Whitewater - Day 2

I generally assume that any day that begins with getting up before dawn is going to be a bad day. Day 2 of our whitewater adventure was the exception to that otherwise dependable rule. We broke camp in the dark, in freezing cold air, while Darren made breakfast for us. Even in the predawn chill he took pride in his presentation. The fresh fruit platter was the best Darren!

We ate breakfast, said our teary farewells to Darren and drove to the Middle Fork of the American River. Armed with Darren's directions and my paranoia we didn't get lost and we didn't hit any deer.

Day 2 was a much bigger operation. Yesterday was just one raft, just one guide. Today there were four rafts and a small crowd of people being fitted out with personal floatation devices and even, gulp, helmets.

There were also four colourful new guides to observe. We started making snap judgements about the guides as the bus rattled towards the launch point. There was Dave, who seemed to be in charge. He's strong, confident, decisive, and altogether the guide of choice for the discerning amateur whitewater rafter. Then there was the guy that Marcus and I referred to as "Jesus." I can't remember his real name but he did bear a striking resemblance to the standard depiction of Jesus and, to our great delight, was sitting in the bus on a seat branded "Carpenter." I didn't have an opportunity to observe him walking on water at any point, but I'm still prepared to believe it was possible. Then there was Lindsay, the girl guide. She was giggly and friendly, but didn't have the big shoulders and powerful arms that all the boy guides were sporting. Not my first choice. Finally, there was Kyle, the epitome of stoner style, who farted as soon as he stepped onto the bus and was then teased by Lindsay for the remainder of the bus ride about his habit of regularly discharging noxious gas. He went straight to the bottom of my preferred guide list.

The guests milled around in nervous excitement while the guides unloaded the rafts and other equipment. In addition to me and Marcus there were ten members of a Bachelor's Party, a shy looking Indian couple, a group of four older people including two members who were plainly terrified, two drinking buddies, and four relatively normal looking people of about our age. The members of that group were also scoping out the possible combinations of raft mates. We simultaneously came to the conclusion that we six clearly belonged together and everyone else belonged in different boats, preferably in a different river. We introduced ourselves and huddled together in an effort to send teamwork vibes towards Dave who was assigning people to rafts and guides. Dave helpfully succumbed to the influence of our frantic mindwaves. He looked at our aggressively unified body language. "Do you know each other?" He asked. "No," I said. "But we're bonding quickly."

Unfortunately, Dave, being the strong, silent, hero type, took upon himself the boatload of Bachelor's Party boys. Damn! Surely Jesus would have been better suited to that kind of noble self sacrifice? Then the rest of the Bachelor's Party and the drinking buddies went in Lindsay's raft. Only Jesus and Kyle the noxious gas man left and we got ... Kyle. Our little group of six deflated visibly, and not just because we wanted to make room for one last breath of fresh air before being stuck in the raft with our guide. Kyle walked around the team crashing knuckles with each of us and talking like a stoned, sleepy Owen Wilson.

Kyle did not make a good first impression on any one of us, which just goes to show how wrong first impressions can be because Kyle is the dude. Here he is above, competently steering us out of one of the rapids. We're all looking behind us because the people in the following raft had a lot of trouble staying in it and regularly had to be dragged back out of the icy water. The people in our raft, by contrast, stayed firmly in their positions, an achievement I attribute almost entirely to Kyle's tremendous skill as a guide.

Learning to love our guide was a gradual thing for our crew. He seemed quite strange to us at first. For example, he suggested that we choose a team chant and, when none of us came up with anything, decided that it would be "Baby 'cos I'm a THUG!" We would all bellow along on the "THUG!" Still, Kyle's distinctive personal wit and charm grew on us over the course of the day. He put on funny accents for particular paddle commands to make us laugh and always gave us the choice to do things the "fun" way instead of the "normal" way. We had a willing crew and whatever he proposed, we were game to try it. Paddle upstream into a "hole"? Hell, yes. Let's do it twice. FYI, a hole is place where water flows over a submerged rock, with the turbulence causing some water to flow back upstream towards the rock. This creates a seam in the water where the up and downstream flows meet and in which it is possible to "surf," balancing the raft in the seam. We also ambushed two of the other rafts in a water war, took our own private route through part of the river and experimented with using the flow of the water through pillows and eddies to steer the raft.

