A Whitewater Adventure

(This picture isn't us, but you get the idea)

Last Saturday was my dad's birthday. We decided we'd like a little adventure, so we headed up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to go whitewater rafting. My mom and Grandma Smith took the little girls while the rest of us set off to float the Hoback.

We were equipped with wet suits, life jackets, and oars, and before we knew it we were on the river. Our guide was named was Tom. He was awesome! He dropped out of college 34 years ago to be a river guide. As we started the trip on some calmer water, he gave us safety instructions in case we fell out of the boat. He prefaced it all by saying that the river was running higher and faster than it has in 12 years. "Sometimes you do everything right and you still fall out," he said, "because you never know what the river is going to do." His instructions were to grab the rope around the raft on our way out if we could. If not, we were supposed to hold onto our oar, face downstream and wait for him to give us further instructions. It sounds a little scary, but he delivered the instructions with just the right mix of seriousness and excitement so I wasn't too worried.

As we floated the river we saw how crazy fast it was, and how dangerous it could be if you didn't know what you were doing. There were places were the river dropped off suddenly creating huge churning eddy's that would be very difficult to get out of. Sometimes the river looked like it was boiling because of undercurrents rising to the top. And then there were the rapids. Some of them were huge! Every person in our boat was wet by the second rapid we hit. It was crazy, but really fun!

As we approached the series of rapids called Lunch Counter, our guide got a little serious again. He said in all of his years guiding, Lunch Counter was as big as he's ever seen it. There were 12 foot waves we were going to go over! He carefully explained how we were supposed to hit each wave - basically we were supposed to just keep rowing through it all.

We entered Lunch Counter with our pulses rushing. It was awesome! We hit the waves perfectly. As we approached the last wave (the big 12 foot one) the river on our side of the boat swelled funny and a huge wave hit us. Before I knew it I was pushed into the boat, then picked up by the wave and thrown into the river.

I was scared. Then I felt Kristen by me kicking to the surface, and we both came up. After a minute Dad surfaced too. I was so relieved that I wasn't the only one that fell out!

I couldn't catch my breath for a minute because the water was so cold. Remembering what the guide said, I faced downstream and rode out the rest of the rapids and the river pushed us to the side in some slower water. I looked for the boat and it was already at least 20 yards away! But they were turning around to come get us.

Dad yelled at us to swim to the shore. We hung onto our oars and swam as hard as we could. It took me a while to realize I wasn't getting anywhere. We were at the mercy of the river. Along the shore line was a funny eddy pushing the current back toward the rapids. I was just hoping the boat would get there before the current pushed us back into the middle of the river.

Luckily, a kayaker came up to us and had us all hold onto each other and his kayak until the raft could get to us. We held on until our guide made an amazing throw with his rescue rope to pull us back to the raft. I don't think I really breathed until I was back, panting, in the bottom of the raft. Whew! What a rush.

Kris and I just sat back for the rest of the ride. Dad helped row again. Kris asked our guide if we'd done anything wrong. He said we hit the rapid perfectly, the same way he's been hitting it all week, and there was nothing we could have done to stay in the raft. That made us feel a little better! We hit a few more rapids, and then the trip was over and we pulled to shore.

"You'll never forget this trip," said our guide as we got out of the boat. He was right! What a crazy adventure. I'm glad we all made it safely! It was scary for a minute, but after it was over we could all say we had a great time!

Happy Birthday Dad! Thanks for providing us with fun, crazy, once-in-a-lifetime experiences like this one!