Rule #1 of whitewater rafting...

I thought the first rule was "keeping paddling". Man I LOVE rafting. Last time I went was 2 years ago on the Ocoee River.
 
Ocoee is pretty fun. I have a friend that is one of the guides and she's pretty hot.

I'd love to take it up a notch and raft one of the faster rivers out West.
 
It's been years, but my trip down the Ocoee was one of the most fun/funnest/morer funner times I've had.
 
Well, we didn't get to run the Numbers...they close it to rafters at 2200 cfs.
The river was at 3650 on Friday.
Best water in years.
We ran the Narrows and Brown's Canyon.
The operative word was OH ****.
We were hitting giant holes with 15 ft tall waves that threatened to flip the boat if we didn't nail the line.
Epic pics to follow when I get home.
 
Glad you made it out alive and had fun. We've had a rough week for rafting fatalities (4 in the last week).

Looking forward to the photos.
 
Wow...

River carnage

We went through Pinball at 3650, it was a piece of cake compared to the other epic **** we ran.
We hit some stuff that genuinely made me fear for our lives. When the guide says, "Everyone IN!!!", you get your *** down in the raft, or swim for your life.
After we cleared Brown's Canyon, we took out at Hecla Junction at our campsite. I staggered up to the tents to grab some beer to celebrate. As I dug through the ice chest, I began to convulse from hypothermia. Had to stop and rip my wetsuit off to get some sun.
Never felt so alive in my entire life.
 
A friend of mine was at a bachelorette party this past weekend and the bride's husband died while white water rafting. I don't know where, but a very sad situation. I can't even imagine being the one to tell her.
 
One of the guide boats flipped above our camp. We were hanging out having a beer when the capsized boat floated by the camp. It was a chilling sight.
Turned out it was the guiding company we used. The guide lost it in Graveyard Rapid with a boat full of 14-16 year old girls.
He caught hell for it back at the shop. He had to buy a case of beer for all the guides.
Everyone was fine, they swam to shore...but a couple of the girls got mildly hypothermic.
 
Are rafting fatalities that common? I went growing up, but I think we were only in class 1-3 rapids, so it never seemed that bad.

If there are this many fatalities, who in their right mind would send a group of 16 y.o. girls down the river?
 
Nevermind. According to the linked article it looks like there were 294,654 people that paid to raft the river last year, with 6 deaths.

That seems like a fairly low ratio. Sucks for those six though, when you consider it not as a statistic.
 
^
I think a lot of people book months in advance, and decided to run it. The thing about water this big, you have to actively paddle together to hit the lines just right. Some of these kids were just along for the ride, sitting in the boat like baggage.
When you're paddling, your *** is sitting up on the side, with your feet in stirrups attached to the floor of the raft. The boats are totally badass. Self-bailing, very rigid...very expensive.
 
Zoom Flume, 3650 cfs.

ZoomFlume.jpg
 
Damn, Myke. I thought you were a committed kinda' guy. Dedicated. One track mind. All that good stuff.


But I see this picture and you're not holding a beer. My illusions have been forever shattered.
 
Sangre, I was massively hung over. Not a good condition to be in on big water.
After the first 15 ft. of paddling in the boat, we were fully involved in what the locals call the "Miracle Mile" ....a full mile of class IV rapids.
I couldn't get my paddle strokes timed with Russ (other guy in the front, we both set the pace for the other paddlers)...so our timing was sloppy...till I took a 5 ft. wave in the face. I inhaled quite a bit of freezing water.
I was endangering the boat with my lack of concentration. Then we hit Little Seidel's Suckhole. Big ******* wave. I distinctly remember the sickening feeling of the boat tipping over. At the last second, John ( our guide) wrenched it back from disaster. I was halfway in the water, being held in the boat by my foot in the stirrup. I pulled myself back in to see that Shawn, the guy behind me, was gone. Just gone.
And then...*boop*....there he was..he had gone under the boat. We had to haul him back in while going through the rapid.
After that, the river had my full attention.
 
Cool picture Myke.

I'll bet when you look at the picture it doesn't even begin to portray how big that water is when you are sitting on the boat.

Was "pyramid rock" (the rock in the middle about 2/3's of the way down zoom flume) below water at that flow?
 
More pics...****** disposable camera...grrrr.

Judd Falls, near Gothic.

05850005.jpg



Near Gothic, CO.

05850007.jpg


11,500 ft. up, at Copper Lake, Maroon Bells NP.

MaroonBells.jpg




Collegiate Peaks, with beer.

05850011.jpg


Arkansas River at 3650 cfs...Buena Vista ...

05850023.jpg
 
We did a run of the Taos Box in NM back in June. It was spectacular. The water was high and fast. We finished a normally 4 hour trip in 2 1/2.
 
Always wanted to run the Box.
It took 40 minutes to run Brown's Canyon...normally takes 3-4 hours.

More pics....

Money.jpg



Money shot, as we drop into the hole. You can really see the drop in elevation in this pic.
To the left of frame is a wall of water.


Near Gothic, looking north to Aspen.

GothicValley.jpg
 
We didn't get any pics of the river when we were running it in the heavy whitewater area, but the guide said some of the stuff we were on was class 5. There was only one hole he skipped, he said it was suicidal to attempt it with the water that fast. Here's some other photos of the Taos Box I found. It was a great run, starts slow with class 3's and lots of really small stuff and then finishes with a huge bang, a long streak of 4's and 5's. It was a blast.

This doesn't look like it is going to end well.
whitewater_rafting.jpg



Rafting_TaosBoxCanyon.jpg


Powerline Falls, this one is sweet. There is a huge drop followed by a wall of water to get back out. This one put me in the middle of the boat, but I kept my foot in the stirrup and popped back up to paddle.
r205_p763_md.jpg


Rafting_in_Taos_County.jpg


TjMikeSMALL%281%29.gif


Link with more great info on the Taos Box. If anyone goes, PM me and I will give you our guides info. He was fantastic.
 
Nice pics.
There's really no way to describe the helpless feeling when the raft starts flipping over. Our guide John saved us at the last second before we lost it in Little Seidel. We flat out just didn't hit the line, and tipped over to the right as the wave hit us.
Going over the Silver Bullet drop (an old dam), we didn't even try to paddle, it was everyone get your *** to the bottom of the boat and pray. The boat in front of us just disappeared as it fell into the drop.
 
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