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On Saturday July 16th, we went River Rafting on the Animas River in Durango, Colorado.
(Sorry about the picture quality, but even our 'waterproof' camera got wet!)
We set out on our rafts |
Meg, Kali, and Sarah J |
Water fight! |
(Here's where we lose our bucket: |
Sarah K admires Sarah J's hail collection |
We survived! |
An Account of One Boat's Adventures on the Animas by Sarah K. Part 1: It was July 16, a Saturday. Our first Saturday actually. And it was very very hot. Thankfully, that was the day we took the one hour drive to the bustling metropolis of Durango to go white water rafting. We had lunch in a small park: 3 meats, 3 cheeses, 3 breads, and then drove to the rafting site. By that time it had clouded over, but it was still hot, so no one even noticed. In my raft there were Katie the intern, Meg, Kali, Rachel, Monica, the other Sarah, and myself. Kali, Sarah, and Meg jumped out to go swimming at the first chance. Apparently the water was extremely cold. Unfortunately, their swimming allowed another raft to catch up and the water fight began. I should explain that every raft had two buckets to attack the other rafts. We had only one bucket, and somehow that bucket ended up on the OTHER raft. Now, we weren't allowed to jump from raft to raft; we could swim from raft to raft, but we could only swim in certain areas. So in a last desperate attempt to salvage our bucket, Meg and Kali ... jumped. Just as we passed out of the swim zone. So we lost two people and the bucket. We shall always mourn the loss of that bucket. Part 2: And so we sped along the exciting Animas River. Then the lightening started. Now we were cold, wet, and rafting in a river. Lightening = Bad. It continued to get darker as well, until it started to rain. Some sissy tube-ers had gotten off the river by this time, but we continued on. And then it hailed. If you don't know, hail HURTS when you're cold and wet. Sarah caught one about as big as a dime. We finally realized that the weather was the gods' retaliation against the other rafts for us ... but they missed. We had to go through the Level 3 rapids as well. The photographer hiding under a tree got a picture of our pain. He also got a picture of the guide of the raft who stole our bucket falling off of her raft. And all of that was before we hit the halfway point. Author's note: Some artistic license was used, if you didn't notice. |
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The kidnapped Kali and Meg are on the other boat |
Their guide falls out on the Class 3 Rapids! |
A Traveler’s Tale: Rafting the Animas By Meg The sky began to cloud as we boarded the rafts. We did not understand what was to come. I was on a raft with a few others. Sarah^2, Rachel, Kali, Monica, Katie, and myself were on one raft. The ride began uneventful enough. Easy paddling, a couple class 1 and 2s, swimming in the freezing water, nothing big, then came the water fight. We had but a single bucket, and it was lost - it had to be saved - so we jumped. Kali and I jumped to the raft that had taken our bucket. I got it back, in the process being smacked in the face with a plastic bucket (and therefore sporting a black eye for the rest of the week). Unfortunately, given the fact that someone was holding my legs and someone else was whacking me with a bucket, my throw was not caught, and before our boat could retrieve it, it sunk to the bottom of the Animas. Then our raft ditched us – we even tried to get their bucket back and we were ditched. I was going to swim back, but we’d passed the swimming area, so they wouldn’t let me. I figured it wasn’t worth it. After taking over paddling for one of the people in that raft, we hit the class three rapid, and our guide went over the side right at the top. I thought it was someone from one of the other rafts in the water until I looked back from paddling and realized that the oars were flying! It was like ‘CRUD!!! WE HAVE NO GUIDE!!!!’ As Angela and Ed went for the oars, Randy and I faced the challenge of bringing the raft over the rapid guideless. Thankfully, we made it without tipping, or anyone else going over - though it would have been amusing to a degree. We recovered our guide at the bottom. Then came the thunder, lightning, and hail. Someone in the raft I’d wound up in (the other one ditched us, I can’t believe we went back) was nearly hypothermic. I was almost there - some crazy people weren’t even cold. Someone had a bucket over their head to avoid getting concussed by the hail. Finally, we reached the halfway point, disembarked, and shivered underneath some picnic shelter. The second half was relatively uneventful, rejoined my original raft. Froze again, but hey, the trip was fun. |
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Web page designed by Katie McEnaney and Sean Steele. Last updated August 15, 2005.
Photos for the HSFS 2005 web site were taken by Keren Engoltz, Paul Ermigiotti,
Shaine Gans, Lew Matis, Katie McEnaney, Angela Schwab, and Sean Steele.
Copyright © 2005 by Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.
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