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This guy would have been SICK
8:47 AM
'Do you guy's want to do the 6 mile trip or the 10 mile trip?' Was he serious? He might as well have been asking us, 'Hey Nancies! Have your nuts dropped yet?' Having done this trip the previous summer with my brother but having not remembered which voyage we actually embarked on, we confidently told Old Man River behind the counter that we wanted the 10 mile trip. We were of course SURE that we had done the 10 mile trip the previous year. No self-respecting man does the shorter or lesser of anything fun when given the choice. i.e. 'Do you want to have sex with just me or would you want my girl friend to join?' et cetera, et cetera.
9:43 AM
Why would we listen to him anyway? We were men, goddamnit! Men with oars in our hands, raft in tow and the modestly raging waters of the Housatonic ahead of us. He was a high school river rafting guide throwing his barely triple-digit weight around with awkward arm movements and questionable flare. He was wearing what looked like the 'it' sunglasses from the 1988 AVP Volleyball tour. Yes, the ones with fluorescent rims and the band that goes around the back of the head. We didn't need to listen to 'the rules of engagement' about the river, pal. How fucking hard could it be? Go in the direction that the water is flowing. Don't press any sharp objects into the pontoons of the raft. Don't die. Baboons could figure as much. But there he went babbling to the geriatric crew and us talking about water and dams and blah blah blah. Having paid this kid's spiel less attention than the average male does while his wife tries to talk to him about the dirty bathroom during the 2 minute drill of the AFC championship game, we set off. We, being myself, my brother and my brother's friend; we were all competent, physically able, non-retarded, 20-somethings. The 'non-retarded' part would later be up for debate.
6 mile trip - expect to finish in 2.5 hours 10 mile trip - expect to finish in 4.5 - 5 hours.
This is no Colorado River. The guides don't go with you.
9:51 AM
Having no interest in the conservation of energy, the three of us powered our raft down the river with the same velocity as Colin Farrell drove his 'go fast' boat from Miami to Cuba in Miami Vice. The voice of our rafting guide faded behind us like the sound of a whistle of a passing train as he helped the older folks in their canoes and rafts. This was our river and no one was going to pass us.
10:19 AM
This demonic attempt to break some sort of speed record stopped as soon as were out of view from the rest of our rafting competition so we let the river do some work. We removed our life vests since they were apparently impeding us like straightjackets.
10:35 AM
Fuck that. We were bored. It was time to play a game. If you put 2 or more males in the same vicinity they will invent a game and there will be a winner and there will surely be a loser. We had a raft, lunch and 3 oars. After about 10 minutes of discussion we had a game full of rules and scoring. One of us was allowed to throw his oar anywhere in the river from the raft we were all sitting in. The other 2 guys had 10 seconds to row all 3 of us to retrieve that oar or the thrower would get a point. Perfect. If you're looking for a way to increase the lactic acid buildup in your muscles in the shortest amount of time, try this game. How none of us got smashed in the face while someone was throwing their oar like the big bearded guy threw his sword at the end of Braveheart, is beyond me.
We were zig zagging up and down that river like a fucking sailboat tacking in the wind. Halfway through the game, the rest of the rafters and canoers passed us. They smiled at us like were handicapped children competing in the Special Olympics. We waved. We knew we would catch them. They didn't realize it was a race.
12:02 PM
'Oar Toss' had met its inevitable pinnacle of satisfaction as we simultaneously reached the point in time where no one really wanted to chase after a floating oar and secondly, we felt lucky that someone wasn't applying pressure to an open head wound yet. We agreed that it was one of the greatest games ever invented. If the Biathlon can be in the winter Olympics, there's no reason that this sport can't be in the Summer Games.
12:05 PM
Snack time.
12:23 PM
The rapidly approaching not so roaring summer rapids of the Housatonic River were upon us. What better time for king of the raft?
