Runaway To Riggins

A River Rafting Retreat-Part Two

To Read Part One of the journey: Click Here

Morning arrived far earlier than I anticipated, and I scrambled out of my comfortable RV bed, shrugged my still asleep form into swim clothes, and tripped out the front door. No, really, I tripped and launched right out the front door like a badly catapulted pumpkin.

After executing a 6.2 landing, which was thankfully on my feet but not without any cool arm flailing, I wandered up to my rafting peeps and graciously took in all manner of jibs and mockery. As we were going to be spending the entire day in a raft on the Salmon River, I did not slather on any makeup. The kids all took great glee in pointing out that I looked like one of them. I took in their teasing in such a magnanimous way that those insolent nose miners lost all credibility in their argument, for I was most definitely a mature adult, unlike their stinky toed selves.

Anyway, since my hubs was going to spend the day lounging riverside, he was our shuttle to the departure point, and we all hopped into Rufus and wound our way, once again, up the winding road along the river. The guides were to cook us breakfast before we launched the expedition, and I found myself looking forward to the riverside prepared vittles. As we drove and tried to ignore the cackling teengulls lining our flatbed, Cam told us that the mudslide blocking the highway still wasn't cleared yet, and now they were saying the road would be open by 11AM. I started to get one of my "feelings." One, I was thinking maybe the slide was a little worse than we thought, and two, anytime people start kicking the opening time forward in increments that it is never a good sign.

But, I just let that little inkling fly away and instead readied myself for the day. Each year that I have gone rafting, we have never launched at the time we are supposed to, because we always have to wait on rude and inconsiderate people. I suppose that seems to be the main feature of any gathering of a lot of different families, but it's so irritating to be considerate and punctual only to have to wait on people who don't possess those traits. And /rant off.

Anyway, I got to spend the next couple hours enjoying a lovely breakfast of pancakes, hashbrowns, sausage, and hot cocoa, all while conversating with my dear friend M. The kids amused themselves by swimming and helping the guides get everything cleaned up and ready. Finally, the moment of launch arrived, and clad in our red helmets and life jackets we shoved off.

River rafting is so much fun! I don't know if you all have noticed, but I tend to enjoy a good thrill ride, and I have to say, that there is nothing quite like flopping through a large series of rapids. Each section of rapids on our journey had cool names like Ruby or the perennial favorite Timezone (because you literally change time zones from Mountain to Pacific while you bounce through that series of rapids). The day was overcast and the water actually felt warmer than the temperature of the air, so for most of the calm stretches a routine developed. The same routine of every raft trip on the Salmon that I have thus far attended.

My friend brought his tube squirt guns. They are like the giant syringe variety. So, as we were gliding along in three rafts and three inflatable kayaks, every time there was a peaceful lull, the peace would be shattered by water gun and oar splashing skirmishes of the pelt soaking kind. After the first quarter mile of river I was more soaked that deluge dwelling dachshund. It was great. One time this irritating child wouldn't quit shooting me in the face with his water gun, and after a literal water paddling, I am pretty sure they had almost needed a bilge pump for their boat.

This creature is responsible for ripping my big toenail in half, vertically, right after the rafting trip. I am still annoyed at her.

Our guide was Wes, and he was a pretty knowledgeable fellow. Before we traversed Ruby, he told us why those rapids were named as they were. Apparently the little creek that drops into the river at the Ruby Rapids has actual rubies that one can search for. There was even a man in a too small white tank top on the scene demonstrating his rock hound prowess. I was impressed that Wes had been so thoughtful to entertain us with information complete with visuals.

Over the next few series of rapids a slogan was developed. My friend's son, Garrett, is a bit of a character. By character I mean that he is loud, brash, intelligent, and in some circles considered irritating. Before each series of rapids, as all got ready to paddle, he would yell, "Be ready to be ready!" We were coming up to a fresh set of rapids after a few of his screeching volleys, and Wes dropped the slogan before Garrett did. The rebuke became giggle legend.

"Hey! How dare you use my saying It's trademarked." And as thus, for the rest of the day, before each rapid, all of us would shout, "Be ready to be ready, TM!"

