Raftin' on the South Fork

Well, this past weekend I did exactly what the title of this post says. I must say, it was one of the most fun things I have engaged in. When we have money to go again (who knows when that'll be...thank you, property taxes), we'd definitely like to try the next level up. Perhaps some Middle Fork raftin'.

So we left Friday after work and a little delay at home, stopped for dinner in Elk Grove and got to Lotus around 10. Oddly enough, Ryan's brother John and sister Allison, who left two hours before us, didn't get to the campgrounds until 11. And we had to wait for them because we had no idea who we were supposed to meet up with. The trip was arranged through John's work. And then, unfortunately, the Tributary Whitewater campsite was separate from the parking lot, so we had to walk all our stuff in. Exhausted, we had a rather welcome -- but chilly -- night's sleep.

The next day we woke up for a little bit of breakfast and met up with the group to sign waivers. ("I do not hold Tributary Whitewater Tours responsible if I should die while rafting," etc.) Then we waited forever for who knows what. We had no idea. There were 19 in our group, and 40 rafting with TWT total, so what we were waiting for, apparently, was the bus. And for other groups from different rafting companies who share the same site to move out.

Finally, the bus came and trucked us about 4 miles down the road. It literally felt like summer camp. When we arrived, we put on life vests and split into groups of approximately 6. So there was the four of us (me, Ryan, John and Ali) and then two friends of people in John's work group who we didn't know: a French guy named Arnold (pronounced ArNO) and a German chick named Bertha (prounounced BEERta). I guess Arnold and Bertha were a couple, although it's hard to tell with them overly affectionate Germans, ya know. (Ha.) Arnold was pretty cool. Bertha...was not.

After that we grabbed some oars and met our guide, Steve. Steve's an outdoor recreation major at Chico State who's a rafting guide during the summer. He was cute in a blond-frat-boy-slightly-pudgy way. Great sense of humor, too.

So for the first hour or so we did some Class II rapids for four miles until we hit our campsite, where the rafting company provided us with lunch. About half an hour after eating, we got back in our rafts and did the last 8 miles over Class III rapids. I have to admit, the first portion was boring. Lots of tranquil floating and not terribly thrilling Class II's, but good preparation. I was wearing my beat-up Nikes that have gone through hell, and they don't feel all that great full of water. And, despite some SPF 30, I was soaking up the rays.

The Class III's were awesome. We did Satan's Cesspool, where my friend Danielle and her crew overturned when they shot the rapids a while a go. I can see why...if you hit it just right, the boat can go right over. The funniest sight was at Catcher's Mitt, where three boats from another company (which hires inexperienced guides) all piled up at the bottom of the rapid and dumped their occupants into the drink. A kayaker went over too. We stayed there for a while, watching people go over and waiting for Bertha and some others to stop jumping off rocks into the river. Catcher's Mitt is also where I did the "bucking bronco." This involves sitting on the prow of the boat, hanging on to a coil of rope and leaning back while you shoot the rapid. All was good until we hit the center of the thing, where a wall of water shot up my nose and pushed me backwards into the boat. The photos of this are great...just my two legs sticking straight up in the air. Hilarious.

The last Class III rapid was Hospital Bar. This is where Steve decided to have us "wheelie the rapid." In order to do this, everyone has to sit in the back of the boat (I secretly think this was Steve's way of having us "guard" him from falling out). Anyway, with all the weight in the back, the front of the boat pops up and you skip along the rapid with the back bouncing along. It was so frigging funny that we all almost swallowed lungfuls of water from laughing.

At the end of the day, all the boats met up and tied up to each other to be towed out by a jetski (it's a really long paddle to the end point without the tow). We carried our boats to a van for deflating, then bussed back to the campsite to collapse in a water- and sun-logged fit of fatigue.

Good times. I'll post photos when they arrive in 2-3 weeks. (We ordered them all on a CD, and apparently they send it by pack mule.) Anyway, if you haven't tried rafting, I recommend it! And the company we used, Tributary Whitewater Tours (www.whitewatertours.com), isn't very expensive.