Saturday, August 5, 2017
Whitewater rafting trip, day 2 of 3. Since I rented my tent and sleeping pad from the rafting company, there was no need for me to break it down this morning before our rafting trip departure. The tour company was Mariah Wilderness aka Raft California aka Adventure Connection; there had been some mergers or buyouts since my last rafting trips in 2005 and 2007. Jeremiah provided our instructions for the morning as we ate the provided breakfast and completed our waiver forms. We originally had 36 persons. There was one cancellation—Tony G—and one switcheroo—Reed L canceled at the last minute, and Khalid A took his place—for a total of 35 persons. Another group of six men were joining our trip as a separate group. So we had 7 boats of 5 guests, and one boat of the 6 guests from the separate group. Each boat had a rafting guide. My boat included Ben C, Khalid A, Eddie J, Bill S, me, and our guide Ross. Other guide names I recall: Irish, Joey, Tigra (or maybe Tigre). We seemed to spend relatively little time training as compared with what I recall from my 2005 trip, and in retrospect I think all that training wasn't really needed. We did fine enough this time, even with two inexperienced rafters in my boat (Khalid and Eddie). Within about half an hour and after some mild rapids, we hit the hardest run of the trip called Tunnel Chute. Our boat flipped after the first big dip, running directly into a cliff protruding from the right side. I found myself in the tunnel that followed the rapids and underneath the flipped boat and somehow was able to hold onto both my paddle and the boat. The water was freezing, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. A few seconds later I noticed Khalid next to me and was able to grab him and pull him closer to the boat so that he could hang onto it. We floated downstream somewhat as I waited for instructions from our guide, but I found out later that he had been thrown out of the boat. Other guides and boats approached and helped us restore the raft and load us back into it. We rested some minutes, Ross found his way back to our boat, oars were magically returned to us, and a few minutes later, we were on our way and laughing about it. Ross said later that we were very close to making it through properly. He had lost his expensive and favorite sunglasses (even though they were secured with a strap), and his helmet had also gotten torn off when he was thrown. (It was found and retrieved soon afterwards.) Two other boats on our trip had flipped in Tunnel Chute, and a few other guests were thrown out of their unflipped boats. No one wanted to take another dip after that; the water was too chilly. A few more not-super-challenging rapids, then we stopped for lunch alongside the river: make-your-own sandwiches, Pringles potato chips, trail mix, cookies, fresh pineapple, and more I'm forgetting—seemingly identically prepared to the lunch on my rafting trip with Mariah Wilderness in 2005 except with tortillas and pita instead of (I think we had) sandwich bread. (I'm guessing that they switched to tortillas and pita because they are less likely than a loaf of soft sandwich bread to get smushed or ruined if the boat carrying the food is flipped.) To drink: Capri Sun and probably water. More rafting, then we camped overnight by the river. Tents were already set up by the rafting company, two persons to a tent; we just had to claim our own. A few insisted on their own tents, so I ended up not having to share. The rafting company provided three kegs that chilled in the river as well as a few boxes of wine. I was super tired and went to sleep right after dinner. I learned later that a chocolate-covered espresso bean I had eaten was of a special kind. I apparently did not read the canister closely enough or did not have my reading glasses at the time. Woke around 1:00 am, then returned to sleep after some time.