When I was 16 I took white water rafting courses in Alaska because I was hot for the instructor that taught the outdoor adventure classes. In fact I took all his courses, outdoor subzero survival, avalanche preparedness, white water rafting, sea kayaking, rock climbing and repelling, etc. Like I mentioned, he was totally hot and absolutely worth staring at semester after semester.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the material. In fact I credit my sea kayaking with him for landing me the summer gig as a sea kayaking tour guide on Prince William Sound. But despite my desire for adventure – I fully admit that the only reason I jumped into a raft on the Lowe River in Valdez Alaska when I was 16 was because I was secretly hoping that a rapid would toss me in the lap of a very sexy instructor.
What I hadn’t counted on all those years ago – and what I seemed to have forgotten since then and only remembered this last weekend as I was being tossed around by a body of water that made me feel like a tiny insignificant speck in the Universe was – I Love rafting. Love it. It is Bliss.
How could I have forgotten? How could I have placed it so far out of my mind?
I got into a raft for the first time 15 years ago because I liked a guy – but what I didn’t anticipate was that I would end up liking the river more than I would like the man. What I had hoped for initially was a second of “accidental contact”, as a teenage girl in the lap of my teacher – but by the end of my first rafting trip with him, I could barely remember his name over the rush of excitement to get back in the bus and run the raft up to the starting point and go again.
In fact, as much as I remember being hot for Dave-the-seal, I only reflect back on it like a fuzzy happy memory – but the moment I recall the first rafting trip I took, it is crystal clarity in my mind the adrenaline, the sheer force of the river, the pounding of my heart and the sensation of being tossed around and pitting my muscles, my body and my mind against a current of nature more powerful than anything I’d been up against before.
I even remembering thinking as we got back to town that day, that Dave-the-seal was cute, but he wasn’t all that – in fact if he wasn’t going to take us up river again the next weekend I was going to find someone else to go with.
Cut to Saturday as I sat on a raft, paddle in hand, as a boatful of my co-workers dug in to the water and the vein of the White Salmon swept us down stream over rocks and rapids and through eddies. At one point we had to get out and let the rafts go over an 18 foot set of falls and we hiked through the woods, around moss covered trees to a cliff where we were allowed to cliff jump to get back to the rafts.
One of the guides (also super hot by the way) said, “Okay, who wants to jump?” I stepped forward and he said “go ahead” but there was a glint in his eyes, like a daring challenge. I looked down at the water 35 feet below and thought, “cake.”
But when I looked back at him, I couldn’t put my finger on the kind of look he was giving me, and suddenly I remembered half a dozen times where dudes have dared me to do something or challenged me and as soon as I do it, they are astonished and scared because, “You weren’t supposed to do that!” They say, “I only dared you because I didn’t think you’d do it.” That’s exactly the kind of look he was giving me.
Rich offered to go first and I gratefully stepped back. But when he jumped and I watched the guide smile, I realized – he wasn’t trying to trick me – we really were allowed to jump so without further ado I launched myself off the cliff face and grinned like an idiot until I slammed into the icy river below.
Later in the trip we hit a couple of smaller falls and while I was riding shotgun at the front of the raft, we came in wrong and the raft tipped dumping 4 of the 7 of us into the water. My feet were locked in and as my body bent backwards when we tipped my head was underwater and I could feel people on me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back up so I grabbed the rope on my right and unhooked my legs rolling backward into the water where I came up with my legs trapped under the raft as we were caught by the current and being rushed toward the second of the smaller falls.
I heard the guide shouting, “Get her in the boat! Get her up in the boat!” Heather, who had been riding on my left, gripped my lifejacket and I looked at the water around me and Cynthia was hanging off the boat laughing and paddles were floating in the water nearby, so I started grabbing at paddles and tossing them up into the raft, and when Cynthia couldn’t pull herself up because she was laughing too hard I took her paddle out of her hand, tossed it on the boat and used my left arm to shove on her legs as James and Beth pulled her in, then they were grabbing onto me and as they pulled my body up we went over the second falls and we all tumbled into a heap on in the middle of the raft and all I can remember is Cynthia’s hysterical laughter.
The guide was shouting, “Forward forward, dig in!” And we scrambled to grab paddles and start pulling against the water.
I discovered, in times of extreme danger, Cynthia will be useless as she will be laughing way too hard to even pull her own body out of harm’s way. That’s a woman after my own heart! At least we’ll die laughing like a couple of hyenas together.
There were stretches of river that calmly drew thought and speculation as we drifted along a flat surface as autumn leaves drifted from the banks onto the glassy teal surface. We passed natural streams that fed into the current. We floated under arched bridges and along cliff faces of pillow basalt. We laughed a lot. We struggled a lot. We were often struck silent with the beauty nature around us. We teased each other. We worked as a team sometimes and others we were distracted by all that there was to witness.
The final fall is advertised as a class IV falls, but I estimate is barely squeaked by at a 3. As we got closer the guide admitted that he hates to do that falls and that he didn’t really want to. This of course, made me nervous and I was suddenly the only one in the boat who didn’t want to go – because if a guide, the man you are paying to keep you safe says, no bueno – then perhaps you should listen.
But no one got out of the raft, and I didn’t want to be the one sitting it out – so I swapped places with Rich so I was at the back and he took shotgun and we hit the falls head on. I fully expected some of us to get dumped out. I expected bloody noses as we would slam into each other at the bottom. But what I didn’t expect was that we would go over the falls, submerge the raft and resurface with all 7 of us in our seats and laughing!
It. Was. Awesome.
It was a reminder after years of not being on the water how much I’ve missed it. It reminded me of those first moments 15 years ago when I’d never rafted before and I was lured to the adventure for lust and walked away lusting more for adventure.
It made me resolve to get my kayak out. It made me resolve to get back out on the water, to do more paddling, to spend more time in the trees, and near waterfalls. I resolved to live more. I determined to adventure more. I determined that I need to take more aggressive steps toward BLISS -toward the things that pull me out of ruts and into a life of thriving potential.
I am already planning my bevy of trips for spring and summer of next year.
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