There we were, going down the first part of the river loop. My crew doing a horrendous job of paddling. Their paddles skimmed the top of the river, barely penetrating into the surface. This allowed for very little forward momentum, leaving most of the rowing up to me in the back. My curly, frizzy hair bounced with each stroke of the paddle I took. My arms were sun burnt to a dark red and my red “Staff” shirt was not exactly helping the complexion. At this time of the raft trip, we were in the most technical part of the course and it requires the most paddling from the crew.
There are three main points a raft guide needs to make in their safety talk before putting the raft on the water. One. How to sit safely in the raft. Two. How to hold the paddle. And three. What the commands are for paddling. If you have never gone rafting just know, being able to paddle correctly is the lifeline in a raft. Even if you just put the oar in the water and swirl it around, it’s better than just sitting doing nothing.
I guess I forgot that rule when I was giving my first ever safety speech to my first ever customers. On a normal raft trip, the total weight in the raft will vary between 450 pounds to 550 pound. Each person is placed on either side of the raft based on their weight. The heavier you are, the farther back you are placed in the raft to keep it in the water. My first ever crew exceeded this simple equation. They consisted of two 300 pound wrestling coaches (exceeding the norm 550 pound limit for the raft) and then add into the mix four under 100 pound wrestlers who muscles screamed for protein.
It is unclear why my boat was allowed to exceed the weight limit by so much. Where I worked, there always seemed to be an underlying reasoning of if the customer paid, they are going on the river no matter the safety percussions. But none of this mattered. I had a dream job for the summer. Out in the wilderness getting to go on the river every day. Nothing could take this away from me.
In a raft, when you go around corners on the river, the current will sweep you into the far river bank. As a guide, the job is to get out of that current and get the raft into a new current to pull you past the bank rather than into it.There is one large corner at the start of the course that throws the raft out wide, but if it gets flung out too far, you are heading to a huge boulder, rather than a river bank, famous for flipping rafts. It has been named Douche Rock by the veteran guides because of its reputation. Gosh, I love my job.
I wanted to become a raft guide because my brother had a very attractive friend who was a guide. Naturally, I wanted to prove my adventure side to this prince charming by becoming a guide. I spent two and half weeks in intensive training. One of the hardest days was called “Swim Day”. I had flashbacks of my childhood going to the local swimming pool and playing with noodles. Little did I know, my pool was a river full of rapids at freezing temperatures. And my noodle would be a life bag full of rope used to pull survivors out of the river. Oh, how fun!
When we hoisted the boat into the water with my first crew, I thought I saw their arms shaking at the weight of the inflated raft, but I shook it off at the time. Now, it should have been a warning sign for what was coming, but being new at the job, I figured it was just pure 100 pound excitement coursing through his little chicken wing arms. The coaches life vests burst open at the front and the straps were pulled out as far as they could go. Their arms barely fit in the arm holes and their bellies poured out under the vest. I made sure to tighten the buckles as much as the vest would allowed and said a few silent words in the hopes of safety if one fell in.
The route we were taking is named Upper Loop. It really is just a cover up of what the route really consists of. Upper Loop is a name to disguise the many jagged rocks and shallow parts of the course. I guess it’s bad marketing for the name of a family friendly sport to be “Death at every corner” loop. Upper Loop fits better into conversation.
During training, we had always had a raft full of guides. We all understood the importance of paddling well. There would be a few instructors who would paddle poorly but this was only one passenger out of the six. It never fully affected the boat. There was this one instructor who would paddle poorly and then get so frustrated it wasn’t doing anything to the raft she would jump up and shove raft guides off the boat into the awaiting river so the trainee steering the boat had to rescue them. I love my job.
We went around the turn and with the added weight from the two coaches, our raft was gaining speed towards Douche rock. My voice echoed off the cliff walls around us as I tried to get the wrestlers to forward paddle, something we went over many times during the safety talk, but I guess they didn’t understand what “forward paddle” meant. Maybe I forgot to emphasize the importance of this during the safety speech. The boat felt like a magnet getting attracted to another one, no stopping them, no matter how hard you pull against the forces.
In training, the crew would paddle harder and try to avoid the impending doom of the rock, but instead, these wrestlers and coaches stopped paddling and looked at me, like I had a magical power to make the boat levitate over Douche. I guess my powers were out for that day.
Douche was coming closer and closer. Now that the only paddler was me in the back, the rock was coming faster and faster. My paddle swept into the water rapidly as the panic began to set into our bodies. My efforts weren’t enough, as our raft slammed into the rock.
There is something we raft guides call the “bye-bye” face. It’s the face a customer makes the moment he realizes he is about to fly into the water. I saw it, that face, on the 300 pound wrestling coach as the ripple effect of the rock hit his seat. His eyes went wide and his lips pressed into a hard line, like someone trying to hold in gas while in public. It was the puckered pained look in his face that told me what was going to happen.
During training, there was a half day dedicated to rescuing others. There were many different methods that could be used to rescue someone. From making a zip line across the river to save someone stranded on the bank to getting in the current with the victim and holding onto them. We spent maybe a collective 20 minutes on how to rescue someone from the river while you are standing in the raft. It may seem like a lot of time, but it was not enough to allow all of my class to practice it.
I looked into the coaches eyes and tried to reel him in with them. I sat there in his gaze, attempting to will him to grab onto the boat and save himself. The gaze broke as his body fell off the seat and splashed into the water. All the wrestlers still in the boat looked at me, not understanding that I still had to guide the boat to avoid even more rocks that were brothers of Douche.
As we attempted to paddle to safety, the coach's body surfaced a few feet away from one of the wrestlers, but they were too concerned with getting splashed with cold water that no one reached out to help him. I set my paddle down, along with control of the boat, and reached for him, pulling him closer to the boat. The water aided as I tugged and tugged.
We were his safety and he knew it. Terror began to set in on the coach as he clawed at the raft to try and climb on. His stomach kept getting stuck on the rope rings on the side of the raft, pulling his shirt up, revealing his hairy belly.
Pulling up someone who is heavier is an art in the rafting world. When there is that person who needs rescuing, a raft guide dunks them into the water and uses the buoyancy of the life vest to haul them in. So I dunked the coach, feeling like I was a priest performing a baptism and reeling him into the promised land of the boat. I heaved with all my might, pulling my groin in the process, and got the coach into the boat, only to have him fall on top of me, stuck. It really was a dream job.
When we got to the shore, my crew was a wreck. After the raft hit land, they evacuated onto the dry land, leaving me to clean and move the heavy raft. The water seemed to be acid as they avoided the waves lapping at their ankles. The coaches shook my hand, cautious not to look in my eyes and went on their ways.
When I layed to go to bed that night, both my arms and groin ached and my head is racing. I can feel sleep coming over me as my eyelids slowly creep to a close. I take a deep breath and exhale it. Thank goodness I am done for the day. While I succumb to sleep, I can’t shake the feeling of being excited for the next day out on the river. Even though I flipped a 300 pound man out of my raft, I was eager to get the next day started. Being a raft guide truly was the best summer job.
