White Water Rafting in Colorado

Usually my brother and I are away during the summer, we’re either traveling or at camp. However, this past summer was the last summer everyone in my family would be home, so we decided to go on a vacation before school started in the fall. We have done plenty of beach vacations, thus my Dad decided that we should go out west to Colorado. My next few posts are going to be adventures we went on while we were there. We went to Breckenridge, Estes Park, and Boulder. In Breckenridge, we went white water rafting in the Arkansas river. White water rafting is rafting over rough, white rapids. I wasn’t a stranger to white water rafting, I had done it before in the Poconos when I was a lot younger. However, it had been a few years and I was excited to do it again, in scarier rapids. We got to the location of the river, put our life vests and helmets on and picked out paddles. After gearing up, we got onto the bus with the other groups to go down to the location of the river. When we were driving there, our guide was explaining all the dangers of rafting, what to do if you fall out or if the raft flips over, and safety precautions. This just made everyone more anxious, especially my mother who was a nervous wreck. However, there was no turning back and we already signed the waivers.

We got to the river and got into our groups with our guides. My family and another couple were together and we had to carry the heavy raft down a hill to the entrance of the river, which was the hardest part of the experience if I’m being honest. We got into the boat, my dad and brother in the front, my mom and I behind them, the couple behind us, then the guide in the back. We had to paddle on the guides commands, either fast or slow or not at all. Plus, we all had to paddle at the same time, which took some teamwork that didn’t come together until the end of the first rapids. There were six sets of rapids, which got more rough as time went on. We went down what felt like small waterfalls and something called “the toilet bowl”, which spun us around until we paddled hard enough to get out of it. The entire experience was four hours long, but it was thrilling the whole time and I would definitely do it again in the future. Additionally, no one in our group fell out, which was a relief. We did see some people in other groups fall out, but they got right back in and nothing serious happened. My mom was anxious the whole time, yet claimed she had fun afterwards. Hopefully she did actually have fun, but sometimes certain activities aren’t for everyone.

Embarrassing photo of my group and family in the raft.