River Raft Trip

It seems to be unanimous, the campout at Swauk campground and rafting of the Wenatchee river on Saturday was the best campout in many a month! All 22 of us who attended had a wonderful time and have many fond memories of the trip.

Swauk campground is a very nice national forest campground a few miles south of Blewett Pass on Hwy 97. It has a small creek flowing through it and a good combination of large trees and open meadows. Dinner around the campfire was cordial and entertaining with stories and sharing of food and drink. We had evening prayer around 10:30 after which some of us retired, while others played table top games till late.

In the morning we were up at 6am making breakfast and breaking camp. We left camp at 7:30 am and were ready to launch by 9:30. We had a fine safety briefing educating all of us about how to raft safely and what to do if we got tossed out of the boat in a rapid. We launched 4 rafts and set out on our adventure!

About 1/2 mile from the start point we came to our first class III rapid, Boulder Bend. This is a long stretch of large boulders in the bend of the river which makes for a technical challenge in rafts. Most of the boats had at least 1 person overboard and 1 of the boats lost all but 1 person overboard. This just adds to the adventure for the boys. All were safely pulled back into the boats and the journey continued.

Rock and Roll was the next big rapid. It contains a hole in the middle of it called "Satan's Eyeball" The river drops into a large hole and comes together at the far side with a standing wave about 10' high. We hit it squarely in the eye and out of 4 boats, we only lost 1 rafter overboard. He was safely rescued also.

Next we had to portage around a diversion dam that makes a dangerous undertow. All rafters are required to portage here.

Gorilla falls is the next class III rapid. It was fun and bouncy but provided no problems for us.

Drunkards drop is a class III rapid that forms as the river runs head on into a bluff that stands a couple hundred feet over the river. At the base of the bluff the river turns and creates a fine set of rapids. right next to the bluff wall is a huge standing wave about 15' tall from base to crest. Several of us managed to maneuver the rafts into position to ride this huge wave. It is pretty awesome to look up at this huge wave from the bottom of the trough!

The last class III rapid is Snow Blind. This rapid is pretty wild. We all made it through fine the first trip down the river. On the second trip one of the rafts managed to flip over in this rapid. I'm sure the boys will be happy to tell the adventure. It is pretty difficult to flip a raft in a rapid but they managed in fine style. Fortunately another raft was right behind them and managed a fine river rescue! Good work guys!!!

These are the 5 class III rapids on the river where we ran it. As we faced each new challenge the boys became more and more proficient and are now experienced rafters. We are proud of all the boys and leaders, and want to thank all those who helped us in bringing about such a successful and fun campout!

We were all glad to get home and rest after so much excitement.

PS. I still have a water cannon, life jacket (red), a red towel and Aaron's gia-normous squirt gun. If these are yours, please let me know so i can return them.