FYI: Its cold on a glacier fed river in September y’all. It didn’t stop us from having a blast, but we will sure rethink not renting the rubber suit and boot things next time.
So this was quite different from our float trip down the Snake River in Wyoming. The kids were ecstatic. We knew to wear clothes and shoes that were going to get wet. Because: white water rafting. But I was not prepared for the icy shock that we would be in for walking in knee deep water to our raft on the river. Holy Moly! As our family of 5 and another group of 3 got settled in the raft our river guide gave us the spiel.
Our youngest was the only one without a paddle and he wasn’t completely thrilled about it. He was situated in the middle and I think kept the older man from the other party amused.
Much of the trip was quite windy. So much so, that the wind whipping down into the canyon actually pushed up upstream. We had to paddle hard much of the time just to go forward! So crazy! At one point, we were positioning ourselves to go down some rapids and another raft from the company we were with was at the bottom just kind of sitting there. They were kind of stuck waiting for the wind so all they could do was watch us go down the rapids.
As we got to the bottom, our raft swung around quite dramatically toward their raft and as we swung around, our #1 who was in the back next to the guide, threw her arms out (one with the paddle) in a Gladiator moment and shouted, “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?” Oh lawdy.
We finally made it out of the windy canyon area and into quieter waters as we unloaded at the exit point and hiked back to the headquarters. Wet, sandy, frozen and numb. But totally worth it.
These are the memory-making experiences we set out for when we started this lifestyle. I love that my kids will have these times to look back on and have forever.
~Enjoy the journey!