Snake River Extravaganza

*No pictures due to lost camera. Bummer.*

Our most recent adventure was a camping/rafting trip near Jackson Hole, WY. We camped in Grey’s River Canyon outside of Alpine, WY. As many times as we’ve visited the Jackson area we never ventured up Grey’s Canyon before. One word: GORGEOUS. It’s a popular area, but there are lots of campsites along the river and we didn’t have much trouble finding a killer spot for our group. Sean and Emily rolled in a couple of hours after we got there on Friday and joined us for dinner. The rest of the group (6 adults and 2 dogs) came in from SLC around 11 pm. On Saturday our group did two runs on the Grand Canyon section of the Snake River – the one that the commercial groups take paddle rafts down a jillion times a day. There are some good rapids on that stretch (Lunchcounter and Big Kahuna are the biggies), so Gavin and I drove the shuttle for the first run while Brandon, Joie and Brody ran the 8-mile stretch Stella-style. Brandon and Gavin drove the shuttle for the second run and Sean rowed Stella with me and Emily aboard. Sean used to be a guide on this particular stretch of river and estimates that he’s probably run it about 200 times. Apparently he’s a little out of practice because as we went through Lunchcounter (the last big rapid) I noticed that one minute I was looking up at the sky and the next minute I was looking up at the boat – which was in the process of flipping upside down and dumping the three of us into the drink. Before I could even start to panic (I’d had a few beers at this point and was feeling pretty relaxed) I popped up out of the water and pulled in a breath of rubbery air. I was underneath the raft. I felt my way to the edge, ducked under, and as I buoyed up into the sunshine I simultaneously thought, “Holy crap, I’m really ok!” and “That was AWESOME!” Sean and Emily had already surfaced and the rest of the group had eddied out. We were all together and accounted for. Nobody got hurt and we didn’t lose any gear and it was the most fun I had all weekend. We didn't have our camera back yet, so we didn't get any pictures. Kind of a bummer, but as Brandon and my mom both pointed out, if we had gotten our camera back it might have gotten lost forever in the big flip. Emily snapped a few and so did Josh (one of the SLC crew and originator of the "Snake River Extravaganza" moniker), so hopefully I'll be able to steal some of theirs.