We tried all sorts of cool tricks under Kyle's lively, but vigilant and protective command. Ours was definitely the best boat that day, with the most fun people and the coolest guide. Despite being the only ones who tried every stunt, we were one of only two rafts in our company that made it through all the rapids without any swimmers (people falling out). Every raft we saw from other companies had swimmers all over the place. Even the other non-swimming crew from our own company was the sedate "Jesus" raft and they didn't try any of the cool stuff. For example, none of them jumped off the big rock, but we did. It was much more cold than it was scary, and it was pretty scary.

The Middle Fork is more challenging than the South Fork. It has many Class III and Class IV rapids, some of which are very technical. In those conditions, a great guide makes for a great day on the river, and we were blessed with both. Again from Wikipedia:

"Class 3: Whitewater, medium waves, maybe a 3-5 ft drop, but not much considerable danger. May require significant maneuvering. (Skill Level: Experienced paddling skills)
Class 4: Whitewater, large waves, rocks, maybe a considerable drop, sharp maneuvers may be needed. (Skill Level: Whitewater Experience)"

Whitewater experience. That's us right? We did this yesterday. Actually, we knew quite a bit more about what to expect today. Darren had told us last night about the highlights of the run, including the first rapid. Known as the Cold Cup of Coffee it comes up almost immediately and is in the shade of several large trees. It's well named, particularly if you stupidly volunteered to paddle from the front again and cop the big waves. Brr ... okay, okay ... I'm awake!

All the names of the rapids are pretty cool. The Middle Fork has Last Chance, Tunnel Chute, Lettuce Hole, Kanaka, Cleavage, Parallel Parking, Catapult, Drivers' Ed and Chunder. As a service to the rafting community I explained to our American guides what the word "chunder" actually means. For non-Australian readers, it means "vomit." Our guides were surprised and quite pleased by this piece of information. "Oh," said Kyle. "That makes sense."

Of course, it wasn't all drama and pounding foam. There were plenty of smooth ponds where golden dragonflies swirled all around us and birds loitered in the grass. We paddled through the peace of an uninhabited canyon, savouring the simple physical joy of working in harmony. The synchronised rhythm of our bodies, the rich yellow light and the constant presence of the river in all its moods were hypnotic and euphoric.

A great highlight was a pause that came after several hours of paddling, when the guides took over paddling the rafts while we had a little break. By that stage we were all craving lunch in the way that only energetic people who are unused to serious physical labour ever can. When Kyle announced that lunch was still over an hour away and handed out chocolate bars, I know we were all devastated. Then the most amazing thing happened: I bit into my Snickers bar. It was so good I don't even know how to describe it. It was like a Snickers from heaven, sent as a blessing to reignite the divine spark of the human spirit. It was so good that when I dropped a speck of chocolate onto the raft, I discretely picked it up again and ate it. Trust me when I tell you that Snickers really, really satisfies.

We did eventually stop for lunch, giving me and Marcus a chance to demonstrate the wonder of the everything sandwich to a new audience. There were a few glitches. For one, there was quite a bit of poison oak in the vicinity, although I didn't encounter any personally. Dave also discovered that whoever packed our lunch had neglected to include cups. Here is K, a member of our team, demonstrating the "drink like a gerbil" workaround.

One opportunity for excitement that Darren mentioned over dinner last night was the so-called "leap of faith." There is one waterfall on the Middle Fork that is too scary and dangerous for commercial rafting trips or people who have brains. Ruck-a-Chucky Falls is a Class VI rapid and compulsory portage. While we traipsed around the falls on foot, the guides pushed the rafts over the waterfall and retrieved them again at the bottom. As Darren explained it to us, sometimes the rafts get stuck and one of the guides has to jump into the bottom of the waterfall to retrieve them. This was our lucky day, and our lucky guide.

If you look closely you will see our, now beloved, Kyle standing on the big rock to the right of the image. You will also see the boat stuck up against a rock towards the centre of the shot. Our crew watched with a certain amount of mingled fear and pride as Kyle clambered up onto that rock. For moral support we gave him a rousing "Baby 'cos I'm a THUG!" chant. He launched into a dramatic swan dive across the vicious water in that little channel and hauled himself up on to the rock next to the raft. What he did next is typical Kyle. He took out his waterproof digital camera and photographed himself with the falls behind him. What a character!

After several more rapids, and another game of dink, we made it to the end of our second day on the whitewater. Tired and bruised, but giddily elated, Marcus and I vowed to repeat the experience as soon as possible ... perhaps next weekend? We spend an inordinate amount of time congratulating ourselves for having not fallen out of the raft and generally bragging about how great our team was. Kyle, who had struck me as a bit of a nob at the outset, was now positively exalted in my regard. When we parted, I hugged him with huge and genuine affection and absolutely no fear of farts.