WHITE WATER RAFTING THE WENATCHEE RIVER

JUNE 24, 2000

(click on pictures for larger images)

The adventure began for us at 5:30 am, Saturday morning. We had picked up Heather's friend, Alyssa, and her mother, Barb, and we set out on our road trip from Covington to Leavenworth. The drive was going to be about two and a half hours, winding across Washington along Interstate 90, State Route 97, and State Route 2, until we reached our destination in the heart of the state. The girls were initially excited, but the lost sleep soon overtook them and they slept a good portion of the trip. Mary Ann, Barb, and I chatted the entire ride over, and, all in all, the drive went quickly and uneventful.

We arrived at the launch site of our rafting trip in plenty of time. People slowly began to trickle in and it soon was apparent that a good size group was going. Eight rafts awaited us on the beach and the overcast skies were slowly burning off. We eventually signed our releases and were supplied with wet suits, booties, colorful coats, and vests. Fred, the workmate who organized the trip, his wife, Bridget, and one of the NICU nurses, Kevin, planned to kayak the river with the group, so they had left a little earlier to drop a few vehicles off at the extraction site in Cashmere. The Harborview group consisted of 17 people and we were split into two rafts. With a heave and a ho, we were all in the boat and on the water and the adventure truly began.

Our guide, Sean, turned out to be quite a character. Even more surprising, I had worked with him at Alaska Airlines eight years ago. The early part of the river was calm, and Sean took that opportunity to walk us through what to expect on the river, what to safely do in given situations, and how to make it a really fun experience. As we went into the first rapids, we would hear Sean bark out commands to "paddle", or "paddle hard", and at each command the group would give it it's best. Our raft slowly spun as we hit each wave and everyone had the opportunity to get wet. Sean noted to the group how every other boat went straight through the rapids, but that he takes a different approach. He would spin us through the rapids and allow the boat to get tussled a bit, but in this way everyone in the group would get to be in the face of the waves, not just the ones in the bow. Although we thought he was there to entertain us, we were really there to entertain him. Sean also let us know his other reason for doing this .... no one on the boat would know when he truly didn't have control.

The initial rapids were pretty tame, but were a good warm-up for the later stuff. Sean even allowed me to jump out of the boat and float through some rapids. By then, Fred, Bridget and Kevin were paddling around us, and were available to retrieve and rescue anyone in the water.

We had eventually hit a calm area of the river that took us 45 minutes to float through. The guides were obviously prepared for this and we did several activities to use the time. People on the raft would stand on the stern of the boat holding a rope while the rest of us would paddle the boat around in a fast circle trying to throw them into the water. Water fights would flair up between boats as buckets of water were thrown this way and that. All of it was time filler and it did just what it was suppose to, keep everyone from getting bored.

The remaining rapids were best described as awesome. For another hour, we crashed through large waves, paddled our way into a cave, carried our boat around a dam, and continued pounding through more waves. I was given the opportunity to float through another set of rapids and got buried by some pretty hefty waves. It seemed the two and a half hours on the water just flew by.

Before we knew it, we were pulling the boats ashore in Cashmere, loading them on a trailer, and boarding a bus for the ride back to Leavenworth. The rafting outfitters had prepared a large barbecue for us and we all ate well as we recounted some of the fun we all experienced that morning. We spent the remainder of the day in Leavenworth and Cashmere, buying fresh fruit and sampling Applets and Cottlets.

The trip home was relaxing and all anyone could talk about was doing it all over again next year. Thanks, Fred, you came up with a real winner!!!