My First IK trip

I started whitewater boating when I lived in Colorado in 1989. I took 4 whitewater trips that summer, all on sections of the Arkansas River. The first two trips were raft trips, but one of my friends wanted to try something different, so a few of us decided to take an inflatable kayak trip. We had 6 people on the trip.

Because of a previous foul-up, the company gave us free wetsuit rentals, which helped offset the the fact that they didn't give us the guide we wanted. Our main guide was a guy named Mike (at least that's what I remember), and I'll call the other guide Dick (because that's what he was). Dick was the owner of the rafting company, and he accompanied us in a hardshell kayak.

The trip got off to a rocky start. One of the people in our group made a big deal out of the fact that he had already taken hardshell kayaking lessons, and he thought he would do great. Within 30 seconds of us putting in, he fell out of his boat. We had been warned before the trip that if we fell out, we should never try to stand up in the water. This guy forgot, and the result was that Dick paddled over and knocked him down. The guy's wife and I headed for the side of the river to eddy out, but it took us a while because, after all, this was our first time. Dick chewed us out for this, but we took his "criticism" constructively and continued on.

After a few class II+ rapids and our first class III, we pulled over and had lunch. After lunch, Mike had us all flip our boats and try to get back in. Everyone else got in fine, but I couldn't get in without pushing off a rock in the river. Mike said that I really needed to learn to get back into my boat, but he wasn't worried about me because I seemed to be doing pretty well staying in the boat in the first place (a rule I try to follow to this day).

A few more miles took us to the biggest rapid of the day - Zoom Flume. I was the last IKer in the group, so I got to watch while everyone else worked their way through the rapid. The guy who flipped earlier flipped in the entrance to the rapid, and I ended up bumping him as I went by, though he later said that he was already out of control at that point and that he didn't even notice me. I finished the rapid and tried to pull over, but the only eddy was filled with boats so I continued downstream to the next available eddy. In that location, I couldn't see anything upstream, so I just waited. And waited. It was 15 minutes before Mike came by, followed by the other boats. I pulled out just in time to see the guy who had flipped sitting on top of his IK which was on top of a raft that someone else was rowing. Dick came over to chew me out for not making the eddy. I asked if the guy who flipped (twice) had lost his paddle. Dick replied "No, he lost my paddle", which surprised me, since Dick clearly had his paddle and was using it. It took me a minute to realize that since Dick was the company owner, the lost paddle was going to cost him (though at least it wasn't a $250 custom-sized fiberglass paddle).

The rest of the trip was just plain fun, and I was sad to see it end. A few months later, I moved back to Silicon Valley, and a year later, I bought my first IK.