Surviving the YW Whitewater Rafting Trip

We have been wanting to give our Young Women experiences that will help them develop confidence in challenging situations and to learn to rely on each other. Hence a whitewater rafting trip. With many meetings, phone calls to Spencer (cousin in law and fearless guide), and MANY last minute miracles, we set out. Serina (previous 1st counselor in our YW Presidency and fearless guide of the second raft,) and I took our two oldest laurels and had Spencer guide us down 2/3 of the South Fork of the American River so that Serina would have some experience guiding before she took the rest of our girls down the river the following day. We had a great day with only a small "incident." The key to the car at the bottom was locked in the truck at the top when we started down the river.

The day of the actual High Adventure arrived. The girls were very excited (and slightly carsick) as we set off through windy roads to the top of the river where we prepared for the adventure. We put on the river, had a great morning, in which we had only one serious mishap of losing a girl who was "lost" for awhile as we tried to find a way to rescue her. She was found and brought back into our boat and we continued happily on our way.

We stopped for lunch in Coloma and relaxed on the "beach" while our chaperones went to get the cars and brought them down to the halfway point in Coloma. When they got back, we set out on the second part of our adventure minus our friend who had fallen out.

The rest of our journey down the river was full of excitement with swimmer's rapids that resulted in loss of contacts, water fights that resulted in our boat getting taken over by pirates, and me guiding Spencer's raft which we have recorded for posterity but which I highly doubt friends or family will ever see because in every picture I am holding the paddle incorrectly. We only had a handful fall overboard and didn't lose any paddles! Everyone had a wonderful time, even my friend who fell out. I think they succeeded in building confidence, and learned to rely on each other through paddling, paddling, paddling and singing en route. They are all clamoring for more!