Well, a lot of people liked this other story about crashing a raft on the Gauley River.  So I thought I’d post another one about doing something similar on the New River Gorge.

Kind of Like This...But with More People

So, there I was, many, many years ago, working at some other raft company that is not in any way related to SONGER (just wanted to get that out of the way, right off the bat), waiting at the river for the bus to come with our guests.

Now, there was a time on the river where the industry was seeing huge growth.  Each year was bigger than the last, with more and more people coming rafting.  One of the side effects of that explosion in popularity was the frequent appearence of some, shall-we-say, large-ish rafters.

And not just kind-of.  I’m a large-ish person myself.  Always have been.  But this was different.  Some raft companies were investing in XXXX-L life jackets (which actually looked kind of like the rafts).  These were like floating tents that you could buckle onto someone.  They were huge.

It was a different time.

So there I was waiting at the put in, and the other guide is this skinny guy that we nicknamed Twigs o’ Fury.  And the bus pulls up and the guests get off and right away, I know one thing:  I will be earning my money that day.

Standing apart from the others is group of eight people who are each wearing the XXXX-L life jackets.  And they take one look at me, and one look at Twigs, and said, “Hey, y’all!  Let’s go with big man over there.  He kinda looks like he can pull us in!”

Now, this actually used to happen to me quite a bit because I’m pretty big.  But you would expect to see maybe one or two of the XXXX-Ls on a whole trip.  Not eight in one boat.  And it wasn’t like the life jackets were comfortably buckled, either.  The buckles were twitching under the tension- I expected at any moment to hear a PWAINNNG! and look over to see Twigs with a broken piece of life jacket lodged in his skull.

I took one look at my group and smiled.  At the time, I was up for any kind of adventure, no matter how large.  I swept my arm out to invite them into the boat, and exclaimed in the most confident voice I could muster, “Y’all, let’s go rafting!”

Were were in trouble before we pushed off the bank.  Getting that much mass into a floating raft without immediately capsizing is a delicate task.  Several times, I thought we were over before we started- the long, heavy-duty tubes of the boat dipping dangerously close to waterline at weights shifted and rubber squeaked.  Imagine blowing a balloon right up to the popping point.  Then keep blowing.  A little more.  More.  There.  That’s how it felt, all day long.

But we all eventually made it safely into our locked and upright positions.  As soon as we hit the current, our problems were immediately apparent to everyone on the river that day.  We had become prisoners of inertia, wildly out of control, bouncing from rock to rock like an overweight bumper car.  We pinballed our way through the rapids, hitting pretty much everything there was to hit on our way down the river.

I don’t know if the people in my boat had ever enjoyed something that much that didn’t have BBQ involved, but we beat fun over the head that day.   It was awesome, except my body ached from trying to guide a 17 ton raft and bellylaughing simultaneously.  And I didn’t know it then, but I would be making customers for life with our run through the last rapid of the afternoon.

That last rapid happened to be called Flea Flicker.  Now, at lower water levels, Flea Flicker is pretty tame.  But when there’s been a little rain and the river comes up just a touch, Flea Flicker starts to fold up on top of itself, with a wave in the middle that just gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

There’s also an easy way to go around that wave.  Which is what I had planned on doing since we had first pushed off, hours before.

But as we got closer, I began to think:  These people are here for the experience!  Let’s go for it.  This’ll be like a physics experiment.   I would create West Virginia’s first and only super collider.

So I asked.  “Hey, y’all feel like going big up here on this next one?”

“Hell yes,” they answered.  “We are big.  We need to go big!”

“You sure?”

“Do it!  Do it!”

We were committed.  I lined up the supertanker and called for full speed a head.  The momentum started to builld.  We were bouncing along, a head full of steam, straight toward a wave that was crashing back like a brick house falling in.  We were unstoppable.

Or so I thought.

When our raft hit that enormous wall of water, here’s what happened:  We made a taco.  The front of the raft stopped, and the back of the raft kept going, and in a split second, the boat folded up like a hide-away bed with the entire Beluga Family stuffed inside it.

Then, we made a reverse taco.  In the next split second, the boat sprang open, and all of the contents, except for me, flew straight up into the air.

It looked like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I tried to scream.  But everything was happening too fast.  People were flying around like smashed atoms.  Newton’s laws were being broken right and left.  The sheer immensity of my raft crew took over all available airspace.

I ducked, but there was no way to avoid the newly-winged tonnage.  It was all happening too fast.  I looked around wildly, trying to find some safety in between the chaos.

And that’s when I saw her.  Miss Teen Beluga was launched and locked on my trajectory, sailing toward me at the speed of huge.  She was coming rear-end-first, like she was riding an invisible Harley Davidson right at my head, full speed and backwards.  All I saw was the spandex getting bigger, and then black.

She took me out like a linebacker- WHAM! We went underwater, and it seemed like time slowed way down.  I could see the bubbles, and the sky, and the waves and it was beautiful.  And, y’know… I had this large woman sitting on me.

And I thought to myself:  I should have gone to law school.

When I came up, I had the ridiculous task of pulling everyone back into the boat.  It was one of those things that so hard, you just start cracking up.  And I was.  I was standing in the boat, laughing out loud, herniating myself trying to wrestle the Beluga Family back into the boat.  I’m sure I looked like an absolute maniac.

And that’s when Big Daddy Beluga, spitting up water, and laughing right along with me despite himself, asked, “So now, what’d you say the name of that rapid was?”

My sides hurt.  I was crying I was laughing so hard.  I could hardly breathe.  I fell onto the floor of the raft, and almost shouted, “It’s called ‘Flea Flicker’!”

“Well,” said Big Daddy, “I guess we’re gonna hafta start callin’ it ‘Hog Toss!’”

It was one of the best trips of my life