Final Destination IV (aka The Thrill of White Water Rafting)
I really enjoy white water rafting. It might be because I’m scared of the water and it gives me a sense of accomplishment that I can raft despite my fear. Or maybe I’m an adrenaline junkie in the making. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, my goal was to go a couple times every summer eventually rafting a Class V river. After this past weekend, my goal has now changed. I want to raft a couple of times every summer and that’s all. I think the Class V river thing will just be something that other people do. I’m not sure I’m interested anymore…
First off, let me say that I’m a total beginner. I’ve only rafted a grand total of 4 times as of today. The first time I rafted was 3 years ago. I organized a trip of nearly 30 people to raft the Wenatchee River. It was great! Everyone had a great time. The next summer we did the Wenatchee again as well as the Tieton River later in the season. I skipped last summer for financial reasons (ugh!) This weekend, a small group of us rafted the Sauk River. The Sauk is Class III-IV – compared to the Wenatchee and Tieton, both Class IIIs. Wow, what a difference. Our experience on the Sauk can be summed up thusly: At least, no one died.
Yeah, it was a “River Wild” experience without Kevin Bacon. Although, if our boat had been hijacked by a pair of bank robbers, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all.
Our outfitter (the company that took us out) only had two boats on the water that day. It was just our party and another couple (father & daughter). Including my party of 7, total number of people rafting was 9 plus 2 guides. We put 3 people from my party and the father & daughter on the first boat. I was in a boat with 3 of my friends plus a guide. We were the “sweep” boat – meaning we’d be picking up any people who fell off. Of course, everyone’s nervous about falling into the river. Our guides assured us that that rarely happens. One guide mentioned that he’d been rafting 10 days in a row and no guest had fallen out.
My fore-shadowing is probably obvious at this point. Unfortunately, my parties have a high falling out ratio compared to other guests. Our outfitter has a dunk rate (my term) of less than 1%. My guests have a dunk rate of 15.6%. Ummm….yeah….I honestly can’t believe they still accept my business. My ENTIRE boat fell out on our second Wenatchee trip. Except me. I remember opening my eyes after our boat high-sided on the 2nd to last series of rapids. I was alone. It was scary-weird. I turn around and (thankfully!) my guide was still on the boat. We were in still water by now and everyone had popped up next to the boat thanks to their life vests. We got everyone back in the raft, probably in less than 3 minutes. It was actually pretty exhilarating. I think our guide was the most shaken up. We had one set of rapids left and everyone wanted to take it head on. We were pretty gung-ho.
The Sauk River…ummm….different story.
About 1/3 way through the Sauk run, we high-sided onto a rock. My friend Kim and I were dangling upside down. I was “Matrixing” as The Heat refers to it – I was still as a board, holding onto the chicken wire, slightly sitting up to avoid being dunked into the water. Kim was drowning in 4 inches of water. If she could just have sat up a little, she would have been fine. The looks on my friends faces who were on the high side (which happened to be the right side of the boat) was absolute fear. The guide came over and helped me to sit all the way up and then had Kim fall into the water, where he picked her up back into the boat. This scenario probably lasted less than a minute. I’m sure for Kim it was horrifying.
Cut to right before lunch: Again we high-sided onto a rock, this time the left side was high. I’m in the front and can’t see anyone else but the Heat. As The Heat and Dianna tried to hold onto the chicken wire, it became apparent, we could not get the raft loose in this precarious position. So the guide told them to let go of us and the boat. Dianna let go and started floating away. Our guide dislodged our boat and The Heat was still right next to the boat, but behind it. Kim and I tried to get The Heat in the boat. We couldn’t. Then the guide tries to get The Heat in the boat, while I watch Dianna floating about 10 feet away from us. She’s totally out of my reach; I can’t even offer her any help she’s so far away. I see her floating towards a tree and I’m going insane. I realize that the guide can’t get the Heat in the boat. Kim tries to help him. No go. The guide has to let go of her because we’re entering more rapids. The Heat describes the look on his face when he realizes he can’t get her back into the boat as “terrified”.
Kim and I are literally stomping around on the raft watching Dianna float away in perfect river position toward a tree. I’m screaming at her to avoid the tree, but she doesn’t. Luckily, there is no super strong current under the woods to suck her in and pin her underneath the tree and she is able to grab at the tree and hold on. So she’s holding onto the tree as she watches us float away. By now, the guide is yelling at Kim and me to row because, he “can’t do it alone”. Oh right – we’re still in the middle of a set of rapids. In my panicked state, that actually never occurred to me. So the three of us paddle some rapids, while watching The Heat bobbing up and down in the water ahead of us. Dianna is a speck of fear upriver.
