Yard Sale in the Colorado River

Moab isn’t the type of playground where nannies surround the sandbox in case of emergencies. The chaperons here drop you off at the big slide, ask if you’ve been to other playgrounds before and tell you what time to return. You’re in charge of your own juice boxes, band-aids and getting up If you fall off the monkey bars.

Whether you hike, bike, kayak, camp or 4-wheel, Moab is the quintesential outdoor playground for big kids. There’s no tour guides, no speed limits, no boundaries, just your own physical limitations.

The only problem with this for me is, sometimes my experience doesn’t justify my curiosity. Basically, my brains and balls don’t balance out.

Moab has a great way of putting you in check if you get ahead of yourself and that’s exactly what happened to me when I tried white water rafting down the Colorado River.

I don’t know who was more to blame, us, for telling the rental shop guy we were “experienced white water rafters,” or him, for believing us. Either way, without much training or guidance, he drove us to a river launch point about a half-hour from downtown Maob. Once we unloaded the 2, 1-man inflatable rafts called “duckies” and pulled them down into the river, we were on our own. Just myself, friend Mike and the beautiful Colorado River. Our guide’s parting words were…

“I’ll see you down the river in 4 hours. Look for the long stretch of beach just past the major river bend.. just before it gets real rough.”

Sounds good, I thought, he’ll probably just wave us in as we get close (this was probably the same thing Meryl Streep thought in “The River Wild”).

Mike and I had both been white-water rafting before, but never without a guide, never in duckies and never down the Colorado River.

We spent the first few miles getting acquainted with our gear and enjoying the beautiful red rock cliffs and shoreline scenery. As we got adjusted, we hit a few small, class 1 and 2 rapids that we paddled through pretty smoothly.

About two hours into the trip, the river began to narrow and speed up. Rapids grew as our confidence faded. Calm, motionless pools became few and far between. Campers on shoreline beaches disappeared. Mike moved from inside his boat to the top-edge for more paddling strength and I followed suit.

Side-by-side, we positioned ourselves downstream to navigate the rough water ahead. We steered clear of the protruding rocks and paddled hard to keep our boats straight. Excitement and hollering turned to concentration and silence as we barreled into the first big dips. Despite our best efforts, the now, 3 and 4 foot waves were taking control of our wimpy rafts and we quickly realized we were in over our heads.

I was pushed to the far right of the river as I paddled frantically to keep distance between myself and the red river walls. Mike drop down into his boat to gain control, while I secured my feet and gripped the paddle tightly to ride it out. It didn’t matter, one big drop grabbed the front of my raft and yanked it under water. I was launched forward and into the cold, murky water. My knees cracked against the river floor as I struggled to the surface.

My paddle, raft, sunglasses, water bottle, disposable camera and confidence were all floating away fast. There was a yard sale in the Colorado River and all my stuff was up for grabs.

Once I managed to grab the paddle and flip the raft, everything else was out of reach. I jumped back in and caught my breath inside the boat as it continued to be ambushed with rapids.

Mike signaled me towards a beach approaching on the opposite side of the river. When I got closer he secured his raft on shore and helped drag my water-logged ass out as well.

As we collapsed on the beach laughing about what just happened, our ‘river guide’ showed up to inform us that we’d missed the first beach pick-up point by 20 minutes.

He loaded our rafts back onto the truck and gave us the silent treatment for most of the way back into town. I’m sure he’ll think twice next time he lets kids like us out on the playground alone.

Foot Note: If you ever find a disposable, water-proof camera somewhere down the Colorado River, please let me know. I’m sure I took some National Geographic worthy photos while on our excursion that I’d like to replace with the ones above.