Rafting with friends

Even rafting the home river of your seasoned river guides can horribly wrong. 

So its a new raft? I say. Yeah, had it out a couple of, or maybe one time. My salty river rafting friend tells me. Alicia and I,  happy with the sounds and smells of a Colorado summer, gleefully go along. The river was lower than it had been and we enjoyed what started off as a lazy sunday river cruise. Craft beers, belly laughs and perfect surroundings were enjoyed by all. The new boat was a cataraft, a special boat designed to haul gear, lots of heavy gear. With the weight of the gear, the boat is a solid raft that can withstand worst of the worst rapids. A contender in just about all whitewater. Without the load the lightweight boat becomes a mere cork in a boiling cauldron of white water, as we were about to find out. Probably 3 minutes before the great unpleasantness of the Animas river 2016, A thought burned through my brain. This is fun, and boring. We had missed all the whitewater, so I thought. The creek we had been camping by certainly had slowed in the mountains above this river. Oh well, sit back crack another beer and enjoy the lazy river ride. What happened next is a bit of a blur. The boat lurched back into the first big hole, smelter they call it, and then catapulted forward slinging my buddy, and his buddy, a paid river guide, on this very stretch of water, aloft over the front and sides of the raft. Alicia and were the only two left in the boat, which had also lost one oar. With just one oar and beer in the other hand I was ably to right the boat, rescue the two experienced river men overboard and steer us to relative safety in a river side eddy. So if you need some one to help you learn the ropes of your new Cataraft, Alicia and I are your team.