White Water Rafting

One day in Colorado my friend and I went white water rafting with her son. He has his own raft. He's preparing for a 16 day trip rafting down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon next summer. He likes to get practice in whenever he can. We wanted to shuttle our vehicles. I suggested my friend ride with her son and spend some mother/son time. The Colorado river is on the other side of the mountains and we had a 3 hour drive ahead. I rode with Harley. Harley is part chocolate lab and part German shorthair. We spent 6 hours in the car together and she sat by me during the four hours in the raft. Basically she was my dog for the day. We got along well. Harley thinks she's human. She doesn't like to be treated like a dog. Petting is barely tolerable unless you rub her chest. Don't talk to her like she is a dog - she doesn't like that. Don't throw things and expect her to get all excited because she won't. She's a human dog. Even when riding in the car, she sits on the seat and looks out the window as if she is a human. She likes the highest peaks. Once you're on lower (more boring) ground, she curls up on the seat and sleeps. When I stopped for a rest stop, I just had to ask her to wait. She sat waiting with the windows wide open. I really enjoyed having a dog for the day. We drove to a public landing upriver from the small town of Radium, Colorado. We unloaded the boat and the supplies. We had to move the truck to the pull-out spot. I was voted the person to drive the Nissan manual 5-speed truck to the next spot. I got in and the truck wouldn't start. I tried many times. I moved the seat as forward as it could go and the truck still wouldn't start. Sometimes if you don't have the clutch pushed in all the way the vehicle won't start. So I stretched my left leg as far as it would go, pointed my toe, and sat on the edge of the seat. The truck started. I had the map of where to park the truck so I took off down the gravel mountain roads. Each gear shift was an exercise of left leg lengthening. We rolled though the town of Radium. I saw a collection of about 6 houses and that was the extent of that town. We went up another mountain pass and I came upon the spot where we were supposed to pull out. I made a right turn and the driveway to the campsite immediately hair pinned to the right again. I couldn't turn and stretch my leg at the same time. I decided I would just keep the same gear and roll down this hill. That worked. By the time I parked that truck, my heart was pounding in my chest. If shuttling the vehicles was this scary, how was I going to live through the rafting? We headed back and my friend's son had finished pumping air into the raft and loading the boat. I saw the water in the river moving by really fast. It looked a little scary. Then I saw other groups getting ready to raft. Some groups had toddlers going on the trip. Well, that was encouraging. If a two year old can do it, surely I can do it too. We got in the raft. My place was in the front with Harley. My friend's son had two oars and he sat in the middle rowing forward. My friend sat in the far back. I zipped up my life jacket and pulled the straps tight. We were on our way. I was told that if I fell out, I should not try and stand up. Standing up in the river would be very dangerous. The best thing to do is to float on my back with my feet up out of the water and try to move toward shore. We were moving fast. We saw a train track on the right. We were in a flat area between mountains. Soon we came to a gorge. The rock faces of the mountain were close on both sides. The water got deeper and the river got narrower. Rocks were pointing out of the water. Harley got up and positioned herself between my calves and the cooler I was sitting on. She wedged herself in tight, moving my legs where she wanted them to be. We went over some rapids. I couldn't feel the rocks we went over but suddenly my knees were a lot closer to my ears than they were a minute ago. Then we went down. Water splashed up. The raft has drainage holes where the sides and the floor come together. Water splashed into the boat through those drainage holes. Suddenly the front of the boat was up again and the back was down. Then the front was down and the back was up. Woo Hoo! This was fun! I was wet. Harley was wet too. I saw a big rock coming up. All of a sudden we turned directions and I was looking up river at what we just passed through. I heard my friend scream. She just got soaked. I think her son wanted her to get as wet as I was because we quickly turned around again. I watched for rocks. I tried to predict what course he would take. After a while I was reading the river fairly well. The river went past the gorge and into a flatter area. The water got quiet and shallow again. Harley laid down. The scenery was so gorgeous I cannot describe the beauty. A quartet of common Mergansers floated near the shore. I admired the female Merganser's coppery head with my binoculars. We went past a beaver dam on the right. The railroad went into a tunnel and came out again a few minutes later. The sky had puffy white clouds and the temperature was about 80. Another gorge was coming up ahead. Harley positioned herself between my legs and the cooler again. This was Harley's fifth trip down the river. She knew what to expect. If Harley got nervous, it was time for me to be nervous too. More rocks were pointing out of the river. Sometimes the waves curled back toward us. We went up. We went down. We tilted to the right. We tilted to the left. Rafting is so much fun! I put my hands up in the air like people do on a roller coaster. Wooo Hoooo! Other rafters were screaming too. The water calmed down again. Another rafter pulling up to shore told us that the kids in kayaks kept flipping over. They had rescued the kayak kids 3 times already. Now he said it would be out turn to save the kayak kids. He said the kayakers had promised to get out of the river at Radium. And he pointed to their hat over in the weeds. We rescued the hat from the weeds and gave it to the kayak kids. They looked pretty scared. As they paddled toward us one guy said, "Go to the left side of the raft." They came on the right side of the raft so I don't think they had much experience in making the kayak go in the direction they wanted. They didn't need any rescuing from us. After the next gorge, we came upon a natural hot spring. Other people were soaking in this rocky hot tub. We pulled over and joined them. The water was warm but not quite as warm as a hot tub. We soaked for a while and watched people jump off the cliffs into the water. One guy did a very impressive back flip. The water in the Colorado is very cold and he quickly got back into the hot spring. Soon we passed the town of Radium. Up to now the river was very crowded but we had only been rafting for about 90 minutes so I was glad our trip wasn't over yet. After Radium, we saw only a couple rafts. We had the river almost exclusively to ourselves. Some anglers stood in waders in the shallow parts of the white water. I think it would be impossible to stand upright in water much higher than your knees. The river would knock you over. We stopped to eat our lunch on an island. My friend makes the best sandwiches out of sesame bagels, Swiss cheese, mustard, peppers, onions, green beans, broccoli, and carrots. We headed downstream again. After Radium the rapids are fewer and farther apart. My friend's son had a lot of rowing to do. I would have offered to row but I wasn't sure I could handle any rapids. The sun was beating down on us. I was glad I was wearing my visor and long sleeved shirt. We saw more ducks, a robin, ravens, tree swallows, and cliff swallows. We passed through more mountain gorges and saw a couple more railroad tunnels. At one point we saw a huge dust cloud ahead. A grader, perched on a railroad car, was grading the gravel on the sides of the track. Just like a snow plow, the grader pulled the blade ahead. After one more set of thrilling rapids it was time to pull out of the water. We unloaded the boat. The water was icy cold and made my legs numb which felt great because the rest of me was really hot. I carried one of the 5 foot by 18 inch side boards up the river bank. The sun was on my back. I said, "Look, my shadow makes me look like an angel." "Or a totem pole," was my reply. We loaded up the truck and let the air out of the raft. All three of us piled on the raft to push the air out of the valves. We got it rolled up and all 4 of us climbed into the truck. We drove through Radium again and picked up my car. My dog and I got in the car and followed the truck back to town. We bought cold drinks before driving the 3 hours back to Estes Park. We were exhausted. We got back about 8 p.m. Although we thought we should be hungry, none of us were. Those sandwiches we ate at lunch were magically filling. I felt so lucky to have this opportunity to go rafting. I know a lot of people who say they've always wanted to do it but haven't yet. My advice? Don't wait too long!