White Water Rafting - Day One

We reported promptly on Saturday morning for the first part of our rafting trip. This was not difficult, since our campground was the meeting place. We met our team of four other would-be rafters, our guide, and our driver near the campground entrance. Our guide's name was Darren. I cannot remember our driver's name, so I shall refer to him as Tattoo Guy.

Tattoo Guy drove us up to the river and sprinkled in some tour guide time while grinding the van up hills and talking to Darren about a woman who was stalking All Outdoors guides. I gather that she might have stalked Darren, and that this would probably not be his first experience. Tattoo Guy noted points of interest and told us that he was one of a handful of Coloma locals. Apparently, the locals get a bit bored in the winter off season and pass the time doing terrifying things like rafting on the American in wetsuits when the water is sub-freezing and thirty feet higher than in the summer.

After a short drive to the river, Darren helped us into life jackets while Tattoo Guy unloaded the gear. He took off his shirt and we noted that he had a massive tree tattoo covering his back. I also discovered that a life jacket is now called a PFD and that only complete tools refer to them as life jackets. Point taken. Armed with PFDs and emergency instructions from Darren, we took to the water.

Darren instructed us in paddling as a unit. In addition to being a skilled pilot, he was very knowledgeable about the area. I was completely surprised when Darren pointed out the original site of Sutter's Mill on the river bank. The Williams side of my family spent some 49er time in Chinese Camp, California, so I was very into this brush with history. We even saw some modern gold mining equipment.

Armed with new paddling skills and a little history, we hit the first and only serious rapid on the south fork, Troublemaker. All serious rapids have proper names. This photo was taken in Troublemaker, which was even more fun than it looks like.


We saw some boats from another rafting company and noted that they were spinning wildly on the Troublemaker exit and bumping into rocks that we had hardly bothered with. This cemented my impression that Darren is a damn good guide. One member of our team did take an unintended swim in a calm area further down the river, but we pulled him back in and even rescued his hat. All seemed well, and we parked the raft for some lunch.

Darren provided chips and salsa, sandwich fixings, and fruit. It was quite a spread. He put a lot of effort into laying out the grub and then rewarded himself with what we have come to call the Everything Sandwich. This was serious business, and will get a post of its own.

After lunch, the swimmer in our party was feeling a bit beat up. Apparently, he had landed on some rocks when he went in. His wife stayed in the raft and he decided to wait for us to finish our journey so that she could double back for him with the car. Heather and I wondered how he could be hurt and decided that he was a pussy.

The second half of the trip was fun, if a bit sedate. I really enjoyed the rapid and was hoping for more excitement. Darren passed the time by talking to us about kayaking and rafting, pointing out interesting sites along the route, and letting us take turns piloting the boat. We pulled the raft out of the water at good old Mother Load and washed up for dinner while Darren and Swimmer's Wife went back to find the old girl.

When we met Darren for dinner, we were surprised to be the only guests. Two of our team had only signed up for a one day trip- No dinner for them. Swimmer and his wife were missing. It turned out that our poor paddler had broken multiple ribs and went straight to the hospital. We felt pretty bad about making fun of him. I think Darren felt bad, as well. This did not, however, stop him from unleashing his amazing grilling skills on us.

Darren can cook like a madman. He made chicken, tri-tip, pasta, vegetables, salad, bread, and brownies. He made brownies in a dutch oven packed in hot coals. It was sick. After we recovered from our coma, Darren told us that All Outdoors guides get to keep the leftovers. This policy is a great motivator and I support it. Since Darren is a good-looking, bilingual, world-travelling white water guide, I'm wondering why I have not seen him on Food Network yet.

Darren set up a slide show of rafting pictures and we picked out two, including the one in this post. After paying for our pictures at the surprisingly well-equipped Internet cafe and bidding good night to Darren, we set our alarms for "even earlier" and "frozen" and went to sleep.