Gamers who Raft - Whitewater Rafting

I'll be going on my very first long white water rafting trip this late June. I've gone on day trips before, but this is my first week long trip. We'll be camping and rafting, rafting and camping from June 28th to July 3rd along the Idaho Salmon River, aka The River of No Return (for reals, that's it nickname).

I didn't see one in existence so I thought I'd create a thread about rafting.

Any GWJ raft?

Any advice for someone making the jump from a day long trip to a week long trip?

No but this sounds like a trip I need to plan. Need to get the now risk averse wife post kids to agree to do something with some adrenaline again! Can't wait to see photos and hear stories. Good luck!

Not rafting, but I would go out for 9 days at a time in Kayak and Canoe on flat water.

Of the first few things that popped into my head one was chaffing. It may have been my uniform shirt, but the movement of paddling and the constant pressure of my pfd would start rubbing after a few days. I started carrying an extra under shirt to swap into at lunch. The undershirts I used were light synthetic hiking t-shirts. Just be warned that they start stinking to high heaven after a day of sweating into them.

The other thing was long pants. Mosquitoes were THICK for the first half of the summer where I was, and wearing long pants was a life saver. Also saved my knees from burning to a crisp on the days I was in a canoe. I have a couple pairs of thin, ripstop, nylon pants by UnderArmour which worked great. They were light enough to dry out very quickly, so I didn't hesitate to go wading in them. I poked around on UA's website, but I don't think they make the ones I used any more.

It sounds like an awesome trip! Along with my dream of someday getting my pilot's license, I'd like to fly into one of the backcountry strips along the river there. My brother and dad have both spent time in the area fighting wildfire, and really enjoyed the area.

Was thinking about bringing a Kindle to read after rafting on the trip. I'll be socializing at night too of course, but I also love to read and don't get to do as much of it as I'd like to in my daily life. So I figure the kindle would be good for relaxing moments at night. No electricity on the trip, but I think the charge should last most of the journey. A simple sturdy double bagged zip lock should keep it safe, right?

Also, any specific exercises I should do in the 34 days I have before the trip starts?

jrralls wrote:

Also, any specific exercises I should do in the 34 days I have before the trip starts?

Probably wouldn't hurt to work both strength and endurance, a general overall. I imagine you'll be doing lots of lifting/hauling and general hard work.

Either a full body work out every other day and running/biking/rock climbing/etc opposite or whatever endurance training you'd like.

I usually run 5 miles a day around 4 days a week as it, but that's just pure cardio/decompression exercise rather than strength building. I know I need to do more weights but 95% of my workouts are during my lunch hour and I just don't decompress when I do weights the way I do when I run.

Paddling, for me, was a lot of shoulder and back. Lots of reaching, digging, and torquing.

16 hours until my flight leaves for my rafting trip!

FYI: One of the best vacations of my life!

jrralls wrote:

FYI: One of the best vacations of my life!

Pictures and stories?!

Hobear wrote:
jrralls wrote:

FYI: One of the best vacations of my life!

Pictures and stories?!

I second this.

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Me

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Me and my friend Glen.

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Stream we hiked up to get to a natural hot spring.

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Natural hot springs.

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My view (with variations as we moved) 24/7 for six days.

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Hikes in between rafting.

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My home for six days.

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Campfire time after rafting.

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Native American pictorgraphs we saw on the trip.

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Mountain Man's cabin he made by himself.

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Definitely not the outside of a serial killer's house.

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Last day! Goodbye river!

Looks like an epic trip jrrals. Thanks for sharing!

Couple videos from the Colorado river, a section called the Moab Daily, just outside of Moab, UT.

It's one of our favorite little day trips as it's reasonably close to us, and you get a fair number of rapids that are excellent for bringing along beginners. Plus no permits required, which is nice.

It's pretty much all class II rapids, with maybe a short class III in there if the water level is just right.

Here's a vid of all the main rapids we took on June 11th with the river at 9,500 cfs.

Here's a short clip from a week ago with us playing in a nice hole behind a big rock. The plan was to surf the hole as long as possible until we got dumped. Didn't last all that long this time, but still so much fun

I’m curious, or any rafting tours open right now?

Yup. When we've been out on the river over the last few weeks, we've definitely seen rafting tours on the water.

Talked to the shuttle driver for one company when we were taking out - he said they're only doing single groups per raft, so that should limit the risk assuming the guide is wearing a mask and all... Don't know if that's just the one company's policy, or if all of them are doing it that way.

Got a permit for Westwater Canyon in Utah last Thursday. What a great trip that is. Can be done as an overnight, but we did it in one day since a few of us had to work on Friday.

There were four of us in three boats: my wife and I in the tandem filming, and two friends in single duckies.

We royally screwed the pooch on Skull Rapid - the correct way to run it at this level is to paddle hard to the left before the first rock in the middle of the flow, and stay on the left side past the rapid. We were way too casual about it and didn't get over in time and saw that we were on target to hit the rock in the middle, which would have been a bad thing. Instead, we aborted and went right, but the current spin was way too strong to keep straight and our fate was sealed. Definitely have to go back and do it again the right way!

(The Bowling Alley Rapid swim was just because we were paying more attention to our friends behind us than what was coming up ahead and didn't notice the rock on the right. Oops )

Anyway, here's 7.5 hours of floating distilled down to 10 mins of awesome rapids!

Couple more vids that I took this year. Both of them on the same stretch, roughly the same flow rate. First is in the duckies again, with the GoPro Max mounted on the footrest. Second video is from my 14' raft, with a Hero 10 mounted up above and behind. Love the versatility of the Max, but the video quality of the Hero 10 can't be beat.

Ran Hell's Half Mile on the Lodore section of the Green River last week. Pretty much nailed it!

I'm on the oars with a couple friends as passengers on the front.

**Salty language warning, in case you're at work!**

Hit the Rogue River in Oregon last week for 4 days. An excellent trip all around, and my first class 5 rapid!

Went about as well as I could expect! Here's a view from the boat and another from the shore if my run.