Rafting

A couple of weekends ago I went whitewater rafting with some friends - most of whom were brand new friends. My friend Mary invited me to tag along with her family to their cabin in Maryland. They have a great place where you can hear a river rapids while sitting on their front porch. There's plenty of hiking, great towns and even Wisp ski area close by. Of course the reason for our trip was the Cheat River festival that was being held that weekend. We chose to raft the Cheat with some professional guides whom Mary knew. What a blast.

I had been rafting two other times - once in Maryland and once on the Gauley in WV. The Cheat definitely matches up. It was riding just over 2' and had great rapids. We only had one miscalculation on the trip. Of course it was the one where we over-compensated pulling one crew member back and sacrificed four of us as a result. When we went to pull one back, we unintentionally over weighted one side of the raft, slided into a rock and went tumbling. I took out my poor partner and then ended up under the raft. Luckily I'm a good swimmer, used to be a life guard and took sailing classes, because otherwise I would have panicked and probably died right there. After tumbling in the surf, I came up toward the surface and there was yellow and no air. So I pushed myself along the raft, figuring I'd end up on one side or the other sooner or later. In fact, that's exactly what happened. Only I ended up on the side of the raft that was butting against a giant rock. Not only that, everyone remaining on the raft was facing the opposite direction helping the others. I saw the rock, saw the waves, saw that no one knew where I was and panicked a bit. I yelled "hello I'm over here" several times before anyone heard me. Then they thought I was a bit nuts and panicking.

To that I say - no duh - I was being ignored, we're heading toward a huge rock and my head is in between the raft and it. Yep, I panicked. What amazed me though is that I didn't panick under the raft or when I tumbled. No, it was when I thought no one saw me or would help me. Of course on analyzing it after the fact, they would have seen I wasn't with the other three and looked around for me. Only I wasn't really wanting to see if we hit the rock before or after they noticed I was somewhere else.

The rest of the day was beautiful and uneventful. Great rapids and loads of laughs. Of course we got drenched - not just from the rapids, but also from the downpour we encountered just before exiting the river.

The festival was soggy but cool. Lots of folk music, great food, and cool items being sold. I saw a lot of people camping and hanging out. It kind of reminded me of the atmosphere you'd find at pre-Greatful Dead concerts.

I've posted some pictures on my My Space page.