Whitewater Rafting?!?

Thursday, October 4th

Last Wednesday the Spamily took a tour drive south and west of Denver to the Arkansas River. I rode over with Nate and Esther and the drive was really nice. While we drove south to Colorado Springs, we were traveling parallel to the Rocky Mountains, but once we turned west, we were headed into the “foothills”. (In Michigan, the “foothills” would be big “mountains”.) We drove past Cheyenne Mountain. Cheyenne Mountain contains an entire city and command center buried within the mountain in case of a nuclear disaster. Creepy. We also passed through some of the high plains farmland. As we got closer to the Arkansas, there were some orchards and other farms irrigated with water from the river.

Piper had arranged a 3 hour rafting trip with an outfit called Raft Masters. They suited us up in river boots, wet suits, splash jackets and life vests before loading us into vans and hauling us to the beginning of our trip. The Arkansas is the most commercially rafted river in the world, but things were pretty quiet the day we were there. The summer rafting season was winding down – only Raft Masters and one other outfit were still offering trips. Before we pushed off, our guides gave us some paddling and safety instructions. Standing there on the beach in my wetsuit and splash jacket, it became clear that a waterproof jacket was going to keep me way to warm (it was warmer than 70 degrees in the sun with a water temperature of about 55 degrees). I shed the splash jacket as we headed onto the river.

The first half an hour of the river was smooth. We used it as an opportunity to practice our team paddling and maneuvers. I was in a boat with five other Spammers: Vera, Justin, Jen, Andrew and Jeff Brewer – we were a great mix of people and departments. Our guide was quick to complement us on our team work. After the first half-hour, things got more interesting. We passed through a series of “warm-up” rapids before the real fun began. The Arkansas features some challenging and exciting rapids of class 3, 4 and 4+ classifications. Our guide has been taking groups through the rapids for several years, but still each set of rapids was a blast! Our trip consisted of 3 boats of Spamily and one more boat of random folks. We went through each set of rapids one at a time, meaning we got to watch all the other boats and cheer them on.

Our boat hung up on the rocks only once and we quickly freed ourselves. Some of the other boats weren’t as lucky. Most memorably, one of the Spamalot boats hung up on a rock and dumped a few rafters in to the water on the low side – they quickly got back into the boat and eventually pushed off the rock, only to get stuck surfing in a whirlpool. It must have taken them a half dozen tries to get paddled out. We were all waiting down-river clapping and cheering.

The Arkansas passes through the Royal Gorge and the scenery is just spectacular. In the middle of the gorge the rock walls rise 1,100 feet nearly straight up on either side. All along the river run the tracks of the former Rio Grande line and a scenic railroad makes the same trip we did for those who don’t want to get wet. The river passes below the world’s highest suspension bridge. It spans the gorge at its highest point and was a trial run for the Golden Gate Bridge (now it’s a bridge to nowhere and a major tourist attraction).

After we passed out of the gorge, there was another hour of calmer water before we pulled our boat out of the water. The scenery was still spectacular. The mountains rose on both sides of the river, just a little less dramatically. A peregrine falcon soared above us and mule deer grazed along the banks. The river was running more slowly than at some other times of the year (the same 3+ hour trip we took runs only 45 minutes in the spring), but I was glad to have some time to take it all in.

When we finally pulled our boat out of the river it was after 4 PM and I had acquired pretty impressive sunburn. I put on sunscreen thinking I would be wearing a jacket. When I took the jacket off the wetsuit left my shoulders exposed. Now, when was the last time anyone saw my in the sun without my shoulders exposed? Their whiteness (at the beginning of the trip) was blinding; by Wednesday evening, their redness was equally surprising.

I was, admittedly, nervous about the trip right up to the moment we put the boat in the water. (When did I become this nervous Nelly?) Once we got underway, however, I had a blast. While the trip was certainly a workout, it was less physical while we were doing it than I had imagined. Both of the other Spamalot boats dumped folks into the river, but we were never even very close in our boat. It is safe to say that I had a blast!

I ordered some photos from the commercial photographer who staked out the big rapids in the middle of our trip, but that CD won’t arrive for a while. You can check out their website and see some action shots they captured from the trip. My boat is in shots 14 – 26 (you can find them easily – look for the guy with the screaming white shoulders).

JV