May 25 Rafting Trip

It was just a little raft trip, but it was FUN!  Chris, Thomas, Sky & Forest coerced me into coming along on a trip down the Rio Grande.  Chris claimed that it was the highest and the fastest it's going to be this year - which is probably true - but since the winter was so light, it's still considered low and slow by the experts.  However, it was just right for us novices.  There was just enough white water, just enough slides, rapids, mini-waterfalls and rock dodging for it to be fun and a little bit exciting without it being very dangerous.

Ready to raft! Thomas,Kathy, Chris, Forest & Sky

Cap'n Tom

Sky writes:  We went down a stretch of the Rio Grande called The Race Course.  It's famous for its rapids.  I was a little bit nervous.  We came to a rapid and there were rocks on the right and a mini waterfall on the left.  We went left.  As we approaced, we got hung up on a little rock just before the waterfall.  It was also really narrow so we thought the raft might not fit.  When my dad finally got us off the rock, we plunged down the waterfall, just barely missing the rocks on either side. What a relief.


Forest writes: Chris and Cathy came with us so we had some extra paddle power. The first rapid was a little one and it was not hard at all. On the river there were some commercial rafts taking people down. One of the commercial rafts went threw a big rapid and there raft flipped over. So we pulled over to the side of the river to check it out. It did not look like a hard rapid it was just that the people who got flipped went the wrong way. I was pretty confident that this rapid was going to be a piece of cake so I got back in the raft and off we went. As soon as we got there Sky accidentally tells us to go the wrong way. So everyone got confused so we accidentally went the wrong way. We ran over some rock but in the end it was all ok. I think we got lucky that our raft did not flip. After that it was pretty mellow. There weren’t very many big rapids but when we got farther down the river there was a really big one. Guess what happened we went the wrong way and we got stuck on a rock, right before a mini water fall so we pushed off with all our strengths, but it was not enough. We pushed off three times until we finally got off the rock, and then we went down the mini water fall and almost got stuck again. When that was over we were all a little shaken by the rapid but we did not let it get to our heads.  The last big rapid was a slide and it was not hard at all it was just really fun. After that there was really nothing to do until the wind kicked up so for the last ten minutes we had to paddle against the wind which was not fun. 

We are watching one of the commercial rafts pull in a girl
who got tossed on the previous slide.

Kathy Writes:  It was so fun that Tom and Chris and the boys are going on ANOTHER trip from Ottowi Bridge near Los Alamos to Cochiti Lake. It is a bit longer trip, and I will drive them to their drop-off point and then drive myself to the airport because I'm flying "half-home" to Colorado tomorrow.  Talk to you Later.
Love and light,
Kathy

You can't really see a path through, so there was some rock dodging