I have never paddled so hard in my life. At the end of the set of rapids is a really big rock. I was frantic as I watched The Heat approach the rock with the raft behind her. The Heat’s head goes down in the water with her life preserver slightly floating above her head as the raft overtakes her and bumps the rock. I can only imagine we are literally on top of The Heat and I am out of my body with fear. Then I see her shooting around the left side of the rock. Behind the rock is an eddy and finally some shallow water! The other guide has beached his raft and is running with the throw bag. The Heat told me later she couldn’t reach the rope he had thrown toward her. She is panicking in the water but doesn’t realize that she’s not moving very fast until the guide screams to swim toward him. Which she does to safety. Thank god.
Our guide beaches us and tells us not to leave the boat. He goes racing with his partner up river toward Dianna. I have no idea what they were planning to do, although my guess is that they had no clue either. Dianna remembers hearing “Let go of the tree”, which she won’t do. Finally she does. She floats around five feet, goes around a rock and stands up in 3 feet of water. She describes the two guides as hanging on to each other to combat the current. In our greatest stroke of luck, a private rafting party came down just then and she hitched a ride to where we waiting.
I honestly can’t say how long this episode lasted. I think less than 5 minutes for the Heat and probably 10 minutes for Dianna. The weird things I remember about this adventure… like Kim trying very hard to keep me calm – but I know she was as panicked as I was. And our adrenaline really kicked in. One of our guides “ran like a cheetah” (the Heat’s words) over the rocks with a throwbag – personally, I can barely walk the rock covered beaches without teetering all over the place. I wonder if he could have run so gracefully for any other reason. Maybe he can. Maybe all river guides can. I can’t – I walk into my coffee table at least once a month. But Kim and I also developed abilities above and beyond our normal skills. For instance, we walked up and down that raft in the middle of the river like it was a hard wood floor -- which is funny because I can barely get in the raft when it’s tethered and someone’s trying to help me into it.
The Heat and Dianna were troopers to get back into the boat. The stop for lunch was literally 5 minutes away. It was after lunch that the fear set in. The start of that part of the trip was full of tension. I don’t know who was more scared: Dianna, The Heat, me, Kim or our guide*.
Afterward, The Heat and Dianna both admitted to thinking that they thought they were going to drown out there. They didn’t say anything until the end of the trip. Which I thought was really brave of them. I can’t imagine how each felt. It was harrowing for both. We were lucky Saturday that no one was seriously hurt.
We’re going again in September.
- Susan in Seattle
*The answer is Dianna. I feel so bad that she had such a horrible experience. I don’t know how I would have felt hanging onto a tree and watching everyone screaming, yelling, panicking, but most of all, floating away.
First off, let me say that I’m a total beginner. I’ve only rafted a grand total of 4 times as of today. The first time I rafted was 3 years ago. I organized a trip of nearly 30 people to raft the Wenatchee River. It was great! Everyone had a great time. The next summer we did the Wenatchee again as well as the Tieton River later in the season. I skipped last summer for financial reasons (ugh!) This weekend, a small group of us rafted the Sauk River. The Sauk is Class III-IV – compared to the Wenatchee and Tieton, both Class IIIs. Wow, what a difference. Our experience on the Sauk can be summed up thusly: At least, no one died.
Yeah, it was a “River Wild” experience without Kevin Bacon. Although, if our boat had been hijacked by a pair of bank robbers, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all.
Our outfitter (the company that took us out) only had two boats on the water that day. It was just our party and another couple (father & daughter). Including my party of 7, total number of people rafting was 9 plus 2 guides. We put 3 people from my party and the father & daughter on the first boat. I was in a boat with 3 of my friends plus a guide. We were the “sweep” boat – meaning we’d be picking up any people who fell off. Of course, everyone’s nervous about falling into the river. Our guides assured us that that rarely happens. One guide mentioned that he’d been rafting 10 days in a row and no guest had fallen out.
My fore-shadowing is probably obvious at this point. Unfortunately, my parties have a high falling out ratio compared to other guests. Our outfitter has a dunk rate (my term) of less than 1%. My guests have a dunk rate of 15.6%. Ummm….yeah….I honestly can’t believe they still accept my business. My ENTIRE boat fell out on our second Wenatchee trip. Except me. I remember opening my eyes after our boat high-sided on the 2nd to last series of rapids. I was alone. It was scary-weird. I turn around and (thankfully!) my guide was still on the boat. We were in still water by now and everyone had popped up next to the boat thanks to their life vests. We got everyone back in the raft, probably in less than 3 minutes. It was actually pretty exhilarating. I think our guide was the most shaken up. We had one set of rapids left and everyone wanted to take it head on. We were pretty gung-ho.
The Sauk River…ummm….different story.
