Our adventure started at 8 am on a muggy New York Saturday
morning. Mei was pretty groggy after having too much fun at a 90’s dance party the
night before and only got three measly hours of sleep. Jie had been wanting to white water raft for a while
and was on her “bucket list” so was pretty excited. Jie and Mei bought a Google
coupon a couple of weeks ago for “Whitewater Rafting Trip on the Lehigh River
Gorge. At 8 am, we met our guides from Outdoor Connections
(zozi.me/OutdoorConnectionsNYV) on the steps of the New York post office
building along with 30 other fellow New Yorkers. Thereafter, we piled into
three black jeeps, we drove 2 hours to Pennsylvania where the river adventure
started.
When we reached base camp, we were greeted with throngs of
people, yellow school buses, and wooden buildings for showers and bathrooms. The
scene reminded Jie and Mei of American summer camp – or what we envisioned
summer camp to be from books and movies.
Lehigh River Gorge is a river that starts in Pennsylvania and
ends in Delaware Bay. Our journey was 13 miles and five hours long. We paddled
through Class II and III rapids (there are six classes total).
We waited patiently at base camp and got our lunch of
sandwiches, chips, and cookies. Our guides split us into groups of 5-7 and gave
us each a red rubber raft with “White Water Challengers” stenciled on the side.
We were with three other girls Ray, Yiulia, and Regina. None of us had ever
white water rafted except for Ray, two years ago. Even though she said she
forgot the entire experience, we made her captain of our little red rubber
vessel. After some waiting and chatting, all five of us piled into our r boat
armed with a bright yellow oar, life jacket, two lunch buckets, and one empty
bucket. Off we went…
We were told to follow several guides which looked like
mermaids and mermen with their body hugging kayaks. We quickly figured that there
was a lot of paddling and coordination. Gently gliding down the river was not going
to cut it. There were too many big rocks to avoid. The river was pretty shallow
even though it was dam release day because it hadn’t rained for months. Our
captain sat at the back of the boat and gave us directions – right side row,
left side row etc. It quickly became apparent that the right sides and the left
sides had to paddle with the same rhythm or else we were never going to go
straight. Although she tried her best, the captain was wrong half the time so
we ignored most of her directions.
We hit our first white water about 20 minutes in. For the
first part of our journey we went through white water called “dragon lady” and
“mile long”. Yiulia, like Jiulia but with a Y, talked about eating lunch for
most of the trip. All was well until our raft hit a rock and sent one side of
our boat flying. After the boat righted itself we checked whether everyone was
okay. It was then when we noticed the captain had fallen out. She was on a rock
downstream of the raft. After gaining our composure, we paddled towards her and
pulled her back by her armpits.
And so we paddled and labored onwards. The view was
gorgeous. The view reminded us of the rainforests of Malaysia. There were
mountains of green trees against a picturesque blue sky. Too bad it was so wet and
we couldn’t take many pictures. Mei smuggled her camera on board so we were
able to get a few pictures. It was around this time when we decided that our
group of five girls was a pretty great team and named ourselves the Avengers.
We also decided that we all deserved a “scratch and sniff” sticker for our
efforts.
In addition our boat, there were 12 other red rubber boats
in our “group”. During some calm patches, some of the boats started splashing
water at each other. We ended up in the line of fire so decided to fight back.
After Yiulia threw a bucket of water on her by mistake, Jie decided to try and
threw three buckets of water straight back at the boat next to us. It was very
stress relieving and well worth it especially after one person on the boat yelled,
“I got water got in my ear”!
About half way through, we found a calm bank where we had
lunch. Jie and Mei wanted to take a nap but there were no such luxuries. It was
around this time, when a big group green boats approached and passed us. They
were not a friendly bunch. We had to wait for them to go through the rapids. While
on one of our waiting episodes, Jie and Mei noticed that the boat next to us
kept scooping water out. After about 20 buckets, Jie finally asked whether they
had a hole. After some investigation, there was indeed a 4 inch gap. Our boat
welcomed them to join us if they needed. Lo and behold, the Dad in the boat was first to jump ship. He was actually in our
boat and getting settled before his family called him back to the leaky boat.
The second half of the journey was much more intense. We
barely missed some big rocks and had to do some expert maneuvering. We lost our
captain two more times and hauled her back. Near the end we saw a rock called
“case of beer” rock. No explanation was given. At the very end, it started to
thunder with lightening. Gusts of wind blew us everywhere. Luckily we were near
the end. After we landed, we hauled our rubber boats up gravel covered banks
and ran to the Yellow school buses waiting for us. The hour drive back to base
camp was very cold. Mei was so tired that she slept most of the time. We kept
dreaming about dry towels and warm clothes.
When we finally arrived to base camp with our buckets, we
had to wait shivering for our driver/guide Jim who took a very long time. When he finally arrived, he lead our
group to our car parked ten minutes away and a through a forest path that
looked suspiciously like a scene from the “Twilight”. We gritted our teeth and dealt
with the cold. When we finally grabbed
our bags, we trudged back through the forest where we finally went into a
shower room and where Jie and Mei finally pulled on dry underwear, clothes, and
socks.. Dry clothes never felt so good.
After some sustenance of french fries, beef jerky, and sour
candy. Jie and Mei headed back to the car to wait for Jim.. After another 30
minutes Jim finally showed up. We ended leaving the camp site around 7:15 pm
and arrived back to NY around 10 pm. We thought about giving 20 buckaroos as
tip but then decided not to given that we were poor young professionals. I’m
sure just because of that we will run into Jim in the near future. It was a
great experience and much more physically intensive then both JIe Mei expected.
Another crazy adventure. Jie and Mei are going for a massage tomorrow.
Signed, Jie
