All we know now is that the Cherry Creek is our #1 river in the world so far and it will save us a fortune. Why? Because there will have to be a river similar to this one before we spend money on it. Alternatively you could take the other view - which is that it will COST us a fortune in trips to Chile, Nepal and Zimbabwe. Hmmmmmm......we'll see.
Our warm up for the main event was on Day 1 of our trip in Yosemite. We woke up at a very reasonable hour and made our way to the meet point down the road in Groveland at 8.30am. It was a big group today and in our raft we had a mixed bunch. From concert violinists to young farmers to ex-dentists, software salesmen and hairdressers. At least the conversation wouldn't be dull :)
We parted ways, but not before learning that Andy and Anderson would be joining us on the trip the next day, which was nice because we had certainly bonded with them both. The father and son team from Atlanta, Georgia (who also have the best father/son name combo) were great fun to be with, but tomorrow we were not to raft together in the same boat. No. Tomorrow we were to do our first ever run as a 2 man boat (3 including guide). As I have mentioned above, the Cherry Creek is honestly up at the pinnacle of white water rafting in the world and so when Julia discovered we were to be a duo....she panicked a little.
You see, people that don't know us will immediately notice the size difference.......so the paddling was bound to be a little lop-sided and Julia would never let sub-standard rafting happen which would mean she was going to have to
paddle hard. Then of course, people that DO know us, know that I have a tendency toward the "accident prone". There are 2 main accidents that can happen in a raft....you go for a swim and someone get's hit by the t-grip on your paddle.
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| should have maybe brushed my hair |
I think what really got her though was the swim test. Before our outfitter would allow us onto the river we had to prove we could swim in white water, which meant jumping in to the water and swimming across the river at a controlled point. This is a dam controlled river and the water is fast. Further, it's bloody cold! As you hit the river, your body wants to freeze up and your instinct is to curl into a ball, which would be a "Fail" on your report card.
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| Some rapids we had to portage |
So the night before the raft Julia had barely a wink of sleep and we awoke to the beautiful views from our cabin......utterly unable to appreciate them. I was of course as usual grinning from ear to ear like a fool, mad with excitement at taking on the river. Julia, not so much! Arriving, Marty the owner came out to meet us and introduced us to "The Man Mountain" aka Jeff. Jeff towered over me (and by definition Julia) and you'd probably need a couple of minutes to walk around his shoulders. His business-like demeanour knocked the stuffing out of my "happy-go-lucky / silly puppy" attitude and we were immediately pushed along through the kitting out process. Because the river is dam controlled, you have a 4 hour window to run the river on what they call "the Bubble". This is the flow of water that bursts out of the bottom of the dam and makes the run so ridiculously fun.
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| Check out my guns! |
On the bus, there was that gallows humour that so often happens on these kinds of adrenalin sports and we began to get to know each other. Tom, the owner's son, had his own group of friends to take down and Andy and Anderson were with another guide, Adam (picture a slightly shorter version of Jeff.....though just as "hewn" and just as serious). We stepped out of the bus, got kitted up and then came the instructions. Andy, Anderson, Julia and I looked at each other and wondered why we would have to bother with this - after all, we had just done a river run yesterday. This instruction was different.
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| L - R : Alex, Andy and Anderson |
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| Happy Happy Joy Joy |
Adam took us through the boat, what to do where, how to fix yourself in ("this sound is a GOOD sound....it's the sound of me staying IN the boat") and Jeff took us through a demonstration of paddling that can only be described as maniacal. I mean that in a good way - he showed us how to paddle with a complete disregard for what people driving by might think of him.....he looked for all the world as though he was paddling on the river, not on the side of the road. We later discovered, during our run, that Jeff is a stickler for technique and will stop the boat and watch you repeat the correct technique until you have it down pat. As it turns out, Julia and I both loved this attention to detail and also this river
demands good technique. There is so much delicate manoeuvring of the raft into precisely the right position that the guide relies on his crew getting precisely the right power and timing in their strokes. When you see the videos, you'll think to yourself "delicate manoeuvring"????? What IS he on about? But trust me, these men who took us down are artists and as they say in Italian, they must have four balls of steel!
