I love rafting. Meandering gently down a snow fed river while the sun shines, you can almost fall asleep. Unfortunately, our rafting trip down the Arkansas River was the opposite. Colorado had so much snow this past winter that the water was raging, creating class three and four rapids. The water was so high and so fast that the rafting company moved our trip from The Royal Gorge to a different section of the river.
We don’t have many pictures since we were paddling most of the time. Three Rocks rapids is the name of the place where we washed out. It is so popular as a wash out point that people stand on the bridge above to video and heckle the rafters. Great! Our raft overturned and while it was only a few minutes, everyone was terrified. Another raft picked up everyone in our boat. Scott had a huge bruise on his bicep from where they pulled him into the raft. Two of the people on our crew were so rattled that they elected not to continue. Now there were only four of us plus the guide to maneuver the rest of the way. Fortunately, the remainder of the rafting trip was uneventful.
If you would like to see what our experience was like, watch the below:
WARNING: The video does contain profanity, if it bothers you, watch with the sound off.
Some of the guides elected to go around the re-circulation in the middle, our guide did not. You will hear in the video the narrator says “they will re-circ for sure.” That means that the water is being caught in a hole or hydraulic where a person or raft is pushed down by and pulled back up into the feature over and over again.
We feel fortunate to have survived.
We stopped by the free observation area at Royal Gorge later that day since we were close.
One thought on “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
OMG, that was some ride, thanks for the adventure.