our journey.

Emboldened by the first half, we took the second half very aggressively and had an awesome time! We did not loose a single member of our raft even after powering through the Seven Steps, and crashing over the Twin Falls! I'm definitely looking forward to tackling Class 4 or 5 in the near future!

However I did not escape completely unscathed. Unfortunately I had it coming... You see I've often bragged to my friends about the effectiveness of the natural sunscreen for my legs that I've been making over the last 19 years and so I have fallen out of the habit of applying sunscreen to my legs. However I did not account for the fact that my swim trunks would be riding up a bit most of the day from rowing, and as a result, I believe I can now use the top of my left leg as a traffic signal in a pinch! I nearly had to use crutches to walk for the first few days, and after turning purple for a couple days, it has finally begun to fade back to normal skin color! That is not a mistake I will make again!