Tom then took us through what to do if we fell in and gave us a much more detailed description of how the river currents worked than he had done the day before. Again, utterly necessary. As I was to find out in the course of my 5 second or so dip into the water.....you can get really smashed around on those rocks in that water.
So then it was lowering the rafts into the water and then a couple of simple rapids to check if we had paid attention to our technique lessons and whether or not we could understand how to right turn or left turn or jump over to the sides of the boat. This is also critical. The easiest way to flip is to head for a boulder and run up the front of the wave that rides over the boulder with the weight of the boat on the upstream side of the boat. Your natural reaction is to run away from the oncoming rock and that causes all the weight to be on the wrong side of the boat. So the guides want to make sure you can overcome your self-preservation instinct and hurl yourself without a second thought towards the massive rock you are about to hit! Very weird.
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| Over RIGHT! |
On this little test we also learned that our back paddle was rubbish and Jeff took us to task. Showing us once more, we tried again and this time had it down. The back paddle is critical, because you actually get a LOT more force, control and speed through the water with a back paddle. Again, on the river this is weird, because you'll go into some unbelievably huge rapids backwards. Which is very counter-intuitive. You'll see us on the video grimacing as we strain against the river current to paddle backwards. You'll also see how sometimes one of us is faster than the other and this shows how the currents are so uneven......a few inches to either side in the river and you can either be in a strong current or gently flowing water and with currents that strong, it makes a massive difference which side of the boat you're on with a back paddle.
Off we went then down a couple of rapids as a little test run. Now when you see a trip advertised as Grade/Class 5 it basically means a couple of nearly 5s and mainly 3s and 4s with a few 2s. Our
tester rapids were class 4s!! Julia and I both thought "wow" as we approached them.
Then, once through those, we had the swim test. I was looking forward to beating the river and Julia wasn't. First up were Tom's friends and the 2 ladies jumped in first and ......oh. The first was swept downstream as soon as she hit the white water. Seeing the speed with which she vanished left an impression and did nothing for Julia's confidence. Then Anderson jumped in and motored across and we felt a little better....it
was possible to beat the river. Julia launched in and was going great guns until the end of the white water, then for a split second she took her foot off the gas and began to drift. Luckily she doesn't give up, she powered up again and pushed for the bank and was across.....PHEW! Now she just had to do the return trip.
I jumped in and hit the water paddling like a lunatic. River swimming in a life jacket is not like swimming in the pool - no points for style and certainly no place to put your head down to remain stream-lined. You are basically using your arms and legs like pistons in an engine.....you stop pumping, you stop moving. Easy. So keep pumping. I got across, pulled myself up to a grinning Anderson giving me the thumbs up and then it was back across again. The return was actually quite easy.
Our final test was a simple one to see if you could find your way from under the raft back to the side of the raft. So you jump in and pull yourself along. Nice and easy. The guides gave us full instructions and honestly, this was to be a theme the whole day:
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| Yes there WERE 4 of us in the boat.....I always wonder what the guide is thinking! |
You get good guides, you get good instruction. You get good, clear instructions, you build confidence.
There wasn't a single moment on that river, on either run we did, where we were not utterly confident in our ability to get down the river. The guides brooked no illusions or mistakes. Even after I fell in, I wasn't nervous, I was just bloody embarrassed to have let Jeff down!
So then we began.....and, well....the river can do the talking in the videos. You'll see from the chart below the different names and rapids and frankly, nothing prepared us for the relentless activity and beating our raft took. It was insane.
After each set of rapids, we'd look to the side and see Andy and Anderson grinning like a pair of kids and we'd share a joke or a thumbs up and then it was off again. Andy (father) had rafted most of the USA and the world's rivers that were worth rafting and the Cherry Creek was his lifelong dream, so it was really cool to see him do the river with his son....especially as we later found out that he hadn't told his wife (who ALSO has the coolest name.....Betty Jo).
