The drive from Silverton to Durango was amazing. We started at Montrose, then to Ouray and over the pass to Silverton and down to Durango. Ouray was very impressive!!! I'll post some pics of that for day 6.
Day 5.
Rafting day. Steph was a nervous wreck. She gets to imagining things and then builds on it to drive herself crazy. The kids were all excited about rafting, and she was comfortable with the company that we booked the trip with, so she was doing her best to remain calm. First thing they did was give us a saftey talk and to sign some papers. Then we were fitting with life vests. Helmets were optional, which we declined. Very few people wore them. Then there was another safter talk that dealt with the river, the boats and the guides. This all helped Steph calm down and feel more confident in our guide. We road in an old school bus to the lauch point for Browns Canyon. It was only a five minute bus ride. At the launch point, everyone helped out in unloading the boats and gear. Then we were assigned our seats by the guide. He gave us instructions on how to paddle and what his commands would be. We practiced in the parking lot, then picked up the raft and carried it to the river. Once in the river, we practiced the comands again. Forward, right turn, left turn and backwards. All pretty simple, but according to our guide, dificult for some groups. He was very complimentary of our group, so we were all happy. LOL
The river started out nice and easy. He said the flow was at 700 gallons per second, which wasn't bad, but it was slowing down. The lower the water, the more the rocks, the higher the water, the faster it goes. The ratings change for the river with the amount of water too. High water will go right over some rocks, while low water has more rocks to go over, or around. The river was rated classIII/IV for our trip. The class IV rapid was on technical dificulty and not the size of the rapids. The first set of rapids that we went through were pretty mild, but fun and good to get our feet wet. The water was very cold, but that's all part of it. As we worked our way down the canyon, our guide would point out landmarks, tell us stories about the canyon and then explain each set of rapids before we got to them. One of the most memorable was called pinball. We sort of spun are way around through it with a strong bump on the back of the raft while going down it backwards for a few seconds. Peyton was sitting in the middle between me and another guy. He had a strap to hold on to, but he didn't expect that bump. When we hit it, he went flying backwards into the raft. All I saw was his feet going past me, straight up in the air!!! He landed on his back, in front of his mom, in the middle of the raft. He was fine and quickly got back into position. It was very funny to have seen. The rapids got bigger and bigger as we went with a few of them being very exciting. Another set of rapids were called hemroids. The raft in front of us lost their guide going through there. One second she was there, the next she was in the air and swimming. She was the only one to come out of a raft, and according to our guide, that was the third time this year for her to go swimming.
It was a nine mile run that went too quickly. We were wet, cold and tired, but also feeling great from such an amazing experience. Back at the headquarters, we changed clothes and got warmed up. They kids took advantage of the free hot chocolate while we bought pictures and souvineers. Some of the pics I posted were taken by their phototographer along the river. We bought the CD with 14 pics on it.
On the drive back to the hotel, we saw a couple nice bucks along the road. Everybody else just drives by them, but we stop at everything.
Eddie