You would think that while river rafting people would stay in their mode of conveyance. That is most definitely not the case in our group. Adults and children alike would randomly plop into the river for a float or in Cam's case a bit of Jaws-like behavior. He utilized a nice bit of Navy Seal tactics and sneaked up on my daughter like a omen of river ill. He launched her right off her kayak and into the drink. His wife and I looked at him as he returned to our raft and I marveled at the marvels of unspoken communication skills, can you believe that we were never tossed into the river?

Our rafting trip was a full day one, so half way through the jounrey we floated through the town of Riggins itself. That of course meant it was lunch time! And after four hours of paddling and water fights, we were more than ready for some comestibles. We beached the rafts at Adventure Idaho's building and walked up the Hill of Infinite Steepness to enjoy a lunch of sandwiches, chips, and Rice Krispie treats on a wooden deck that overlooked the Salmon. I'm pretty sure I inhaled a lot of food, as did we all, but what was really disconcerting was that it was starting to rain. There was even a thunderclap.

Lunch seemed to take a lot longer than it normally did. M and I walked back down the hill and put our life jackets on to stave off the chill. We both wanted to be back on our way so it would warm us up a bit. My son came down the hill and plopped his baby gorilla form right into the river. It must be noted here that my kid was rarely out of the water, he is one of the most aquatic creatures of land dwelling origin that I have ever met. We asked him what was going on and why everyone was taking so long, and he said, "Well, some of the people are quitting cause of the rain, and they are talking about calling the trip if it thunders any more."

At that moment a large thunderclap cracked and my son raised his hand into the air and shouted, "NOT CALLING IT!" M and I burst into laughter that was soon drowned out by the heavens opening. We attained a look that I like to call Drowned Rat Chic. No more thunder was heard, and before too long we were back at it, although now we were paddling in a downpour. I'm not gonna lie, it was cold, and I kept my left leg submerged in the river whenever we weren't traversing rapids as the river water was far warmer than the air. I felt like we were on some expedition at this point and was determined not to be a whiner. Paddling helped warm my carcass, so I paddled quite a bit, even when it wasn't necessary.

The water fights stopped for obvious reasons, and we stroked on. Then the sad part of the trip came, due to the massive slides that flew off the mountain, we had to cut our trip a bit short, for the fun downriver section was littered with debris and uprooted trees, and our guide company never compromises on safety. Honestly though, at that point I was ready to come out of the water. It's great to be immersed when it's hot out, but hours and hours of being drenched when it's cold is not the greatest. So, after Timezone and watching my daughter and her buddy CJ getting taco'd in their kayak and launched to the heavens, we floated down to Old Lucille and disembarked from the rafts. After helping carry the rafts and kayaks up for loading, we all jumped into the large van and cranked up the heater, a very rare occurrence in August in Riggins. Guess what! We made a sauna! If you take seventeen soaked people and add a van heater, you get steam! It was glorious!

After a short drive and a pickup from my hubs, I enjoyed my most favorite moment of the day, a scalding hot shower in my RV. I love my 1%er camper. I then proceeded to stuff my maw with edible delights of the chocolate chip cookie, Reeses Peanut butter cup smore kind, grabbed my Neal Stephenson book, and crawled into bed. My reading and smore enjoyment was interrupted by a bunch of cackling teengulls a few times as they came into my camper to make and eat smores and play Munchkin, but I was honestly too exhausted to care about their noise making and eventually fell asleep after hearing that the road was still not open.

The next morning it was time to break camp. We all scrambled around putting things away and hitching up the trailers. We still didn't know if the road was open, but it was supposed to be. Our plan was to head into the Chevron in Riggins and dump our black tanks, for you can do it there for free if you buy fuel or for two whole dollars if you don't. We received the joyous news that the road was indeed cleared and we could go home! We did have to wait for awhile, for the slides were so bad that you had to follow a pilot car through the seven mile stretch of destruction. In places it was like the mountain side quite literally sheared off. The amount of mud, trees, and boulders were quite impressive, and the one pitiful picture I snapped doesn't do the magnitude of the disaster justice.

We made it home without incident, which is beginning to feel like a rare thing for us, and let me tell you I was feeling gratitude for that fact. We discovered something on this rafting trip though, we don't like sedate rafting trips. The river is too low in August for our crew. If it is your first time rafting on the Salmon, I would totally recommend an August journey, for there is some excitement, but honestly, it's a little sedate for our heathen's taste. Next year we are going in June, because reasons. Big water reasons, lol!

---

And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's didn't get stuffed into a dry bag and go on the rafting trip iPhone.

---