I hadn’t been this cold in a long time. The wind whipped through the canyon walls and we huddled, shivering at the side of the river, waiting. I thought, ironically, of the first memory that came to mind of being this cold was skiing a few hours north of where we were on the Arkansas River. But six months later in the year. We were soaked to the bone, fingers numb and useless and beyond the goosebumps phase. The guides finished their conversation ahead of us and came back to their boats to push off. We were silent for a few minutes, until the next set of rapids approached.
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Later on that night, the mother of one of the girls came up to me and told me she had burst into tears when she had got in her car after the trip. She had thought she was going to die. I nodded, sympathetically, and wondered how she could have been so frightened, when Ben and had felt nothing but exhilaration, but then I recalled our guide saying that of all the seven years she had done this that this ride was the most intense.
It started off pleasant enough, the sun was out, the temperature was moderate. I wished that I had brought the raincoat they offered, but the people we went with had been rafting almost 10 times so I figured that if they weren’t wearing one then I didn’t need one. I didn’t want to get hot. We shoved off and maneuvered though some easier class 2 and 3 rapids that were still a little scary to me, but I got comfortable as we went on, wedging my feet and gripping my paddle with white-knuckled passion.
As we neared our first class 4 rapids, my adrenaline kicked into high gear. We already knew that we were going to be bumped around by several rocks, so we ducked into the middle and somehow got wedged into rocks. The guide, Lizzie, started screaming, “get to the back!” and we all piled into the back to keep the raft from flipping in the fast moving water. She was straining to get us un-stuck . Ben was at the lowest place on the raft. The water started moving over the top of the raft and my adrenaline went up a notch. The water felt icy and took my breath away. Calmly, Ben informed the guide who was on top of the rocks that the raft was filling up with water. And it was, it was up to my waist and I nervously looked at the white water downstream, not wanting to maneuver it on my back. There was a very real moment where I felt like we would all be experiencing swimming in the Arkansas River in the next few seconds. Everything was happening so quickly, the guide yelling, us floating in our raft that was underwater and then suddenly we were free, coasting down the rapids again, sitting in our spots with the water to the top of the raft. Ben deadpans, “Do you have a cup so we can start bailing the water out?” but there were holes at the bottom of the raft that drained the raft quickly as we moved. We were all sighing a breath of relief, did a paddle high five and prepared for the next big rapids section. The warm sun was hidden by ominous looking clouds and we shivered a little bit from being soaked. This next rapid section was longer so we were a little excited and nervous. Ahead of us, we watched the other rafts enter the chute and watched as if in slow motion one of rafts went vertical, dumping out its occupants and slammed into the side of the canyon. (ironically that turn was called “wall slammer”!) Their guide flipped it rightside quickly and our guide managed to avoid him as we careened past. Within seconds that seemed like minutes, we came upon the stragglers and our guide yelled at them to get on the right to avoid hitting more rocks. They swam to our boat as we got near the next set of rapids. “Get them IN NOW!” ordered Lizzie and Ben pulled in a hyperventilating middle-aged man. Another man appeared at my side and I panicked looking at his bulk. He out weighed me by a good 100 lbs. I started tugging at him, desperately, fueled by the Lizzie’s yells and by some miracle I got him up, then fell backwards like I was told to earlier and he slid up and over. On top of me. Pinned to the bottom of the raft, I was aware of two things: Steve (as I would later find out to be his name) weighed a ton and Hyperventilating man looked like he was going to hurl on my head. He kept screeching he couldn’t breathe and coughing in a I’m-going-to-vomit-in-your-hair-1-foot-away kind of way. The seconds ticked away for what felt like minutes. Steve just laid on top of me until we were entering another set of rapids and Lizzie was screaming at us to get back in our places, at which point he finally got off of me. I jumped into place, our side of the boat had just 2 paddlers and the other side had 4 so I fearfully tried to find a paddle only to see Hyperventilating man was sitting on it, unaware. I yelled at him to move, I tugged at it, yelled some more and finally screamed at the top on my lungs to MOVE HIS BUTT NOW! And he did. After that section, there was a small calm spot where our guide maneuvered us to the side where two other rafts were with other survivors. Steve had hit a rock pretty hard with his helmet and had a huge bump on his leg. I pet his arm like I knew what I was doing and told him to take deep breaths. He was white-faced and both he and Hyperventilating man had identical looks of horror on their faces. Hyperventilating man had no external injuries. I didn’t realize how traumatic their trip down the rapids must have been. We found the rest of their crew, checked them for injuries and sat there as the right people were located and put back in their raft. The cold, icy wind whipped through the canyons, numbing our fingers and making us huddle down. It felt like hours.