About 1/3 way through the Sauk run, we high-sided onto a rock. My friend Kim and I were dangling upside down. I was “Matrixing” as The Heat refers to it – I was still as a board, holding onto the chicken wire, slightly sitting up to avoid being dunked into the water. Kim was drowning in 4 inches of water. If she could just have sat up a little, she would have been fine. The looks on my friends faces who were on the high side (which happened to be the right side of the boat) was absolute fear. The guide came over and helped me to sit all the way up and then had Kim fall into the water, where he picked her up back into the boat. This scenario probably lasted less than a minute. I’m sure for Kim it was horrifying.
Cut to right before lunch: Again we high-sided onto a rock, this time the left side was high. I’m in the front and can’t see anyone else but the Heat. As The Heat and Dianna tried to hold onto the chicken wire, it became apparent, we could not get the raft loose in this precarious position. So the guide told them to let go of us and the boat. Dianna let go and started floating away. Our guide dislodged our boat and The Heat was still right next to the boat, but behind it. Kim and I tried to get The Heat in the boat. We couldn’t. Then the guide tries to get The Heat in the boat, while I watch Dianna floating about 10 feet away from us. She’s totally out of my reach; I can’t even offer her any help she’s so far away. I see her floating towards a tree and I’m going insane. I realize that the guide can’t get the Heat in the boat. Kim tries to help him. No go. The guide has to let go of her because we’re entering more rapids. The Heat describes the look on his face when he realizes he can’t get her back into the boat as “terrified”.
Kim and I are literally stomping around on the raft watching Dianna float away in perfect river position toward a tree. I’m screaming at her to avoid the tree, but she doesn’t. Luckily, there is no super strong current under the woods to suck her in and pin her underneath the tree and she is able to grab at the tree and hold on. So she’s holding onto the tree as she watches us float away. By now, the guide is yelling at Kim and me to row because, he “can’t do it alone”. Oh right – we’re still in the middle of a set of rapids. In my panicked state, that actually never occurred to me. So the three of us paddle some rapids, while watching The Heat bobbing up and down in the water ahead of us. Dianna is a speck of fear upriver.
I have never paddled so hard in my life. At the end of the set of rapids is a really big rock. I was frantic as I watched The Heat approach the rock with the raft behind her. The Heat’s head goes down in the water with her life preserver slightly floating above her head as the raft overtakes her and bumps the rock. I can only imagine we are literally on top of The Heat and I am out of my body with fear. Then I see her shooting around the left side of the rock. Behind the rock is an eddy and finally some shallow water! The other guide has beached his raft and is running with the throw bag. The Heat told me later she couldn’t reach the rope he had thrown toward her. She is panicking in the water but doesn’t realize that she’s not moving very fast until the guide screams to swim toward him. Which she does to safety. Thank god.
Our guide beaches us and tells us not to leave the boat. He goes racing with his partner up river toward Dianna. I have no idea what they were planning to do, although my guess is that they had no clue either. Dianna remembers hearing “Let go of the tree”, which she won’t do. Finally she does. She floats around five feet, goes around a rock and stands up in 3 feet of water. She describes the two guides as hanging on to each other to combat the current. In our greatest stroke of luck, a private rafting party came down just then and she hitched a ride to where we waiting.
I honestly can’t say how long this episode lasted. I think less than 5 minutes for the Heat and probably 10 minutes for Dianna. The weird things I remember about this adventure… like Kim trying very hard to keep me calm – but I know she was as panicked as I was. And our adrenaline really kicked in. One of our guides “ran like a cheetah” (the Heat’s words) over the rocks with a throwbag – personally, I can barely walk the rock covered beaches without teetering all over the place. I wonder if he could have run so gracefully for any other reason. Maybe he can. Maybe all river guides can. I can’t – I walk into my coffee table at least once a month. But Kim and I also developed abilities above and beyond our normal skills. For instance, we walked up and down that raft in the middle of the river like it was a hard wood floor -- which is funny because I can barely get in the raft when it’s tethered and someone’s trying to help me into it.
The Heat and Dianna were troopers to get back into the boat. The stop for lunch was literally 5 minutes away. It was after lunch that the fear set in. The start of that part of the trip was full of tension. I don’t know who was more scared: Dianna, The Heat, me, Kim or our guide*.
Afterward, The Heat and Dianna both admitted to thinking that they thought they were going to drown out there. They didn’t say anything until the end of the trip. Which I thought was really brave of them. I can’t imagine how each felt. It was harrowing for both. We were lucky Saturday that no one was seriously hurt.
We’re going again in September.
- Susan in Seattle
*The answer is Dianna. I feel so bad that she had such a horrible experience. I don’t know how I would have felt hanging onto a tree and watching everyone screaming, yelling, panicking, but most of all, floating away.
posted by Susan at 4:32 PM
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