White Water Rafting Adventure!!!

This past weekend I went white water rafting on the Lower & Upper Gauley River in West Virginia. I went with my brothers and my sister-in-law Jodi. I had the best time and although we navigated through treacherous class 5 rapids, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The first day we spent two hours rescuing a raft that was stuck against a rock and 15 minutes later pulled 7 people including two injured men from the water. We were with the leading guide so we ended up being the rescue boat of the day. I paddled more that day than I ever have in my entire life! The next day, we were brave enough to venture out again to more dangerous rapids. The guides warned that you must be prepared to save yourself when you fall in! Scary!!! The Upper Gauley is rated the 5th best place in the world to raft, so it was definitely a challenge! We managed to keep our boat afloat for most of the trip, so we felt very confident. Toward the end of the day, we were approaching Sweets Falls and our guide gave us a choice. He said we could navigate right after the 14 foot waterfall or we could venture left and attempt The Box which he said we had a 50% chance of falling in. We opted for the The Box! It was difficult just to get to The Box because we had to row forwards & backwards in raging water. It was also a little intimidating to see about 100 spectators watching from the sides with video cameras on! When we got there, I was shocked to see that it was only a 9 foot opening between two big rocks. Unfortunately, we got stuck between them. The spectators thought this was hilarious and moved in closer for good footage (probably to post on Youtube). At this point, they all shout for us to bounce up & down (which we did...looking like fools I'm sure) and our guide climbed out onto the opposite rock. The spectators, the roaring water, and the bouncing of the raft made this a pretty intense moment!!! After about a minute, we looked at our guide and asked what to do. He said to lean to one side. Well, guess what happened! We flipped and I went headfirst into a raging waterfall between huge rocks. Fortunately, I poked up for a quick second under the boat to gasp for air before I was sucked down under the water for the rest of the fall. When I came back up, my brother & sister-in-law were there and we quickly put our feet up and starting swimming to the side. I went straight to a boat and they pulled me in. At this point, we were pretty frantic because we couldn't see my other brother. After a few minutes, my sister-in-law said he was on the other side of the rocks and fine.

What a trip!!!! The crazy thing is, after all of that, I would do it again in a heartbeat. Navigating through those class 5 rapids was incredible! I recommend it to anyone looking for adventure with no experience necessary.

Here's a picture of us going through Pillow Rock. I'm the one with the black sleeves in the back. Notice the HUGE smile :0)