Chapter 6

“Kinda’ run outta’ words,” said Rich as we kept passing from one incredible rock formation to the next. We’d spot a cave and wonder if it ever was inhabited. We’d see some bighorn sheep and be amazed at how they would leap from tiny ledge to the tiniest of ledges.

We passed by a couple of rafters, one that was traversing some pretty wild rapids. Rich and I just looked at each other at that point, as if to say “Oh crap!”, figuring that we’d be encountering similar whitewater.

After about half an hour and more mental “wows” than either of us could count, we reached the bottom and what looked to be our debarkation point.

You know how when you’re watching people on television getting out of a helicopter and you see them duck down and you think “Idiots! You’re not even close to being hit by the blades!”; we both ducked as we collected our gear and moved away from those blades.

I never did ask Rich much about the trip, other than I knew it was gonna be overnight and that we’d be hitting some big rapids due to the time of the year.

Our guide came over to us with a smile. She was attractive, not like Loni mind you, but older and she looked to be in great shape.

“You must be Rich,” she said, looking at him, then offering her hand. After we got through introductions, Katie, whom she preferred over Kathleen, introduced us to the other five people who would be joining us, aside from staff.

There was a husband and wife and their daughter, and another couple that looked to be in their early 20s. Katie had another guide with her, Jake, a guy who looked to be in his mid-20s, sported a tan, and had one of those wiry bodies that looked like he’d be useful when wrestling rapids.

The raft was good-sized, bright yellow, and had a few patches which then got me thinking about what might have caused those issues.

Katie next assigned our seating. I liked her right off the bat, a take-charge person that exuded confidence. I gather she’d made this trip many, many times.

“Okay, you,” and she pointed to the teenage girl, “are up front with Jake. You two,” now pointing to her parents, “you’ll be right behind them, you,” pointing to the guy, “behind her.”

I could see what she was doing. I’d been rafting before and they typically tried to adjust the weight so that left-to-right it was pretty even throughout the craft.

The other couple was in the third row, and that left Rich and me in the final row, along with Katie in the middle to coordinate our run through the rapids. Jake gave the three front rows their instructions, and Katie huddled up with us.

“Okay guys, here’s how it works. Our success or failure pretty much rests upon your shoulders, literally. You’re going to be guiding us; they’ll be doing the paddling. I’m in the middle to play quarterback, but I can’t paddle from the middle. The commands you’ll hear from me are pretty simple.

“Rich, you’re on the left, so if I call out ‘Left forward’, you paddle from front to back. If I call out ‘Left back’, you do just the opposite. If I yell, and I say yell because if I say ‘Left double-time forward’ it means you paddle your ass off front to back. Likewise for the opposite. There will be two other commands that you’ll hear, or, hopefully only one of them.

“If you hear ‘Left HOLD’ that means you put your paddle even with you, but into the water and you hold on tight. That’s for executing tight turns. The final command,” and she looked quite serious now, “is ‘MAN OVERBOARD’ and you will hear that scream from me without any problem, even over the roar of the rapids. If you hear it, do NOT look into the water! Fight that instinct.

“Instead, you simultaneously look to see which side of the raft is short a person and you grab the nearest life ring and you throw it in that direction for all you are worth, got it? A person’s life can be lost with slow reaction or indecision.”

We both nodded. She looked back and forth at us, trying to see if we were taking her seriously. Satisfied, she continued.

“Hopefully we’ll have an exciting but non-troubled trip. Over the past month, I’ve had one man overboard situation. Not looking for another.”

She listened in for a moment to Jake’s explanations, probably to judge when he’d finish.

“I see you’ve opted to wear shorts,” she said, looking us up and down. “Brave.” Rich and I looked at each other.

“You guys didn’t check out the water temperature, huh? Thinking it’s Arizona, hot sun, warm water. It’s about 50 degrees pretty much all year round.” With that, she smiled then moved off and started loading up the raft.