I know it has been more than a year since 'ano' left a comment to "write" something about this in addition to the videos. Guess I need to use the quotes,"it is better late than never" and "it is never too late" to justify my ridiculously delayed addition now. So here is how it goes:
It was... Jeez, I don't even remember when this exactly was. So let us say a very long time ago a bunch of my friends and I decided to do some white water rafting in West Virginia. That was how four of us drove down to Virginia Tech university in Blacksburg, VA and picked up the fifth one. Now before going to WV, we need to go back a couple more years from here.
The flashback begins; "is everyone here?" Someone from the group was yelling. It was a whole bunch of us getting all set for "white water rafting" at Delaware Water Gap in NJ. After a brutal winter, summer was a welcome sign. Not just a welcome sign but an amazing thing that we were not sure would ever come. So everyone was out running with joy with the least amount of clothes legally allowed. After about an hour, all the rafts were in the water sailing peacefully down the river. Once in a while there would be a wave half an inch high and we would brace ourselves to feel the impact and hug the rafts to avoid being spat out of the raft. After some time even this stopped happening and we started to churn the water with our paddles to "create" some white water. After we were done with this amazingly thrilling and dangerous activity two and a half hours from the start, we were curious to know what level of white water rafting this was. "it is level 2" we were told. Being ignorant of this activity, we were all overjoyed that we could handle something that was greater than 0. Trying our luck once again did not prove much fun either. So we ended up doing level 2 white water rafting twice in Del Water Gap and we were looking for something a little more challenging. This is how we ended up booking our level 4 white water rafting trip in WV.
Back to the present; one of my friends did a lot of research and settled with North American River Runners for a day of white water rafting in Gauley River, WV. We also booked a cabin in the woods for the night before. After driving for 6 hours from NJ to Blacksburg and picking up the fifth one, we headed to 'wherever' in WV. We reached our destination around 3:00 PM. Having time to kill, we went for paint ball and had a ton of fun. Then we had dinner and it was time for a camp fire and of course something tasty to go with it. It was an excellent night and the day ahead looked even more promising. We got up in the morning, had a great breakfast and went to the meeting place to pick up the gear (essentially life vests, wet suits, helmets and paddles) and from where the bus would take us up the mountain and leave us in the water. Starting there, you know what happened if you watched the video already. If not, then do it ;-).
Now, why is the title what it is? After we were given a brief description of what lay ahead of us for the day, all the rafts slowly slid into the water. They all formed a line in the river and were behind a bunch of them. "The first rapid is called the surprise rapid and it is a level 2 rapid" announced our instructor (Each raft had an instructor in it to guide the people along the rapids). Within seconds we knew why. The first raft in the line suddenly disappeared and a second or two later was thrown up into the air empty. When it was our turn, our raft suddenly dropped about 3 straight feet and was thrown up into the air on the other side of the dip. Luckily no one was thrown out though. Having passed this, I saw another sort of turbulence (at least according to me) ahead of us and asked the instructor what level rapid that was. "It's not a rapid, it's a ripple" she said.
Now we are talking "white water" rafting. All of a sudden we knew what we were up against and felt so ignorant having passed the still waters in Delaware Water Gap for white water.Labels: adrenaline, adventure, american, class III, class IV, gauley, memorial day weekend, narr, north, rafting, rapids, ripples, river, runners, rush, sports, virginia, water, west, white |
