White Water Rafting - Day Two

Heather and I rolled out of the tent on Sunday and broke camp. In continuing the full-service style of All Outdoors, Darren whipped up a continental breakfast and cowboy coffee. Coffee grounds are surprisingly easy to put down when you are freezing to death. Heather confirmed our directions to the middle fork muster point while casting sidelong glances at me. I'm navigationally challenged. We engaged in a misty group hug and hit the road.

After our sedate beginning on Saturday, the middle fork facility was a completely new experience. There were ten guides and support staff milling around loading five rafts and associated gear onto a bus and trailer. We signed our lives away, checked in the car keys, and joined the knot of victims pacing around the bus, nervously applying sunscreen. The mood got even more dire when we were fitted with PFDs and helmets. The skittish herd was prodded into the bus with our guides for the day and we were off.

The guides were easy to spot. They were decked out in very sporty PFDs covered with important-looking carabiners and lengths of rope. They sat at the front of the bus. One guide crawled into the bus and lit it up. This was foul gas. Up all night drinking Guiness, held it down with reheated Taco Bell, I'm glad we'll be getting in the water soon gas. It burned us.

One of the things that I love about Heather is the way I can communicate with her wordlessly. I don't think this is due to a telepathic link- It probably stems from the relatively simple construction of my thoughts and the fact that I point a lot. One of the river guides flopped into the seat in front of us. He was tall and thin, quite tan, and sported a scraggly beard. There was a word painted on the back of his seat:

CARPENTER

I don't know if this was the logo of the manufacturer of the seat or graffiti, but it was totally appropriate. I caught Heather's eye and pointed to the seat, and then to its occupant. She immediately understood- I was notifying her that Jesus was our copilot. I think the guide's name was Ryan, but we just called Him Jesus from then on.

We arrived at the put in and met the full compliment of guides. Dave was the man in charge. He seemed very responsible and in command of the expedition. His large earrings and So-Cal accent suggested a deep desire to be reunited with his board, be it wheeled or waxed. Lindsey was the girl guide. She had complained loudly about the gas, so I knew that her nose worked. Also, we were wearing the same shoes. This is usually a bad thing, but I was reassured that my new sandals were approved gear. We've already covered Jesus. That left the bad seeds.

I think the best description that I can use to paint Kyle is that he wasn't stoned, but looked like he should be. His deadly pipes were the source of the bus-crippling fart, and he was understandably proud of the effort. Pat was less talkative and worked at strapping a rowing rig to a raft. He was apparently the pilot of the gear barge. I liked Pat straight off. He had one of those smiles that is most suited to working with explosives.

Once again, Heather and I reached agreement without speaking and drew a beeline away from Kyle and Pat. We sized up the rest of the victims. They included a bachelor party of haggard-looking guys, some random drunks, a matched set of terrified Indian and South American tourist couples, and four normal folk. We attacked the normals. Dave began assigning bodies to boats and we quickly bonded with our new friends and shuffled toward him, hoping to shoulder our way into the lead raft. It was not to be. While Dave did allow us to keep the band together, he directed us to Kyle's boat. Shit.

Kyle huddled us together after our safety briefing and tried to pump us up. He walked us down to the water with tons of enthusiasm. We followed like the condemned. Kyle applied a team-building drill and asked us to come up with a name for our crew. When we faltered, he decreed that we had no name, only a battle cry:

"Baby, cuz I'm a thug!"

Kyle lead the chant and we all chimed in on "thug." He warned the crew that the first rapid was the icy Cold Cup of Coffee. Heather and I earned quick props by volunteering to sit in front. We aren't really fond of hypothermia, and Darren warned us about the Cup, but we really wanted to get the full effect. It was cold. One of my legs stopped functioning for about 30 minutes.

The Sunday middle fork trip starts quickly with a couple of warm up rapids and the intimidating Tunnel Chute. This is a serious class V rapid followed by a long, dark tunnel under a mountain. It is a great way to start your day. There is a camera aimed at the belly of tunnel chute, but we didn't buy any photos. They consisted mainly of a huddle of paddles and helmets in the middle of a boat, sprays of white water, and Kyle waving.

The middle fork is great. There are multiple class IV rapids. Class IV rapids have exposed rocks, yard-long drops, and require synchronized paddling to get through. Kyle turned out to be an amazing guide. He taught us a lot about rafting and offered up optional activities like surfing our raft in eddies and spinning the raft in rapids to line up the perfect exit angle. We all grew together, and I gradually became sure that we had once again drawn the best guide on the river.

I was very fond of Parallel Parking and Driver's Ed, two rapids named on a theme due to the multiple changes of direction required to manage them. These were the precision drills of our tour. However, the best rapid was one that we didn't attempt.

Ruck-A-Chucky Falls is a class VI rapid. Even the lesser class V rapids are very serious business. They might have multiple large drops and require several changes of direction to avoid raft-popping or head-cracking rock faces. Class VI rapids are harder and more dangerous still. Rapids harder than class VI require you to jump out of the boat, take off your PFD, and stab yourself in the abdomen until you hit your liver.

Ruck-A-Chucky Falls is a thirty foot waterfall that terminates in jagged, seven-foot tall rock spears. The fact that it is a named rapid suggests that some idiot has taken a boat over it, likely resulting in dismemberment. The guides threw the boats over the edge and we all walked around. This means that some poor guide must bob at the bottom and grab the rafts, of course, and Kyle drew the short straw.

Darren told us about the Leap of Faith that the guides must take to retrieve rafts clogged in the bottom of the falls. Kyle repeatedly dove into the churn to rescue errant rafts. We watched in horror and even chanted our team battle cry while he threw himself against the torrent. Yes, Team Normal really bought into Kyle. There was some delay after the last boat came over the cliff. I'm not sure what the problem was, but I think Pat tried to pilot his boat over Ruck-A-Chucky and had to be sedated.

Kyle was not only a skilled guide. He was a concerned captain. After being scraped along a rock face that loomed over a rapid, I sat back up on my perch and waited for Kyle's instruction. When he was strangely silent, I looked back to see Kyle dragging one of our teammates back into her seat. Heather later told me what had happened. Our teammate hadn't realized how close the eight ton rock elbow was to her head, and Kyle had jumped from his perch at the back of the boat to pull her head in, shielding her with his body. Cuz he's a thug.

Thanks Kyle, Dave, Lindsey, Pat, and Jesus. We love you guys.