There were 19 customers in our group and five guides. We had four oar boats, where we could just sit in the front and relax while the guide rowed, and one oar boat, where customers could paddle as well, and seven duckies (individual rubber kayaks) with us, so there was a good mix of relaxing and paddling through the whitewater. I've got tons of video from the trip and I'll post more as get them edited.
We also had incredible weather for the whole trip. It was sunny and in the 80s and 90s during the day, then cooled off at night. The water felt great to swim in. Trey, Carsten, and I slept outside under the stars all three nights.
The food was also amazing. We had fresh fruit at every meal, incredible camp cooking, and delicious dutch oven deserts every evening.
I won't go into a play-by-play of the entire trip, but here are some of the highlights:
We stopped at a few jumping rocks along the river, but the first one stands out a little more than the rest. Our mother, who is terrified of heights, jumped off of it. It took a little coaxing (ok, a lot of coaxing from a lot of people), but after several minutes near the edge, she did it. We even have video proof.
I cut out the first five minutes of the video while she's nervously looking over the edge, terrified to jump.
Though the video didn't turn out great from this incident, it was one of my favorites of the trip. Carsten and I were in duckies when one of the guides told us where a large hole was in the rapids. We both headed straight for it. I watched as Carsten got tossed out of his ducky, then the wave swallowed the bow of my ducky, flipping me forward and out of it. There was enough force involved to rip the rubber strap from my sunglasses. You'll see them dangling from my neck before the water pulls them away from me and I lose them completely.
(Video to come soon. I haven't had a chance to edit it, but I wanted to get the post up, since it's been a couple weeks.)
There was also a pretty scary moment on the trip. Before we entered Mule Creek Canyon, one of the guides had warned us about a few of the rapids in it. For the first one, we were told to go to the left of two rocks that mark the entrance of the canyon, known as Jaws. We were warned several times not to go to the right of the rocks. Carsten and I were in duckies and listened closely to the instructions.
In the last set of small rapids a few hundred yards upstream of Jaws, one of the men in our group flipped out of his ducky. I grabbed his boat and flipped it right side up for him while another duckier helped him over to where I was. The swimmer struggled to get back in his ducky and didn't get in until just above Jaws. I was the furthest down stream in the group of duckies, and by the time the man had gotten back into his ducky, I was too close to the rocks to get around to the left of them. I pointed my ducky to the right of jaws and started paddling aggressively, hoping I could power through whatever might lay beyond the first two rocks. As I passed around to the right of the two large rocks, I saw another medium sized rock about 15 yards down stream of the first two. I knew I couldn't make the sharp left turn to stay above the rock and rejoin the main flow, so I headed for a narrow channel of water (about three feet wide) to the right of the lower rock.
The strong current forced the left side of my ducky against the rock, lifting the left tube and forcing the right tube down. I threw all my weight to the high side, trying to keep the ducky upright, but the force of the water was too great. it quickly swallowed the right tube, pulling it and me under an undercut rock. The tubes of the ducky sandwiched against legs, pulling them with it under the rock. The huge amount of force from the water rushing around the rock had wrapped my ducky around the rock, beneath the water, pulling me under. I managed to keep my head above the water by grabbing onto the top of the rock.
While all this was happening, I had seen the rest of my group float by. I knew there were no good places to stop in the canyon and that the steep walls would prevent anyone from being able to make it back up stream to me. Self rescue was the only option. I pulled hard on the top of the rock and wrestled my trapped legs out of the wrapped ducky. The water flow pressed my torso hard against the rock and pulled my legs under it, but I was able to hoist myself on top of the rock and to relative safety.
I was no longer at a risk for drowning, but then came the question of what to do with the ducky. It was sandwiched and wrapped around the undercut rock, almost completely submerged. I braced my back on another rock and push with my feet against the stern of the ducky, but it wouldn't budge. The force of the water hitting it was way too high.
Carsten and another duckier, Alex, had managed to stop on a rocky beach 40 yards below where I'd been stuck. They worked their way to near where I was and Alex crossed over to the rock I was on. The two of us were able to push the back of the ducky out from the rock enough for the water to flow behind it and force it out from under the rock. Carsten stayed down stream to catch it when it floated free. My paddle was trapped under the rock by the rushing water, too, but after the ducky was freed, the paddle gradually moved downstream until Carsten was able to reach under the water and pull it out.
I paddled the rest of the mile long canyon very conservatively, avoiding any large waves and holes. I'd had enough excitement for the day.
We all managed to survive the rest of the trip with little more than lost sunglasses and sunburns and I think everyone had a great time. Check out the rest of the pictures from the trip on flickr.
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