White Wate Rafting @ West VA ; June 2004!
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hoooooooooooo vou oooooo ou ooooooooooo ou ou ou ooooooooooooooooooo
vou ou ou ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.......
gusthakhiyaan hai ... betaabiyaan hai ....... chaayi hai
madhoshiyaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
this was the only song that came to my mind for many days before i
went for white water rafting and also for few days after actually
rafting .....
we started from richmond in 2 cars on friday evening at 5 PM to
fayetteville in west virginia ... this is the place where most of the
rafting trips for new river starts...
i was very much excited at the thought of class 5 rapids which i saw
on the net ...
after heavy rains ... missed exits (routes) and all the drama, finally
we reached the camping place at 11 PM ... the camping place and most
of the place was occupied by 4-5 groups of ppl who had come there
before us ... the ground was wet because of rain ... no lights ... but
somehow we manged to find a small area of flat land where we can put
up our tents ... we were 7 people (6 guys and and had 2 tents .. one
big and one small ...
The person who had mainly organised this trip in our group "Carey" had
arranged for grill, and all other food items ..
we setup the tents first and then started cooking in the grill which
was heated with a propane cylinder. The food seemed excellent coz
everyone was very hungry.
by the time we finished eating it was already 12:30 so everyone went
to sleep with a fear of getting up early at 7 AM ...
The day finally arrived ... everyone got up, went to restrooms
prepared themselves to be flushed!!! We took the wet suits that were
available for rent had some food, put on the life jackets, helmets and
took the paddle (row)... the bus took us to the place where rafting
was to start. Our guide "Dale" looked very sturdy and experienced
which put some confidence into us for fighting the white waters.
The raft started slowly and so did the rapids .. initially for the
first 1 1/2 to 2 hours it was class 1, 2 or max 3 rapids that we met
with. Its a very good feeling hitting the rapids at right directions,
water splashing all over in high speeds .. rafts going almost vertical
people in the raft almost falling and the fear that raft might
overturn ... these added up to the thrill of rafting... after around
2 hours raft was stopped at a place where the organisers had arranged
for some food(lunch time) ... all the way it was cloudy with
indications of rain ... but now it started to become brighter with
clouds clearing way for shining sun. After food we started again to
hit the major part of the river which had big class 4 and more rapids.
These rapids were excellent with huge rocks surrounding and water
literally flushing our raft to other end of the rapid. Many of the
rafts even overturned in these rapids and we could see the ppl
desperately trying to swim towards rafts.
The rafting finally ended with the biggest of all rapid which was more
than class four in which our raft was almost on the verge of turning
over.
The rapid actually hit the right side of the raft and I could see all
the scary faces of the people falling to their left from right side of
the raft. That was an amazing experience and comical too!!!! After
getting off from the raft everyone posed for a photograph and got back
into the bus. None had any energy left to talk or jump. The bus took
us back to the camping spot where we changed dress and had food.
Finally we left the camping area at 8:30 PM, drove back to richmond
and reached home at 2:00 AM...
