Blog: Camping and Rafting
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Camping and Rafting - Monday, August 15, 2011
I went camping and rafting this weekend with Kenny, Minh, Christine, and Christine's brother and cousin. Friday night we arrived at our campsites at American River Resort in Coloma. Unfortunately we drove up much later than planned, so we had to unload and pitch tents in the dark. We rented two adjacent sites, with Kenny in his small tent and me in my medium tent in one site, and everybody else in Minh's large tent in the other site. I thought I would be sharing my tent with somebody, but nobody cared for it, so I ended up having a lot of space.
On Saturday we drove to the meetup location in Foresthill for rafting the Middle Fork of the American River. We went with a company called All Outdoors and our guide, Cory, really knew his stuff. Cory's steering and direction made even the Class IV rapids seem easy. He even told us a lot of history about the river, like about Gold Rush era settlements and a man-made flood caused by a burst dam that changed the landscape.
Cory was the head guide in our pack of 5 boats, so he played lookout for the other boats. At one point, two people from another boat fell out, one swam to a rock, and Cory's boat had to row across the rapid to save him. That was pretty awesome.
We ended up rafting a 16-mile stretch of the river, which took 6 hours at a comfortable pace, with one of those hours for lunch. Unfortunately during the rafting, my legs got massively sunburned and I didn't know it till the end. Either I wasn't thorough with the sunblock or it washed off. I probably didn't feel my legs getting sunburned because they were frequently getting wet.
The rest of Saturday and Sunday morning were spent back at camp. We had really good food that Minh and Christine prepared, but way too much of it. Saturday night we had chicken wraps, steak, hot links, corn and smores. Breakfasts consisted of eggs, potatoes and steak. There was also way too much fruit, some of which went bad. We ended up not eating half the food we brought. Next time we'll try to estimate better.
On Saturday we drove to the meetup location in Foresthill for rafting the Middle Fork of the American River. We went with a company called All Outdoors and our guide, Cory, really knew his stuff. Cory's steering and direction made even the Class IV rapids seem easy. He even told us a lot of history about the river, like about Gold Rush era settlements and a man-made flood caused by a burst dam that changed the landscape.
Cory was the head guide in our pack of 5 boats, so he played lookout for the other boats. At one point, two people from another boat fell out, one swam to a rock, and Cory's boat had to row across the rapid to save him. That was pretty awesome.
We ended up rafting a 16-mile stretch of the river, which took 6 hours at a comfortable pace, with one of those hours for lunch. Unfortunately during the rafting, my legs got massively sunburned and I didn't know it till the end. Either I wasn't thorough with the sunblock or it washed off. I probably didn't feel my legs getting sunburned because they were frequently getting wet.
The rest of Saturday and Sunday morning were spent back at camp. We had really good food that Minh and Christine prepared, but way too much of it. Saturday night we had chicken wraps, steak, hot links, corn and smores. Breakfasts consisted of eggs, potatoes and steak. There was also way too much fruit, some of which went bad. We ended up not eating half the food we brought. Next time we'll try to estimate better.