Molly Absolon - The Ultimate Guide to Whitewater Rafting and River Camping

The Ultimate Guide to

Whitewater Rafting

and River Camping

Molly Absolon

Guilford, Connecticut

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Blvd., Ste. 200

Lanham, MD 20706

www.rowman.com

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Copyright 2018 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

Photos by Matt Leidecker unless noted otherwise

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

ISBN 978-1-4930-3233-4 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4930-3234-1 (e-book)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

The author and Rowman & Littlefield assume no liability for accidents happening to, or injuries sustained by, readers who engage in the activities described in this book.

Acknowledgments

Although I have been lucky enough to raft a lot of rivers, and have gained a lot of knowledge doing so, I still dont consider myself an expert rafter. To make this book a reality I relied on the advice and guidance of people I admire and respect for their whitewater boating skills, wilderness river trip experience, and rafting expertise. These people include Allison Berg, Margaret Creel, Brian Goldberg, Ari Kotler, Julie Mueller, Don Sharaf, and Kat Smithhammer. They each brought years of river experience to the book through their input. As a group, they include private rafters, professional rafters, raft instructors, and even the owner of a commercial rafting companySOAR Northwest. All of them took hours of their personal time to wade through my manuscript checking for accuracy, offering suggestions, and generally just making sure I was on the right track. I am very grateful for their generous help.

I also want to thank Matt Liedecker for his amazing photos. As always, photos make a book like this and I appreciate his skill and the beauty of his images. In addition to Matt, Ari Kotler, Dot Newton, Eric Riley, Eric Scranton, Stefanie Vandaele, Moe Witschard, and Tom Zell provided a few extra photographs to fill in the holes, and my daughter, Avery Absolon, drew the diagrams. Thanks!

Finally, I want to recognize the people Ive been down rivers with who arent included in the list above. There are too many to list, but a few regulars deserve mention: Tim, Erin, and Charlie Burnham; Rachael Price; Mark, Gavin, and Jasper Roy; Georgie Stanley; Ben Hammond; Lisa Johnson; Michael Wehrle; Michelle Williamson. Plus, of course, theres my husband, Allen OBannon, who opened up the river world to an old climber, and Avery Absolon, who is rapidly becoming a boater in her own right.

Introduction

my daughter was three when we first floated the Main Salmon River in central Idaho. I wasnt much of a boater, so my primary job was to hold on to her and to the raft when we went through the rapids.

The weather was terrible. It was August and my friends told me to expect temperatures in the 80s or 90s during the day, so I packed lightly. But it was raining when we got to the put-in, and for the next three days temperatures never got much above 50 degrees. We wore all our clothes and stopped at lunch to rig up a shelter, start a stove, and make hot chocolate for the kids. Ill never forget watching themwe had six kids under eight years old on that adventureplaying in the rain, their slickers covered in wet sand. They didnt care. They built castles and fished. They ran up and down the beach, creating their own games. We read them stories and kept them well fed. They looked like drowned rats, but they were laughing and smiling and having a blast well before the sun finally came out and warmed us up.

That trip hooked me. Id been having a hard time figuring out how to backpack with my daughter without carrying a monster pack or hiring horses or llamas to heft the load. River trips meant our gear was on the raft, not on my back. It meant the kids didnt have to cover long miles on their feet. We werent constantly cajoling them with candy to keep them walking. Instead we sat in the raft, laughing and screaming our way through the whitewater and lounging back watching the scenery slip past when it was calm.

River trips are a great way to bring family and friends together away from the stress and distractions of daily life.

Once the temperatures heated up, we swam and had water fights. We sunbathed on the back of the raft and took turns rowing. It was six days of bliss. The stresses of home were far away. We had no cell coverage or electronics, so no social media distractions. We got up in the morning, ate a huge meal, drank our coffee, loaded up, and drifted downstream. At the end of the day, we set up camp on a beach, made cocktails, ate a huge dinner, and went to bed. I left the river wishing I could stay out there forever.

A friend of mine who routinely floats the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon calls what I described above river time. Its that sense of living totally in the moment, surrounded by beautiful nature with no cares in the world. Its hard to get that feeling in modern lifethere are just too many distractions, obligations, and things on your to-do list. But on rivers you can find it.

Your river trip can be a simple flat-water float or a raging whitewater run, depending on your skill and desires.

River trips run the gamut from Class I casual floats to Class V whitewater. Obviously the difficulty of the river affects the nature of your trip and the level of skill and expertise you need to run it. On some rivers you will have a fabulous time with kids; on others the difficulty and danger may make it smarter to leave them at home. Regardless of the challenge, all river trips are unified by that feeling of river time. Everyone comes back reinvigorated and ready for more.

Multiday river trips take you deep into the earths wildest river corridors.

Stefanie Vandaele

This book is written for newer rafters looking to put together their own multiday river trip. Its not a substitute for experience, rather a supplement to help you solidify your skills. Well talk a little bit about rafting technique and equipment, and provide an introduction to reading water and running rapids, but those skills are best learned from a more experienced mentor.