My Rafting Trip

The Gates of Lodore section on the Green River is a beautiful section that you can fish, white water raft, and just have a great time. For me and my family it is one of the best places on this Earth. I love the wildlife and beautiful things you see. Not too long ago I went on this section of the river for the fourth time. Usually I ride along on the raft and maybe oar a few rapids but this time I got to oar the entire section. All I had was my gear Melissa, a close friend that rafts with us, and her gear. Although the river doesn't have much whitewater it is still a blast. The best part of rafting is the people you are with and how they will react to situations good or bad. My favorite to do is raft, no matter what you offer I would always choose to go rafting over it.

The wind was crazy fast the entire way and to add to that it was all blowing upstream. The entire time I had to fight 40 mile per hour winds wall trying to pick my way through the rapid or rocks. My arms felt like they couldn't even pick up a pebble by the end of the trip. Every night I had to set up camp and some nights I had to make dinner, because of this my arms were begging for a break.

At camp everyone talks about stories. Granted, we have heard every story three hundred times it is still fun to hear the stories. We sit around the campfire or play games like horseshoes or ladder ball. Often times our camp will be at a place where you can go on a hike. Most of the hikes on the Gates of Lodore are to go see some amazing pictographs, we didn't go on very many hikes because time ran out because the wind doubled the time it took to get to camp. My favorite hike is up to a waterfall that we call Butt Blocker Falls. We call it Butt Blocker because what you do is have someone stand at the bottom and then a lot of people will plug the water up with their butts' at the top and then all at once they stand up and get the people at the bottom soaked by the water.

The Gates of Lodore only has about three bigger rapids. One rapid is Disaster Falls which is super fun all you do is avoid rocks and hit the waves. Then there's Triplet which has two sections to it. The first part of Triplet is just hit the waves big and avoid two big rocks but then the second section has a birth canal and you go left. The birth canal is really scary because you don't want to go between the rocks that look like you may be able to go through because if you do you would get trapped and many people have died from trying to go through and getting stuck and drowning. Luckily, no one in my group has gone near the birth canal even though it sucks you into it. The last rapid I am going to talk about is the biggest, Hell's Half Mile. Hell's is tricky because you have to go through giant rocks and not go over the ones that may look like you can go over. There is one big rock that you don't want to hit because if you do you will get rapped and then hit the huge whole at the bottom and most likely flip the raft over. After the first part you have a rock garden that you have to try and avoid the rocks. I hit one of the rocks in the rock garden and almost fell out but Melissa grabbed me before I fell out and pulled me back in. This is a video of the upper part of triplet.

One of my favorite rivers is the Green because of how fun it is and how pretty it is to look at everything. I saw so many animals. I swam a lot in the river and floated down the river at camp on our sleeping pad that hold you out of the water. Over all, I had such a fun time but I usually always have the best time of my life on the river.

This is me and Melissa on my raft, Purple Goob.