Riding the Rapids

My singles ward had a super activity this past weekend and we went white water rafting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was a blast!!! We left on Thursday and got back Saturday, so it was kind of short, but we all had a fantastic time! Thursday it rained a bit and it was fairly cool on Friday, so our rafting trip was a bit chilly with the wind, but it was still awesome! We camped, cooked over the fire, and had a good time getting to know people and enjoying nature. We played games, sang songs, and a few friends and I took a trip through the field of sagebrush and 'hunted' buffalo. We actually just walked to see how close we could get to them......boys are silly is all I have to say on that topic :) I didn't get a lot of pictures, but here's a few of what I did get.

View of the Snake River as we headed into town...you can see one of the yellow rafts floating down

Morning scenery on Friday as we headed into town to go rafting

Large buffalo that we were trying to get close enough to see.....this was with a lot of zoom on my camera :) He was snorting a lot and sounded angry, so we (the girls) opted to stay away....though the boys got the closest.

Buffalo and the Grand Teton Mountains

Some of our tents and campsite - we had about 95 people that were in our group

The trailer everything was hauled in and our food prep/dining area

Fire that kept us somewhat warm in the frigid cold

Some of the girls did a fun dance and pulled the guys up to dance too

I thought this was a cool arch made out of antlers in downtown Jackson Hole

Now on to the really exciting part.....white water rafting! This was my first experience. I grew up canoeing on the Turkey River, but that's a little bit different than this. We went with a company called Mad River Boat Trips. They provided us with the rafts, gear, as well as guides on each raft.

We went in 2 different groups and my group was the 9 AM group. It was quite cold! A lot of people rented wetsuits, but I braved it and went without. They did offer us 'splash jacket's when we got down by the river and I wore one of those and am VERY glad I did. The temp on Friday morning was about 60 and the water temp was like 52 or something.....add wind into the equation and it's a bit chilly. We had 3 rafts that we took down, about 15-16 people in each. There were some funny guys on my raft, so they kept us entertained. Our guide, Kate, said the water was fairly low, but that if you were to come around the May timeframe, the rapids would be much much bigger. I think also if you go in a smaller raft, the rapids seem a bit more dangerous as well. We were on the river for about 3 hours, covering an 8 mile course. I've put a link, so click here for pictures of us going through the first rapids, "Big Kahuna." I'm towards the front of the boat on the left hand side, second in. You can see me pretty good in the first picture. It was really really fun and I'm definitely up for going again!