"floating" down the Colorado

Monday 9/17

We had a great night's sleep and were ready at 9 when Bill came to pick up our kayaks with his jeep.  We followed him to the place where we parked our truck, and then all drove together to the drop-off point, for a 9 mile, ~3 hour adventure.

Or should I say adventure!!!!!!

Almost as soon as we got into the water, we hit our first rapids---which we heard well before we saw them.  Yikes!  Right away, a gallon or two of water sloshed into my kayak and we suddenly realized that this was not "just a float" down the Colorado (as Bill had called it).  We were in

Intrepid--and wet--kayaker Lisa, sitting in 2" of water (inside her kayak)

Here's a movie that Nils took of me going through our second (or was it our third?) set of big rapids.

And then we hit really REALLY big rapids.  With standing waves about 2 feet high.  I felt more like I was in a storm at sea.  Words like "roiling" and "boiling" came to mind.  I had just enough time to assess the situation and realize that there was no easy way to get around this mess.  So I plunged in.  Literally.  First I was hit in the face with about 5 gallons of river....seconds later, the kayak had so much water in it that I could hardly maneuver anymore, and I tipped over to my right.  I did not lose glasses, car key, hat, shoes, paddle or kayak.  And the water wasn't really even that cold.  Nils was ahead of me going through this particular gauntlet and therefore did not realize my predicament right away (of course he couldn't hear me yelling, the rapids make a LOT of noise).  Actually, a River tour raft getting out of the river at that point saw me dump and alerted Nils.  He was able to get to me (coming back into the rapids of course) and then towed me to the opposite shore to re-group.  Yee haw!  We came ashore briefly (into slippery rocks, actually), emptied gallons of water out of my kayak, and then were back at it again.

Naively, I thought that would be the worst we would go through.  Ha!  let's just say that I was wrong.  We had at least four more scary and exhilarating rides.  Everyone stayed in their kayaks for the rest of the trip.  We did have to stop two more times, once to dump out Nils's kayak and once to dump out mine again.   We would hear, from a distance, the rumbling of approaching rapids and wonder, "OMG is it going to be a WATERFALL this time?!?!?"  All of the rapids, big or small, wild or tame, sounded huge from a distance.  And sometimes they were huge.  I would start yelling at the river, "REALLY?!  THIS again?"  And then I would just start laughing uproariously.  What else could I do?  Cower, petrified in fear, or paddle for my life.  I chose the latter, and laughed a lot.   I really am amazed that I kept from being dumped a few more times....guess there WAS a learning curve.  Nils, expert that he was from his previous Colorado rafting experience, stayed in his boat the whole time, although we both were thoroughly soaked and I drank more than a bit of the River along the way.  We really felt like bad-ass adventurers, I can tell you.   These dinky little Old Town Otters really had NO business braving the mighty Colorado River (just as well we didn't know that ahead of time).  And yet they did and we did and everyone made it in one laughing piece.  And it was just wonderful.

Great scenery on the way home