Hubby and I decided to go white water rafting for our first anniversary, in 2006. Since then we have gotten a group of our friends together each year for a rafting trip. Our normal trip is to the Poconos in PA which has Class I, II, and III rapids. This year we stepped it up a couple notches and went to West Virginia for Class III, IV and V rapids. Our West Virginia Trip was an awesome great weekend! In some of our down time, our one friend was climbing the walls out of boredom…literally…climbing the walls, haha. Anyway even he had fun through the sporadic boredom.
Rafting itself was a lot of fun! Our group ended up splitting into two rafts and the one raft had a crazier guide so they obviously had a lot more ‘swimming’ time. Two friends went through the first two rapids then had to be walked back to our starting point. One was blacking out from the stress of falling into the rapid and the overexertion of trying to get out of the dangerous part. The other I think was also a little scared (although he would never admit it) and he’s more of a father figure so he wanted to take care of the first guy.
I went in once but I’m pretty sure it’s because my hubby unintentionally landed on me and knocked me over. I actually came up under the raft which was strange yet comforting because I at least knew where it was and knew I wouldn’t have to swim to be rescued. I made sure to brace myself better the next time so when he landed on me I stayed in the raft!
Another friend had a bad experience closer to the end of the trip; he fell out of the raft and was caught in the rapid. He was so disorientated that he was trying to swim upstream into the rapid which obviously is not what you want to do in that situation. It’s a scary situation to be in. We happen to have all of this caught on tape which is kind of awesome!!
The only person that didn’t fall in during our trip was a newbie to our group who had never been rafting and ironically can’t swim. I’m not sure how he lucked out but it’s probably for the best that he didn’t experience that.
Something else that was new to all of us, including our regular rafters, was when the guide had us go through a small rapid outside of the raft. It was definitely a new perspective and I have to say I, being one of the more daring people of the group, really enjoyed it.
We also had the opportunity to jump off of a 25 ft rock which is appropriately named ‘jump rock’. About half of the group jumped. It was a little intimidating, yet fun!
Another fun experience was what our guides call ‘riding the bull’. On the last rapid (I think it was a Class IV). Our guide asked us if anyone wanted to ‘ride the bull’ and, being a little crazy, I agreed to it before knowing what it was. Well I ended up sitting on the nose of the boat holding onto a strap while we went through that Class IV rapid! It was awesome even if I did get knocked back into the boat half way through. I’m still the only one in our group that rode the bull!