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| As if Jeff needed to stand on that stone ;o) |
As I have mentioned, I popped out for a brief dip but managed to grab the raft as I did. The rapid is called Ugly Stump (pause for sniggers) and on the video you'll see Julia struggle to get me back in. That's because my right wrist was caught under the oar and as she is hauling me in, what she is actually doing is desperately trying to break my arm! Rather painful......but no lasting injury. In those few seconds my feet were also getting smashed around on the rocks in the rapids and I was REALLY not letting go of that raft....hanging on for dear life? Yes sir!
By the end of the day Julia was in love. I want to say with me, but it was with the Cherry Creek. She was grinning so widely I expected her head to fall off backwards! In fact she liked it so much, we booked ourselves in for another trip 6 days later. Now that has never happened before.
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| Lunch afterwards - a happy place |
6 days later we're sat in the boat, this time with 4 of us and Adam as our guide. Yes I managed to be a fool and injure myself. Paddling, I hit a boulder and the paddle popped out of my hand and the t-grip hit me square on the nose, cutting but not breaking it. A bit of blood, a quick check from Adam to see if I was ok, then on again. Then I got to save the lady in front of me, she fell in during a particularly horrific rapid and luckily she held on. I managed to grab her and pull her aboard in a couple of seconds, before we all had to duck down. There was a set of drops that Adam guided us through and we all knew that we certainly would not have liked to have swum down them, so it was lucky we managed to get her aboard when we did
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| 35 years of goodness |
Honestly people, whoever reads this, whoever considers white water rafting.......please please please go and raft the Cherry Creek with Sierra Mac. It is a VERY rare thing for us to name a company on our blog and a very rare thing for us to so categorically recommend something (after all we're all different), but this is something very rare.
So rare, that Julia has asked for a Cherry Creek trip for her birthday next year!
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| Tom and Jeff at the back and Adam kneeling from middle......thanks a million guys, it was emotional |
This wraps up our time in Yosemite. A place that has stolen our hearts and somewhere we will certainly return. From the freezing waters of the Cherry Creek our next stop was the hottest place on earth.....Death Valley.
You see, people that don't know us will immediately notice the size difference.......so the paddling was bound to be a little lop-sided and Julia would never let sub-standard rafting happen which would mean she was going to have to paddle hard. Then of course, people that DO know us, know that I have a tendency toward the "accident prone". There are 2 main accidents that can happen in a raft....you go for a swim and someone get's hit by the t-grip on your paddle.
Tom then took us through what to do if we fell in and gave us a much more detailed description of how the river currents worked than he had done the day before. Again, utterly necessary. As I was to find out in the course of my 5 second or so dip into the water.....you can get really smashed around on those rocks in that water.
I jumped in and hit the water paddling like a lunatic. River swimming in a life jacket is not like swimming in the pool - no points for style and certainly no place to put your head down to remain stream-lined. You are basically using your arms and legs like pistons in an engine.....you stop pumping, you stop moving. Easy. So keep pumping. I got across, pulled myself up to a grinning Anderson giving me the thumbs up and then it was back across again. The return was actually quite easy.
After each set of rapids, we'd look to the side and see Andy and Anderson grinning like a pair of kids and we'd share a joke or a thumbs up and then it was off again. Andy (father) had rafted most of the USA and the world's rivers that were worth rafting and the Cherry Creek was his lifelong dream, so it was really cool to see him do the river with his son....especially as we later found out that he hadn't told his wife (who ALSO has the coolest name.....Betty Jo).
On this little test we also learned that our back paddle was rubbish and Jeff took us to task. Showing us once more, we tried again and this time had it down. The back paddle is critical, because you actually get a LOT more force, control and speed through the water with a back paddle. Again, on the river this is weird, because you'll go into some unbelievably huge rapids backwards. Which is very counter-intuitive. You'll see us on the video grimacing as we strain against the river current to paddle backwards. You'll also see how sometimes one of us is faster than the other and this shows how the currents are so uneven......a few inches to either side in the river and you can either be in a strong current or gently flowing water and with currents that strong, it makes a massive difference which side of the boat you're on with a back paddle.
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