“If we hit this rock to the left, we’ll highside, if we hit that one to the right, we’ll flip, and we want to generally avoid that rock right there in the middle so paddle hard, ready?” And even if you’re not, you’re off, unwittingly floating towards an inevitable, rocky demise.
I’ve never been certain whether these buff, hunky rafting guides with Australian accents share this information so we feel we’ve really had an adventure after rowing our way to safety, or they really mean it, and our frantic paddling isn’t in vain. Either way, I’ve been whitewater rafting three times now and the pre-rapid debriefings have always been enough to get my heart, and arms, pumping. And somehow, once again, I find myself on a chilly August morning seated in a giant rubber doughnut, lemon flavored, with a large blue paddle in hand.
So why put myself through all that for a third time? If you’ve ever been river rafting, you know that the scariest part is the rhetoric, which includes the mandatory safety talk at the beginning and mini instructional chats before bigger rapids. Other than that, it’s pure, drenching fun with some breathtaking scenery between plunges; but it always takes a minute on the river before you’re fully convinced.
Once in the water for a while, you start to realize that you probably won’t “highside,” which happens when the raft gets stuck against a rock or protruding object and the current sinks one side while the other side reaches straight up into the air, remedied only by having everyone jump to the high side to weigh the raft down. And after you’ve made it through a few of the bigger rapids, you start to realize that you most likely won’t have any “swimmers,” which is when a rafter falls out, or “flip,” which is self-explanatory.
I wasn’t sure if the woman sitting next to me during the intro safety speech was going to give the river a chance to convince her of how fun it could be as she sat there, an admitted first-timer, with head in hands, practical tears glistening in the light of sunrise. When I caught up with her later, she was tired, soggy and beaming with the excitement the river had provided her so far that morning.
I, too, sported a huge smile as our guides allowed us to become “voluntary swimmers” chucking ourselves into a small rapid, then swimming to shore as many times as our little hearts desired. And it was hard for me to stop laughing and gain enough composure to continue rowing after ramming rocks or going over small waterfalls and getting thrown into the boat, colliding with my corresponding rowing partner- better than but maybe not as thrilling as getting thrown overboard and colliding with the oncoming current.
In spite of my unfettered glee, I felt a tinge of regret, not for going on the rafting trip, but for not partaking on this Cache la Poudre adventure before. It took me four years in Fort Collins, unknowingly living mere minutes away from all this extreme whitewater, plus a move back to Boulder to finally embark on the bumpiest and best rafting trip I'd ever taken. The Poudre River is not only warmer than the others I’ve been on, but it’s far closer than Brown’s Canyon or the Shoshone, both hours away.
Even though my Uncle Russ treated, it was a fairly inexpensive trip, paid back in full with thrilling drops in the river, exhilarating raises in heart rate, and all the whitewater to satiate your hunger for a true rafting trip. If my friends and I had only known that our summer could have been more fulfilling than just another barbecue, followed by second-degree sunburns at the pool!