And the River Ran Wild.........
Trip Start
Jul 02, 2006
1
3
Trip End
Aug 06, 2006
Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
Sunday, July 2, 2006
When we called to make our reservations we were told about this thing called an Adventure Pass. It was basically a card that gave you 3 days of white water rafting for the price of 2 days. So we bought it. Normally rafting costs about $55.00, the card cost $100 so we saved $50, not bad! We knew we would like rafting and would do it again so it was worth it.
The first thing you do when you get to the center is sign in. They give you a registration card to fill out and you have to sign that you understand all the risks associated with rafting etc. Its also your ticket onto the bus.
Then they send you over to get fitted for a life jacket. The boys at the life jacket stand put your jacket on you and teach you how to secure it properly. If its after May you don't need a wet suit to go on the river.
After we got our life jackets we were told to sit and wait until our bus was ready to go. The place was packed and there were tons of little Chinese kids running around and chucking rocks at poles and yelling at flies, these kids needed Ridlin! The one mother actually told her boy that if he wasn't quiet when he was on the raft a crocodile was going to eat him! That's great parenting right there! So finally after waiting about an hour with wild Chinese kids we were assigned to our guide for the day who explained all the safety stuff to us.
We were then loaded into a bus and given paddles and driven about 15 min to the river. When we got there, there were like 40 rafts on the beach and waiting to go, it was insane. They let about a group of 10 rafts go down the river at the same time.
Me and Michelle were in a raft with a family. The parents were sorta young and seemed pretty cool and they had two little boys with them. So it was me, Michelle, the husband and his wife who were paddling and the little boys were put in the middle. None of us in the raft had ever done this before and our guide was rather impressed. He said we kept the raft steady and centered in the river and we were moving at a much quicker pace than most of the other rafts in the river.
We had a really great guide. He taught us all about the raft, the safety equipment, how to steer the raft...what type of things to avoid in the river. How to get off a rock if we got stuck. He was awesome. He could tell we were into and told us alot about rafting without a guide and getting equipment.
Almost as soon as we got down river we got sucked into this huge hole that almost tipped the raft over. It sent a 4 foot high wave of water over the top of the raft! Thank god we all fell into the the middle of the boat or we might still be swimming! It was awesome! I was hoping for about 20 of those, it really got the adrenaline going.
The section of the Lehigh Gorge we were on was a class 2-3. But because of the water running so swiftly from the flood it was a bit more dangerous and exciting. We were told that the river levels were the fastest on record because of the flood and we were sorta rafting in historic conditions for the area.
It was really cool though and we liked it. We hit a few other areas with rapids and things that were cool. We actually didn't have to do alot of paddling because the river was moving so quick.
We could only go about 11 miles downstream becasue of the flood so the trip was like an hour or more shorter than it would have been. It was a good day.I knew afterwards that I was going to be going rafting again.
Things I learned about White Water Rafting:
1. Going in the aftermath of a major flood is fun, exciting and somewhat dangerous
2. Pay attention to the safety instructions.
3. Talk to your guide - they can really teach you how to steer your raft and give you lots of good pointers.
4. Check what type of rafting you will be doing - this was "family style" - more tame rapids. We were hoping for more White Water.
5. Adventure Cards - Look into discounts for multiple days of rafting.
6. Family Days = Food. There was a picnic with lunch provided after rafting was done.
