White Water Rafting in Colorado

I walked into the camp store, and a brochure with the words "kids" and "free" caught my eye.  Like many parents, we have been known to do lots of things when we see phrases that combine those two words, so I took the brochure back to Char and tossed it to him.

"Let's do it," he said.

So, I called the white water rafting place and asked how young of children they took on rafting trips.  I was told that they taken children as young as one and two years old, so off we went.

As we waited to get in the water, we were instructed on what to do if we should happen to fall out of the boat on the rapids - how to swim on your back, feet first, because you'd rather smash your feet into boulders than your head.  I tried not to think about my newly-turned-four-year-old trying to follow that advice, and we got into the raft.  The water looked calm and serene.  I'm really happy we got out on the river in Colorado!

We paddled in the calm water for awhile.  Then the water got a little bit bumpy, but we had fun following the guide's instructions, as he yelled, "Paddle forward.  Forward!  Forward!"  I think B and E had a good time being trusted with paddles along with Char and I.  It was fun, too, when the guide would yell, "Bump!" and we'd all prepare for the bump.

We watched a kayaker crash into a bridge and almost flip, and we were happy to have our guide on our raft with us!  I wish we had some good pictures while on the river, but there was too much splashing to have the iPhone-camera out.

We chatted with the guide a little bit about what made different areas a class I to a class V rapid.  This trip was to involve a class III section.  Our beginning of the trip, which had been very fun, had only been class I.  The guide told us that right before the class III section, there was a part that he would call class I and a half or II.

We got to this section of the river, and Ily freaked.  It was an exciting time on the river, and all the boys enjoyed it, but I decided that Ily and I would walk around the class III section.  Char tried to talk us into staying on the raft, but here's the picture of the boys as we girls got out.

The next time we saw all the male members of our family, they were running in circles around a playground.  We thought that was a little odd, but they later explained that they were trying to get their legs to work again after freezing.  As we walked up,
B said, "That was awesome!"
E said, "I feel like I fell in a snow drift in my underwear!"
Poor Y was crying too hard to say anything.
Char said, "You made the right choice to keep Ily out of that."  Then he said, "There was this huge wall of water right in front of us!  Then, we were all surrounded by water, and we couldn't see anything, and we didn't even know if we were still in the boat.  I guess I was standing up, and the nose of the boat was straight up in the air, and the kids were screaming."  The kids, by the way, were tucked in tornado position in the front of the boat.  "And that was just the first time!  We did that three times!"

And that was our white water rafting experience in Colorado.  Char, B and E loved it and would like to go again.  Y, Ily and I may stick with hot tubs.  It was fantastic, though, and I'm glad we did it!  Kind of like scuba diving, I found it a really fun thing to do - once.

Oh, and if anyone is ever in this area, I said that four year olds can definitely do Mesa Verde.  White water rafting - not so much.  I know the guide talked about the time he had a 13 month old baby on his trip, but, well, free or not, with little kids, I'd stick with Mesa Verde.