My first raft trip

It was early March. We had had a very mild winter and now that spring was approaching I wanted to get out and try something different. One of my friends mentioned that some nut in the tech shop was trying to get some people to go white water rafting with him. Since I knew nothing about rafting, but had seen "Deliverance" and I thought I had a good idea of white water really was. Testosterone spoke to me, rafting was a man's sport. I looked John up.

John was about 5' 6", 140 lbs., soft spoken with a heavy Hungarian accent, and in his late 50's, . His description of the Lehigh River made me think of an amusement park ride that lasted much longer than 3 minutes. I told my wife about the trip and we both decided to join John on this adventure. After giving John the money for the trip, he gave us a list of the things we need.

It was the Saturday before Palm Sunday. John arrived while we were finishing breakfast. We rushed to get ready and got what we "thought " we would need. We brought along 2 pairs of socks, sneakers, and some plastic bags to keep our feet warm as suggested in the instructions. Since the air was expected to be in the 60's and our winter gloves were not meant to be wet for an extended period of time, we omitted them. We also omitted wool ski style hats (didn't want to mess up my wife's hair by crushing it).

It was a 2-hour journey to the White Water Challengers Whitehaven headquarters. We were set for a 10:00 departure. We changed into the wet suits we rented and signed our lives away on the legal waiver forms. It wasn't until shortly before we got on the bus that we noticed that it was about 15 degrees colder than our hometown had been before we left. The jovial atmosphere on the bus ride caused us to forget all about the temperature outside, at least until we got to the river.

It wasn't until we stepped off the bus and saw snow still on the north facing banks of the river that reality hit me, the river was going to be downright COLD! I asked a guide what the water temperature was. His reply, "Its been hovering around the 40 degree mark for the past few days, but the dam was opened and it probably will be closer to 34 in the deeper pools today!" Perfect!

It wasn't until we had to step into the water to launch the raft that I discovered how ill prepared we had been. As the water rushed into our sneakers and soaked through our socks pain shot up my legs. It was a stabbing pain that yelled to my brain "WHAT KIND OF AN IDIOT ARE YOU. WE BELONG ON DRY LAND AND IF YOU CAN MANAGE, A FIRE WOULD BE NICE." I pushed off the raft and did my best to ignore my feet.

It soon became apparent (my wife constantly reminded me) that the water was uncomfortably COLD and there was only the movement of the paddle could create any sense of warmth. As we headed off down stream, a new terror hit. A wave from the first rapid hit and some water trickled inside our wet suits. My wife screamed out in an effort to burst my eardrum so that I could feel her pain (Some years later that same kind of scream was made during the birth of our first son.

I did my best to listen to John describe the gorge. There were still scars from the Johnstown flood visible 60 feet over our heads. Rhododendron and Azaleas were starting to bloom on the south facing slopes and deer could be seen in some of the more remote sections. Looking upstream, we saw the brown, gray white of the cliff faces accented by the green of the plants and the river made a ribbon of blue and white where it had sliced through it. The gorge was beautiful, but the water was as cold as death.

Our feet were freezing and ached fiercely. As we reached the 3-mile mark, a guide in a kayak pulled along side the raft. He asked us how we were doing. My wife asked him if there was any way to get warm. His response, "Paddle harder!" Her reaction was to splash him and in the same motion hit me in the ribs for making her come on such a miserable trip. We paddled on.

John did his best to keep our mind off of the cold. He told us stories of his escape from Hungary, one of his climbs up the volcano Popocatepetl, and several of the warm river trips he had experienced. This worked for me, but my wife was freezing and letting us know it on a regular basis. When the same guide showed up once more, she asked if there was a faster way to get off the raft. His answer, "How fast can you paddle upstream!" The resulting swat I received from the paddle nearly sent me overboard.

After 7 more miles of paddling and with feet colder than I have ever had, we reached the lunch stop and the welcome sight of a campfire. We flitted around it in a spiral pattern similar to a swarm of moths around a candle. Doing so allowed everybody to enjoy some of the fire's benefits and still be able to eat.

Lunch over we started to head back to the rafts. My wife picked up her paddle and as she passed one of the guides, she asked if there was a way to not get in the raft and still make it back to the WWC headquarters. The guide told her the trail was about 10 miles, versus the river's 8, and that we were averaging about 5 knots and would be inside a nice warm bus long before she could hike to the take out. She then asked if it would be closer to head upstream. He said that she'd have to wade across the river in order to get to the place the bus dropped us off and the last one had already gone. I swiftly moved toward the raft.

My wife was handed John's wet suit hood, so that she would be warmer (and hopefully a bit less vociferous). She put it on. We also changed her location in the raft so that she would have less water around her feet. She was the first person in our raft (insurance on her part to make sure her recently warmed feet had a chance to remain that way). I was not given a chance to keep my own feet dry (John and I were going to shove off, our feet were guaranteed to get wet in the process.

As I shoved the raft off after lunch, my feet once again made me aware of their hatred for cold water! I ignored them as best I could and their retaliation was to slide out from underneath me before I could get in the raft. Cold water trickled into the wet suit freezing my chest and arms. I got up, waded out to the raft and got in. I was now convinced that I must have been an idiot to think rafting was going to be fun.

We hit a few more wave trains and I found myself once again enjoying an endorphin rush. I had never encountered any sport that had given me as many thrills. I thought for a while more and decided that I would probably like this sport, if I hadn't been freezing. My wife was no longer complaining about being cold. Could the simple addition of something keeping her head warm be enough to make this kind of activity endurable for her?

Perhaps it was the warm toasty feeling of a wet suit of a wetsuit with a bit of water in it and a 50-degree day that enabled me to start forgetting how cold my feet still were. I paddled with gusto toward the wave trains and holes. We had enough momentum to punch through everything the Lehigh threw at us. I found myself enjoying the trip.

I was almost sad when we came around a bend and saw the takeout. My feet did not share in that feeling. They sprang to a new level of ferocity in their final submersion in the river. John and I stood in the water and flipped the raft to drain it and then carried it to the waiting truck. My wife had already deposited our paddles in their bin and was on the bus sitting next to the heater reserving a place for John and I.

As we returned home, I found myself thinking about rafting again. My feet still ached, my shoulders started to stiffen and the saner side of my brain threatened to leave me. I had had a lot of fun. I had been excited by the ride. I had no major injuries. I had spent time with friends. More importantly, I had met the challenge of the unknown and survived. I was now stronger in the wisdom of Nietzsche.

The next time John asked me to go, I didn't hesitate to say yes. I nearly fainted when my wife asked if she could join us. The second trip was made on a day with 70-degree temperatures and a 60-degree river. I've been hooked on river adventures for almost half of my life.