Canoeing & Whitewater Rafting

in California

Here I am before my haircut in 1985, the following week it was cut really short, a few weeks later I was in Yosemite and you can see the difference in that picture of me in the tree. We spent 3 days on the Colorado River paddling first upstream about 10 miles to a campsite. There we drank wine in a natural hot-tub making the trip back down to the tent a little tough in the middle of the night. The canyon is difficult to see and in some places slippery. The stars were great and we found lots of animal tracks, some were believed to be mountain lion tracks! The second day was paddling to the base of the Hoover Dam and checking out a natural "Sauna" and natural caves. We told scary stories about bats to those flighty girls on the trip who would believe us. The last day was paddling out against the wind, so much for "floating out". We had a great time even though my arms were sore for a week from the paddling and the sunburn! Below is a separate trip taken with Dad, Janet and some girl scouts.

Here you can see the look of horror, excitement, adrenalin, and adventure on my face as we enter a rapid. (can you guess which face belongs to me in the picture on the left? If you guessed the black hat on the far left you are correct! And yes my mouth is open and probably some exclamation is coming out.) The second picture is my Dad after he fell out on the toughest rapid we went through. He didn't get hurt, well maybe the ego a little. The trip was great fun, plenty of "wet-time" and when the rapids weren't exciting enough we would have waterfights to make up for it!

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