Bad Boy Week Day 3 - White Water Rafting

We decided the ride from the day before was more than enough warming up for the 7 Summits Trail. Today we're going to go whitewater rafting between Castlegar BC and Nelson BC. The longest trip we could find any guide had was a 6 hour, so we took it. It was a Slocan River float from about Passmore BC to just south of Crescent Valley BC.

The first half of it was really pretty boring. I've white water rafted enough times it takes a bit more to get me wound up. At least one of the guys needed all the instruction he could get. Even though he's gone before, it has been a while. We got geared up at the shop, stacked the boats on the roof of a 1970 something blue passenger van. It was about as beat up as they come. Thing smelled like old water gear never dried out, it clanged and banged every time it moved. Only some of the windows worked. The sliding door was a complete magic trick to open and close. Our guide, who we later found out actually owned the operation, took off out of there Dukes of Hazzard style. We screamed up the road to our launch point. Some of the guys in the back seat actually held on to the seat in front of them.

We got our last few instructions and took launched all the boats. The river was deep, cold, and fast moving. It was really very uneventful until after lunch when we actually got to a spot that had some waves. The upper half of the trip didn't have anything to get too excited about. There was 1 rope swing we stopped and played around on for a while. All the lighter guys (everyone but me) thought they'd give it a shot. I knew better. The last time I tried a rope swing at this size, my hands and arms could not hold me up. I just as soon jumped in the water without the aid of a rope. The effect was the same. As I approached the bottom of the swing before my momentum carried me upwards again, my legs and arms began to slowly stretch out. When I reached the bottom of the swing, I couldn't hold on any longer and plopped into the water as ungracefully as anyone could imagine.

Our guide told us the spot where we stop for lunch has ladies are always down there sunbathing topless. I laughed at the idea early in the trip as he said it in a way that seemed plausible, yet highly unlikely. Our lunch was an awesome teryaki chicken panini sandwich. We hung out for a while and talked about the area and what day would be the best day for us to attempt the 7 Summits. We decided Friday would be the likely day and we'd use Thursday as a day of rest to better prepare for the super spin grind that lay ahead. There was a beach nearby with a few folks out sunbathing. but there was no topless anything. The fellas were a little miffed.

We bailed back in the water for the 2nd half of the day. This is the part of the trip that gets a little exciting. We had some Class 3+ water that lay ahead. I had already dumped my inflatable kayak twice. 2 of us hadn't even been in the water except to play around on the swing. One of the rapids had formed itself in just such a way that you could go through it and ride the eddy almost all the way back to the top of it along the shoreline. It's called "The Elevator". We did just that. We rode through, pulled off to the side and rode the eddy almost all the way back to the beginning for an on-the-water "lesson". We were instructed to push off back out into the rapid, and once we were in the middle of the river, tip the boat over and get back in. Each of us went, one by one into the middle of the river and dumped our vessel. One of us was actually able to get back in while still in the rapids. I was the one that swam the thing over to shore and got in from the bank on calmer water. The rest of the guys got to calmer water before they were able to get in. This was our training for the last, and biggest part of the river. The Class 3+ rapids.

We pulled over after the training session at another tree swing. This one was a little better designed in that it has a stick from which to hang. This time I decided to show the guys what I was talking about...why you don't see heavy guys swinging from ropes dangling from trees. When it was my turn, I dropped out of the tree hanging on as tight as I possibly could. As I reached the bottom of the swing, my legs and arms had almost fully extended and I was dragging through the water. No sense in holding on any longer. I let go and swam back to shore. The rest of the fellas tried it several more times. Actually, it got to the point where our guide said we needed to get going. Whatever, the trip was almost over anyway.

We got to the last section and it was the largest of the rest of what we had seen. Not that it was big, but in the inflatable kayaks we were in, and after being on the water for the previous 5 hours, fatigue makes mistakes much easier to execute. We all pretty much went down one by one, single file. I was second to last and got to see 1 of the guys who hadn't been dumped in the water yet floating downriver separate from his kayak. As I floated past him and pulled off into an eddy, I looked up stream and saw another one of the guys who hadn't been dumped on the opposite side of the river, walking the shore. He got dumped too. One of the guides paddled over to the other side, and up the bank to him, had him hold onto the back of his kayak and paddled him back over to our side where his boat was. He was flat out exhausted from the swim and freaking out.

On our exit just around the next corner we were all loading up our gear back into the old beat up van and he was still winded and exhausted from his unscheduled swim. I looked at him and asked him how he felt and he said, "Completely beat up, wore out, and exhausted." I said, "Welcome to the club motherfucker! That's exactly how I felt when you guys thought it would be a good idea to drag me around those expert trails with nearly zero experience!!!" All of us got a big laugh out of it and we loaded up for the shop. Our guide, now driver, hammered that van up out of the river bottom, onto the highway and sped back to the shop. One of his underlings sitting in the back freaked out a little as we romped up the embankment, he put on his seat belt.

We drove back to the condo, absolutely exhausted and all went to bed just a little early. Before we racked out, the guys took the pictures off the cameras and put them onto laptops for more pictures over the next couple of days. Tomorrow is going to be a slow and easy rest day. Maybe some fishing or golfing, but very very low key. We're also going to carb-load tomorrow night in preparation for the long ride. What a week! We're having a great time busting our asses.