(If you don't think of Evel Knievel when you hear "the Snake River" you are too young!)
Team Bolger was pretty tired, but looking forward to the day -- despite the 6am wake-up call. (Our hero, aka the blogger got up at 5 to work, of course). We were to their office by 7am, in order to fill out two minutes worth of paperwork and then wait 28 minutes to load the bus.
These pictures will be studied forever like
the Zapruder film. "Carol gets hit on the
Big Kahuna rapids."
Here Natty has control of his oar.
And now the oar handle is out of Natty's
hand! Look closely at Carol's shoulder
-- the oar handle is hitting her! Oh the
humanity! This is the most controversial
part of the Zapruder-esque
string of photos.
Everyone is trying to figure out the sequence
of events. Meanwhile, our hero is hoping
he didn't get a concussion from Julia's
hard head whacking him. Ow from
both Ma & Pa! (We don't call ourselves
that, so don't start!) Glen realizes soon
that his near-concussion doesn't measure
up to the excitement of the attack of the oar.
After a lengthy bus ride through the Snake River valley heading west toward Idaho, we got off and were assigned, along with a friendly Italian couple who are here in the States for about one month.
The first eight miles of the trip was a leisurely float down a relatively calm section of the Snake. The highlights, besides the scenery, was seeing about ten bald eagles and multiple osprey. (Well, I see multiple balds often whilst I am kayaking on the Potomac/tributaries, and even more Osprey.)
Actually, the real highlight was Natty's bad jokes -- most of which involved bears or eagles, with the occasional dog joke thrown in for good measure. Natty (short for Nathaniel) was our guide -- another person here who does a thousand outdoor sports and lives a pretty darn interesting life. These guides are all good.
But really, the true highlight was the osprey-eagle battle we witnessed. The osprey was chasing down the eagle, and just as the osprey moved in to attack from above, the eagle inverted so it was flying upside down. The osprey wanted no part of the eagle's talons, and broke off the attack. Wow -- a cross between Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and a dogfight in the Pacific theater of WWII.
After eight miles of the float trip, we pulled ashore for a hearty breakfast at a hike-to camp well above the shoreline. We dug into the pancakes (excellent!), sausages (amazing!), grits (tasty!), and fruit (fruity!) with gusto. Our cook, Doug, deserves major kudos at the beautiful riverside-ish camp.
After I used the facili-trees, we headed across the river (in the float rafts) to gear up for the white water rafting part of the day. After a bit of waiting around, we headed down -- same team -- with Natty. Like Dusty Baker choosing his line-up, he put Torie and Julia up front. Carol and I were in the second row, while Maddy and the Italian dude was third. Last, to protect the nervous novice, was the Italian woman.
Everything started out fine. We hit some small rapids, which got progressively steeper and deeper. Natty only had us paddle when needed -- keeping us well rested for the big games rapids.
It all went bad (for a certain someone) when we hit the Double Draw rapids. The right side of the boat led the way, which caused Torie and I (and possibly Maddy) to get drenched in a Titantic capsizing kind of way.
Then someone (possibly me) made the mistake of reaching out to paddle just as we dropped to the right even further whilst hitting a wave. Next thing I knew, someone was flying in slow motion into the water. Much to my surprise, it was me.
I spent the next 30 minutes (okay, perhaps it was a few minutes, but, whatever) riding through the 56 degree rapids on my back. Btw, that's almost double of the 30 degree Antarctic Sea I willing jumped into!
The only danger I was in was the fact that I was right in front of the raft, which meant that if it sped up, I was going to be PT-109'd right there on the Snake River by my own family. Meanwhile, Carol and Natty were yelling "helpful" advice to me, of which about 20% actually reached me, with half that making sense.
Finally, as I was getting under control, and grabbed by several of my raft mates, I realized I was very close to reboarding the raft sans my swim trunks thanks to the strength of the current.
I spent some time pondering which would be worse -- dying by drowning, or losing my swim trunks and coming on board naked from the waist down. As I as hauled in, someone covered my moon, pulling up the shorts. Safe at last.
Believe it or not, the water was not that cold. I didn't break out shivering or anything. As I settled back into the raft, I made sure to do two things:
1. Push my feet further under the row in front of me; and,
2. Not work as hard at paddling as Natty requested, mostly to ensure I couldn't fly out the raft again.
At one point, Natty got us surfing on the river -- we paddled a certain way to be facing upstream in a certain water feature, and sat there riding the wave without moving down river or paddling. Very cool.
Then came the controversial part -- riding the final major rapids. Called the Big Kahuna, these rapids are the, well, Big Kahuna of rapids on this part of the Snake.
We fought our way through, but not without drama. Julia's head slammed into mine, definitely giving me a near concussion (I know there's no such thing -- I turned out fine). But no one cared about my injury (least of all Julia), because Natty lost control of his oar. The handle whacked Carol right in the shoulder (better than the head). Natty claimed he'd never done that before, so as we settled down, we realized we were a part of history!
While that may seem like enough excitement for one eight mile saga, Natty had Julia take his spot as the main rower for a while, hearkening back to her old crew days (shout out to Mollie Pazz for her amazing crew summer!).
Then Natty had Torie "ride the bull" -- she sat up on the front as we went into the final rapids, holding nothing more than a rope. She got flipped backwards into the raft several times as we made our way through. Good times.
Thank goodness
Ben Franklin lost.
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