Canyon Marine White River Rafting Experience

Last week I took the girls on a road trip to Denver Colorado (still there as a matter of fact). We took this road trip because I had to be there for work and to be there for my Mom. The road trip went fairly well. I did get road drunk pretty good both days. This could have been to my NoDoz and Coffee diet. Staying awake was at times pretty tricky but we managed. I didn't get a single picture of the trip down because...well...I was driving a truck while hauling a UHaul trailer.

The fun part (and the reason for this post) was because during the week, I was to take part in a "team building" activity. The activity that was decided on was to go white water rafting down the Arkansas River. This was only to be a 2-2.5 hour trip. There were 7 of us plus our guide. It started out by choosing who was to be in front (the biggest guys) followed by the next two and then the next two. Well since we had an odd number of folks our guide decided that I would ride in back with him in the spot he deemed the "buckin' bronco", sure sounds fun.

Here it actually looks like we are heading right toward the rocks, which in retrospect we probably were and why Gregg said "this sucks". Of course I didn't want to hear that from our guide but I kindof agreed with him. We were not yet all in synch and it did pretty much suck. I was going above and beyond because I was sitting right next to the "teacher" and didn't want to come off as a slacker, not too mention I had to prove myself for all women. I must have impressed him because at one point along the way he told eveyrone else in the raft to keep paddeling except for me! Ahh the hard work payed off.

We hit according to our guide class 3, 4 and 5 rapids. This was a lot of fun. Usually when I have gone rafting it has been for way too long with the majority of the folks well...a bit loopy. So to actually go and keep going was a great relief.

After awhile we finally got in sync and were all paddling forward at the same time.

Now I know why he called it the bucking bronco spot. It was so much fun sitting in the back. Usually I am in the front or middle. In the back you get to see everything (all the chaos) AND get the best ride.

There was one time where my side of the raft almost went swimming (at the class 5 rapids). I grabbed for and held on to a coworker and lunged for and held on to the other side of the boat and Gregg (our guide) grabbed on to me, it was a team effort and we all managed to stay in the raft! Our guide almost lost his voice yelling at our motley crew, Forward, Back, STOP, Back Left One, One more, BACKUP BACKUP. By the way he is probably the only man that I would allow to yell at me like that only because, well, he was trying to keep us all alive, so I was a bit more forgiving.

For anyone who ever ventures to Colorado and if you ever want to go rafting and take in some breath taking views you should check out Canyon Marine Whitewater rafting http://www.canyonmarine.com/ our guide was Gregg and he was great . It is a family owned business and the guide was out of this world. We all worked together as a team so in respect to the team building experience, well I would say it was a success.