Growing up I had a myriad of boating experiences: river rafting, canoeing, hanging out with drunk guys in a motorboat. At least I never went over a waterfall in a barrel. Even though these days I’ve slowed into the pontoon cruising life, it is fun to remember those earlier exploits and frankly just be glad I didn’t die. But it’s like they say about all adventures: good or bad, at least you get a great story out of them.
So let’s start with one of the worst ones. Picture the adrenaline rush of white water rafting through a place in the Rockies called “Hells Canyon.” The name should have been our first clue for what was coming.
Located on the twisting, death-will-snatch-you currents of the Snake River, Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon in North America. It’s beautiful though, as most dangerous things are, and lined with towering peaks and rock-faced slopes. It’s through an area called the Seven Devils Mountains, and honestly that should have been our next clue. Tour guides will tell you that this isn’t a stretch of difficult whitewater, but don’t tell me that after I barely survived the run with my dad and brothers when I was a teenager.
It started out great, as most vacations do. We camped in the sticks with my brothers and me in a drafty tent while my parents snuggled deep inside the warm camper. And after a breakfast of hot pancakes with the occasional stray pine needle and gob of dirt (this place was windy, friends), we headed to the river.
My mom, brilliant lady that she is, stayed behind at camp to “get dinner ready,” aka read a book in peace and quiet. So it was me, my dad, and my four brothers. The good news is we had life jackets. Maybe they were random sizes that didn’t fit the best, and maybe they were sun bleached and had a few frayed straps from sitting in the fishing boat for most of the year, but at least they worked.
Now, most people would hire a professional tour guide for this. You know, someone who had done this before and had a raft that actually had handholds instead of the rubber boat my dad bought at the army surplus store.
The giant raft was made of thick, black rubber and was nearly 20 feet long. This behemoth took all six of us to shove into the back of the truck where it dangled precariously off the tailgate. No worries though, because my dad tied it down and assured us as all dads do, “Well, that’s not going anywhere.”
At our launch point, my brothers and I dragged the rubber monstrosity across the weeds and over to the water. Once we all jumped in, paddles in hand, the center of the raft slumped inward like a bathtub until we were all a mass of arms and legs and paddles. My dad in the bow served mostly as coxswain and yelled, “Row! Row!” to get us to pick up the pace. And row we did.
Although no current in the Snake River can ever be called “slow,” there were a few lulls in the run where the sluggish raft moved sideways more often than downriver. We paddled like mad and inched across the water. Finally gaining speed, we started bouncing over the rapids and around jagged rocks. My little brother slipped and fell sideways and my dad grabbed him by his jacket to hold him in the boat.
Then things went crazy. The run sped up into rapids that packed a wallop and log jams jutted across all sides of the river. Eddies swirled around the logs and sucked in water and of course, had a magnetic pull on our monstrous raft. We accelerated to a breakneck pace with wild momentum and wave after wave crashed over the sides of our boat and drenched us in ice-cold water.
Panicked at the speed we traveled and the amount of water we started taking in, my dad screamed, “Row! ROW! We’re gonna die!”
Now who tells their kids that? In a screaming panic, I rowed for my life though it didn’t seem to help. I swear I peed my pants but by this time it hardly mattered since giant waves of water kept crashing into our raft and I was already soaking wet. My youngest brother started crying, a few of us yelled at him, and my dad kept on with his emphatic refrain, “ROW! We’re gonna die!”
Eventually, (I have no idea how) we made it through the twists and turns of our run and came to a long stretch of peaceful water. My little brother was still crying. My older brother insisted he’d had the best time of his life, and I swore that I’d never go rafting again.
And I’ve kept my promise. Maybe the trauma of the trip filled me with character and resilience that I ought to pass onto my kids with similar outdoor adventures, but somehow I doubt it. My four kids love our pontoon and anytime they complain that it’s too hot or boring on the water, we throw out a tube for them to ride on and crank up the speed. But at least I have control over the size of the waves they have to bounce over.
