What is Whitewater Rafting all about?
The sport of white water rafting
White water rafting is a wonderful sport that allows you to experience remote wilderness environments, high adventure, and a rare level of self-sufficiency. If you're lucky enough to live near a white water river, it's a great way to spend a day in the outdoors. When you take overnight trips you can camp out in comfort, in a deluxe spare-no-frills style, because your rafts can carry so much gear, fresh food, and your favorite beverages. No freeze-dried food for the whitewater crowd! By carefully selecting the river and flow level or season of the year, you can bite off as much or as little physical challenge and adrenalin-pumping thrill as you can handle.
White water rafting is very much a thinking sport. When you're in a big rapid, it's like a chess match against a force of nature. If you let down your concentration you get your butt kicked, sometimes figuratively, sometime literally. Your angle to the current and position relative to obstacles and your optimal 'line' through the rapids are critical. Each maneuver sets up the next. And when the current slows, you can just sit back and enjoy some of the best scenery on the planet as it drifts quietly by.
River rafting is also a social sport. Where else can you live and travel with a group of friends and/or family for days or even weeks at a time and together tackle the challenges thrown at you by the natural environment and the adventure of wilderness isolation? And each afternoon, when you beach the rafts at your campsite, you've arrived at Margaritaville! Off the water, whitewater rafting becomes an eating and drinking sport (at least to the degree that this is a good thing!). The best wines I drink all year are consumed in my polycarbonate wine glass while sitting in a beach chair beside a river, in the middle of nowhere. I get to gaze at outstanding scenery and share the company of good friends. And then we cook up a feast, do a little fishing, or play games, and then relax around the campfire. The sport of white water rafting has it all!
This amazing mix of excitement, comfortable camping, and natural beauty is addicting. If you're reading this, you've probably already fallen under its spell.
Getting started in white water rafting
If you're thinking about getting started in whitewater rafting, here's the approach I used. Early in our marriage, my wife and I had camped beside the Salmon River near Riggins, Idaho and watched the commercial rafting trips float by. There was just something special about those beautiful beaches and moving water and that thing found a place in our souls. Later, we purchased a canoe and paddled the local lakes and slow-moving streams near our home while our kids were young. Our first actual rafting trip was with a commercial whitewater outfitter. Such trips are pretty much the typical beginning, the point where the spark is lit for most people. Shop around, the variety of whitewater guide services and the day trips and extended rafting vacations you can take with them is almost limitless. Being a paying passenger on a commercial white water rafting trip is enough for many people and gets them their rafting vacations each year. But if you're an independent type, you'll want to do it yourself. When you decide to take the big step, get help.
I joined my local whitewater rafting club and then promptly purchased my first raft, a 14 foot cata-raft. "Cats", as they're referred to, are a pair of pontoons joined by a metal frame. They are inherently more maneuverable and therefore more forgiving than a more traditional-style self-bailing raft. My fellow club members were very helpful in providing advice and accompanying me as I learned to control my boat, read the water, and learn safe practices, and river rescue techniques. As my skills and confidence grew, I started taking overnight trips with friends. My old backpacking gear from college found a new life on lightweight weekend rafting trips. My wife and I then rented self-bailers for extended trips each summer until we eventually purchased our own 16 foot self-bailer. Wonderful river rafting vacations each summer are now a family tradition.
Some final words of advice. Whitewater rafting trips involve a significant element of danger and risk to you and your companions. Study up. It's your knowledge that keeps you safe. Do join a whitewater club where you can meet people to teach you the ropes. Stories of incompetence abound, where ignorant people do stupid things on moving water. Learn to walk before you run. Be too overconfident and you could end up as the main character in a tragic story in your local paper, your legacy to be the discussions of your ineptitude hashed over on Internet news groups for weeks afterward. Even worse, you could get one of your trusting friends killed or injured.
And appropriate equipment and safety gear is absolutely essential. White water rafting requires real whitewater gear. Don't pretend to enter the sport by floating your local stream using a cheap vinyl raft from a hardware or variety store. Sadly, I see too many people with a case of beer, kids in diapers, using a couple of $30 toy rafts, and not a PFD in sight! Proper equipment is the difference between a life-threatening experience, or even a fatal experience, and an incredibly enjoyable river trip with family or friends. And don't be caught dead not wearing your PFD. For quality whitewater equipment, please visit Cascade Outfitters and RiverConnection, sponsors of www.whitewatercampsites.com.
Be safe out there and SYOTR (See You On The River!),
Will