Westwater Canyon

Saturday was our whitewater rafting trip through Westwater Canyon! This meant getting up up 6:00am, but we all managed to stumble out of the hotel room and make our way to the bus. Our first surprise of the day was that the put-in was 1.5 hours away, so the bus ride was a bit longer than expected, but the guide did a good job of entertaining us along the way by telling us about the areas we were driving through, and the scenery was pretty interesting for most of the ride. Finally, it was on to the rafts. This trip differed from all of the other whitewater trips that Annette and I have been on in that it was on Oar trip rather than a paddle trip. This meant that instead of us all paddling (tiring!) the guide sat in the middle of the boat and rowed (Relaxing!). This worked out well since we've been so physically active since we got here.

The river started out pretty tame, with very few rapids before our lunch break, and only small ones at that, but the weather was beautiful and it was just nice to be out on the water floating through such a gorgeous place. Lunch turned out to be "Mexicones", which were tortillas rolled into a cone and filled with pretty much every Mexican ingredient known to mankind. Thankfully, I had brought along enough snacks for just such a contingency. :) Annette and Matt both agreed that the Mexicones were delicious, though.

Finally, it was time for some Whitewater! Class III and IV rapids in relatively quick succession. We hit some really good size waves and got thoroughly drenched. As usual, pictures never seem to capture the scope of whitewater rapids, but here's one anyway. You'll have to trust me that it's bigger than it looks here. Once the rapids ended, there was still 6 miles of flat water to cover, so all three boats in the group were lashed together and they rigged an outboard motor on the back for the rest of the trip. Since it was getting late in the day and starting to cool off, we were all happy to reach the boat ramp and return to Moab.

After dinner we decided to wander around the downtown since the weather was so perfect and we weren't as tired as we've been every other night. Annette managed to find a pair of hiking boots much nicer and lighter than her current pair, and they were on sale since they were last years model. I'd nearly forgotten just how happy a new pair of shoes/boots/skates etc can make her. :)