Volume 2, Issue 16 July 20 - August 2, 2000

Okay, so how do you know when you've been in the city for too long? 1) You get excited when you make it through three green lights in a row. 2) You lie in bed at night, puzzled and intrigued by the wonderment of alcohol, and try to remember who you saw that night and at which bar, and if they wanted to hook up with you. 3) Your idea of taking a risk is getting on I-25 when you heard there was a huge traffic jam. 4) Those mountains with white stuff on them are just nice to look at when you are stopped in traffic that is, if you even remember that they are there at all.

If some of this seems familiar, you are slowly rotting and dying inside. Sorry to be so blunt, but there is someone that can help you smash back into the spontaneous, worldly person you once were. She is Mother River. You've heard all about Mother Nature, Mother Earth and Mother Road, but Mother River is the most bad-ass mother of them all.

BUENA VISTA,9 A.M.

I'm really really scared, Lucy tells me. The Arkansas River is churning, dashing frothy water onto slippery rocks, and we are pushing our rubber raft into the water. Her London accent quivers slightly. I don't usually do outdoorsy things like this. Edwin made me come here. She says something else, but I can't really hear her over the roar of the first rapid just around the bend of the river.

You swallow hard and listen to your guide as he explains what to do if you fall out of the boat. This is what you do: lie on your back with your feet pointing downstream. Do not let your legs hang down or else they could get banged up on rocks. Try to swim this way to the boat. Don't just float there like a dead fish. They give you a wetsuit, splash top, life jacket, helmet, and rubber booties. You are assigned one paddle. Your goal is to not lose that paddle, and stay in the boat.

There are seven of them from Chicago. Nervously laughing and cracking jokes about beer and the wilderness, these guys are here for a reunion. Having entered corporate America after college a few years ago, most of them have never been on the river before. One shows off the most amazing farmer burn I've ever seen. His milky white back and stomach strike an amazing contrast against hot pink arms and neck. Howling and whooping, the boys jump into their boat. They are led by Jason, a Black Diamond guide, who has spent hours on the river, guiding, training, teaching, riding the waves and finding the holes. He throws on a splash top and jacket over his rippling muscles as they paddle off towards the first rapid.

This is how to paddle. Sit with your butt on the side of the raft, and anchor your feet on the inside of the raft, to provide stabilization. Turn to the side, using your obliques, and with whole arm movements, dip your paddle into the water. Listen to the guide. When he yells all forward, everyone paddles forward in unison. When he yells all back, everyone paddles back. When he yells right forward, left back, you do what he says. That is the key to making it through. Do whatever they say.

Terence is our guide from Black Diamond Expeditions. With his wavy, gnarly blond hair spilling out from under his visor, he smiles and barks our commands. There are only four people in our raft: Edwin and I ride up front, Lucy in the middle and Terence in the back. Before we even have time to make idle chit-chat, the first rapid of the Numbers section rushes at us. Terence directs us in paddling. Two forward, two back, all forward! Right forward, left back! Meanwhile, he sits in the back of the raft, steering us around rocks and debris with his paddle. We are yelping and screaming, and laughing. I try to paddle with all my might, keeping in unison with Edwin, as white, frothing, powerful bursts of water envelop my body. I'm sort of drinking it as it goes in my mouth, in my eyes, and I can't see and I clutch the raft with my feet, absorbing the up and down and trying to stay nimble. As we paddle out into the calmer water, I'm exhilarated and out of breath. Lucy is a little shaken, and all the boys are slapping five with their paddles in the other raft. Yeah! Edwin screams. And our little rubber vessel floats on down to the next crop of raging water.

The Arkansas River flows through the only valley where you can run class IV and V rapids and see four different ecosystems. Class I is the easiest and Class V-VI is the hardest. The Arkansas is a naturally flowing river, completely undamned all the way to the Pueblo Reservoir (with the exception of a few tributaries.) Every day the water is different the natural run-off in the spring can wash 20-foot trees down the river next to you. Black Diamond Expeditions will take you down the Numbers, Pine Creek, Browns Canyon, and the notorious Gore Canyon, where you can find a half-dozen gnarly class V rapids the most difficult whitewater in Colorado.

THIS IS BETTER THAN SEX,

Lucy roars. Sex ... sex ... sex echoes off the quiet rocks and over the rushing water behind us, and everyone whips around in shock and laughs. We hit Class IV rapid after another, paddling, twisting, splashing, and screaming. It's like a roller coaster without the gross gum and popcorn and dirt everywhere.

You would not be able to do all this without the help of an experienced river guide. Terence and Jason from Black Diamond have had way over 50 hours of training on the river (the minimum needed to become a guide). Since they are experienced, with at least 1,500 river miles, they are able to train others. All the guides go out on training trips to the most difficult rapids. They learn to read the water, memorizing every rock, every bend, every hole. They love the river and the land and can tell you everything you want to know about the ecosystem you are in.

Terence finds us a hole where the water can suck you in, and we do a little surfing paddling forward while facing the hole until we manage to get the raft to surf on top of the current. Then, we spin around, and head downstream to where the boys from the other boat are jumping off cliffs into the water. There are people panning for gold on the banks of the river. We see a hawk, and for a while everyone is quiet, just absorbing the calm, and the sound of the water hitting the rocks. I don't remember the last time I have felt so relaxed. The River Wild you know that movie with Meryl Streep and whitewater rafting? It is so unreal, because you could never take an oar boat down a 30-foot drop and still be in one piece. Terence knows.

And this is how I do CPR on guys from Chicago, Jason says, hammering his fist into the table. Everyone is laughing as we wolf down our lunch. Jason and Terence have laid out a hearty buffet of turkey and roast beef sandwiches, Oreo's and Twizzlers, and lots of water. You know this paddle boat stuff, it totally builds teamwork, cooperation and communication skills, Jason says reflectively, ripping apart a Twizzler. And you guys you are the best paddlers I have ever had on July 7, 2000! We have stopped for lunch in a gorgeous canyon, the sun is shining and we lie on hot flat rocks, drying ourselves off. I don't ever want to go back to Chicago! I hear that phrase more than five times as we tramp back to the rafts.

So there is this huge, tall rock in the middle of the river, and the rafts stop next to it. On top of the rock there is a smooth, naturally-eroded hole large enough to fit a human. It goes all the way through the middle of the rock, and into the water. Everyone tells you that you are an awful writer if you don't jump through the hole. This is more scary to you than the actual whitewater, but you jump through and land in the cold water, sputtering, and then, holding your breath, you go underwater and get sucked out from under the rock into the rushing current and someone grabs your arm and then you have done it.

Yeah, all kinds of people come to the river, Jason tells me. We get everyone from little kids, young hungover Denverites, families, older folks. There is something for everyone out here. He stands up and stretches. I mean, people forget about the beautiful world we have out here and if they don't come see it soon, they won't care enough to save it from being trashed. Everyone else sighs, thinking about the world they have to go back to.

Remember what reality REALLY is. Is it the lights of the city or the lapping waves of the river? That's something you have to find out for yourself.

Go experience what the thrill is all about. Black Diamond Outfitters leads trips down the Arkansas, Gunnison, and Lake Fork Rivers. They offer something for everyone: extreme rafting on the Arkansas' Pine Creek, Granite Gorge, and the Numbers, a challenging technical whitewater trip on the Arkansas' Royal Gorge, more gentle family trips in Brown's Canyon, or a scenic float trip on the Gunnison and Arkansas Rivers. They also offer kayaking instruction and guided fishing trips. All guides are professionally trained. Check out their we page at www.whitewater.net, or call them at 1-800-RAFT-W-US.