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I first started rafting about six years ago on the American River near Sacramento, CA. I was hooked instantly. Through a stroke of luck, I made friends with a group of people that raft regularly and now most of my vacation time is spent doing private trips on the river. I've rafted a few rivers with the most difficult to get permits including all 290 miles of the Grand Canyon. In total I've spent about 60 days living out of a raft on various rivers. I recently purchased my own raft, a 14' Rocky Mountain, and built a custom aluminum expedition frame for it. I first used it about three weeks ago on the Yampa river in Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado. In two weeks from today I'll be leaving for an 11 day trip on the Tatshenshini river in Alaska. Fun questions to ask: - How do you bring and keep fresh enough food for three weeks? - gently caress that, how do you bring enough fresh water for three weeks? - Where do you poo poo? - What is river life like? - How do you get a permit for a river? - Whats it like with no internet? - What do you do in an emergency? - Is rafting dangerous? - How do you keep everything dry? - What if your boat gets wrapped? - Any other fun rafting related questions.
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Jun 13, 2014 01:29
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 00:01 |
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What's your favorite brand of shaving cream?
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Jun 13, 2014 03:00
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hate pants posted:What's your favorite brand of shaving cream? An excellent question! I actually don't use shaving cream at all. I shave in the shower after washing my face and I find that the soap is enough to soften my brittle neckbeard before shaving. On a thread-related note, I've never shaved on the river. I just let myself become the manly werewolf I am meant to be.
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Jun 13, 2014 21:06
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How many people do you go with? Is there a minimum amount that you go with?
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Jun 14, 2014 02:27
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Badcounterpoint posted:How many people do you go with? Is there a minimum amount that you go with? This will vary depending on the river and type of trip. I should explain the two major types of trips first. Day trips - These are trips to rivers with short runs (6-15 miles) that can be completed in a few hours and are easily accessible by car. In these cases you will have a nearly empty boat and you can generally fit between 6-8 paddlers and 1 guide in a boat. Example rivers include: American, Kern, Klamath. Multi-day trips - These are the trips where you have to bring all of your clothing, food and camping equipment with you in the boat. Multi-day trips can range in length from overnight to 3 weeks. Because you are hauling so much gear with you, there is limited space for passengers and you generally don't bring more than 2 people plus a guide in the boat. Example rivers: Tuolumne, Salmon, Rogue, Grand Canyon. Here are two pictures of my boat. One is setup for day trips and one is setup for multiday trips.   For day trips, since we can accommodate more people, we will have groups of anywhere from 20-50 people. For multi-day trips, the group size (in our circle of friends) will typically be between 12-18 people.
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Jun 14, 2014 05:09
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I rafted the nile twice near Jinja Uganda. First run was through multiple class 5s and portaging around a class 6. Unfortantly a dam has been built closing off several of the class 5s. One run was called silver back and that was our only wipe of the day. I just remember the raft going vertical and then being under water. Only the 2 people in the rear of the raft stayed on. Our 2nd trip was after the coffer dam was in place. But it was a guys weekend. We took the hardest lines resulting in me being thrown on nearly every rapid. We surfed a class 5 which was crazy. One of the cross bars popped out so the raft folded in half. Most of us were under water for a long time. One person had a dislocated shoulder and I broke my toe when it got caught in a rope after I headed in the river. Rafting the rest of the day squating on a broken toe was awesome. To round out the trip half of us got food poisining the next day at the airport resulting in explosive bowel movements and puking all the while my foot throbing from the broken toe. We also think one of us got schistosimaisis (pin worm from snails that can enter your skin in shallow water). That was one of my best weekends in my life and still recommend rafting the Nile.
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Jun 15, 2014 01:02
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TCD posted:I rafted the nile twice near Jinja Uganda. First run was through multiple class 5s and portaging around a class 6. Unfortantly a dam has been built closing off several of the class 5s. One run was called silver back and that was our only wipe of the day. I just remember the raft going vertical and then being under water. Only the 2 people in the rear of the raft stayed on. That's quite the story. Rafting certainly has its dangers. I'm fortunate to say I've never swam anything major yet, but I have no doubt that its only a matter of time. My buddy got pitched out of an inflatable kayak right at the start of class III rapid and his boat got stuck on a rock. I was coming in behind him and knew I needed to get his boat free so I rammed it with mine and wound up dumping myself in the rapid. It wasn't too crazy but those first few seconds of being under water, not knowing where you're going or when you can catch your next breath can be pretty scary. Fortunately I got his boat free and we were good to go. Not looking forward to a big swim though.
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Jun 16, 2014 19:35
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bEatmstrJ posted:That's quite the story. Rafting certainly has its dangers. I'm fortunate to say I've never swam anything major yet, but I have no doubt that its only a matter of time. My buddy got pitched out of an inflatable kayak right at the start of class III rapid and his boat got stuck on a rock. I was coming in behind him and knew I needed to get his boat free so I rammed it with mine and wound up dumping myself in the rapid. It wasn't too crazy but those first few seconds of being under water, not knowing where you're going or when you can catch your next breath can be pretty scary. Fortunately I got his boat free and we were good to go. Not looking forward to a big swim though. There's a reason they're called "Mystery Moves" in whitewater kayaking
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Jul 4, 2014 20:02
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Everyone should go through a rapid with just a life vest and your feet out in front so you don't smash your tailbone into rocks at least once. Rafting is incredible though. Just bring a shitload of waterproof sunscreen and a comfortable hat. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 23:12
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Have you ever ramped off a homeless person in Discovery Park?
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Jul 6, 2014 23:14
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Have you had any trouble with Water purification since the DEA cracked down on Iodine tablets?
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Jul 7, 2014 06:55
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QCIC posted:Have you ever ramped off a homeless person in Discovery Park? Can't say that I have. It sounds fun though.
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Jul 21, 2014 22:05
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thrakkorzog posted:Have you had any trouble with Water purification since the DEA cracked down on Iodine tablets? I haven't heard about that iodine thing but the answer is no. I actually just got back from an 11 day rafting trip in Alaska. I'll probably post some pics soon once I get reorganized. For this particular trip, the outfitter provided us with one of these obnoxiously expensive Katadyn filters which run about $1500. They use $200 ceramic micron filters which apparently make unsafe water pretty safe. So far so good. For multi-day rivers that are not outfitted, my buddy has a homemade filter which consists of an electric water pump hooked up to the same $200 ceramic filter, powered by a motorcycle battery, that gets recharged by a solar panel if needed. The filter system fits in a rocket box for convenient storage. It's a hell of a lot more convenient than sitting there pumping a handle up and down for an hour.
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Jul 21, 2014 22:14
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 00:01 |
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bEatmstrJ posted:I actually just got back from an 11 day rafting trip in Alaska. I'll probably post some pics soon once I get reorganized. Please do. I'd love to see them. I've rafted the New and Gauley a combined 11 times, but haven't done it in a few years. I miss it.
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Jul 22, 2014 00:39
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