To be fair, all three of us would start in the water equally spaced out around the raft. A couple of things kept this game from fully taking off from what we had originally anticipated. For starters, since no one's weight was actually inside the vessel, the raft was getting tossed around in the rapids like it was a bucking bronco. This made our attempts at getting any leverage whatsoever, next to impossible. If we were ever able to get a hold of the raft and hang on, the Hindenburg sized pontoon encompassing this raft didn't facilitate any respectable climbing maneuvers. It felt like trying to scale the walls of El Capitan with our bare hands. So in the beginning the game became, 'King of the side of the mountain' because no one could actually get in the boat. So we just elected to try and drown each other. The chokehold was definitely the move du jour out on the river that day. So there we were, the three of us floating through the rapids, outside of our boat, choking each other.
Every now and again the stars would align and we'd be able to get ourselves back inside the damn thing and have some fights ON the mountain. Shockingly, the floor of the raft was not designed with the rigidity of a WWE wrestling mat. It was like trying to get your footing on a greased up water bed during seismic activity. Feet, limbs, lunches and oars would flop to and fro smacking and poking us in spleens, thoraxes, and other unsuspecting places. The rope circumnavigating the side of the boat would LOVE to pull on a passing limb like a fucking arrestor cable on an aircraft carrier. Systematically you'd find your face jammed in a water filled corner of the raft while your diaphragm tried to enlighten your brain that the lungs are to not be used as gills.
1:19 PM
Ok we had to chill. I thought I had brain damage from asphyxiation, a cracked rib, 2nd degree rope burn, and my respiratory system felt like half filled water balloons.
The rapids were done. We rested for a bit and talked about all the brain cells we had just permanently lost.
2:01 PM
Is that a rope swing?!?! Fuck yeah!
There was an old Victorian style house on the side of the river. The kind of house where you imagined that the owners would not appreciate three guys dragging their raft onto the property and subsequently utilizing the rope swing in their back yard. But surely enough that is what we did. Each attempt got bigger, each run up got longer, every swing of the pendulum got higher, and each flop in the water more painful. Of course no one was wearing a lifejacket and every time we crashed in the river, we would have to swim back up river like a salmon just to get to the rope swing again.
To prove that this rope swing had never been used in the manner we were employing it to, the rope started knocking off branches, large branches as the upswings into the river got greater. Branches shattered and disassembled like they were attacked by machine gun fire. In case you skipped the class on photosynthesis and tree growth in school, large branches don't grow overnight. We were seriously fracturing branches that had been growing since the Harding administration. Not to mention the fact that these branches were hurtling on top of us after we plunged awkwardly in the river following a failed backflip dismount or some equally stupid maneuver.
The last swing of the day came from my brother. As he accelerated upwards towards the heavens, the rope 2 inches from being parallel with the river, he let go but the rope got wrapped around his leg like he was a Cirque de Soleil performer. Splintering sounds accompanied an "Oh fuck" from my brother. The branch to which the rope was attached, parted ways with the tree and the rope loosened it's twisting vice like grip on his leg. He, the rope and a branch the size of totem pole plummeted into the water simultaneously. Had that branch not parted ways with the trunk of the tree, his leg probably would have been de-hipped from his body, an occurrence which most definitely would have sucked ass. He came up for air amongst raining leaves and bark and once we got the thumbs up that he was ok, the three of us burst into laughter.
It was time to go. The property now had splintered wood everywhere, matted grass, and minus one rope swing. We got into our raft and exited the premises faster than Navy Seals.
3:34 PM
It was hot. Like, for real hot. If I had been blindfolded and someone asked me where I was, the Mekong Delta wouldn't have been too many guesses away. How had we not eaten lunch yet? By the look at our watches, we had almost been on the river for 5 hours. The end must be near. We kept our eyes peeled for the covered bridge which was in the vicinity of the end point of our voyage last time. Famished, we took out our food and the river slowed our progress to the speed of a moving glacier.
Seriously, we didn't move more than 10 feet in a minute's time. No exaggeration. Glass flows faster than we were. Sap oozing down a tree trunk would have screamed past us at an alarming pace. Finally putting food in my mouth made me stop and think about how bad I hurt. Everything hurt. I seemed to have formed new muscles just so they could ache. The chafe on my thighs and nether region must have looked like an outbreak of chicken pox. It certainly hurt as much. God the sun was intense. We really didn't talk much. I don't know what shell shock feels like but man, I bet we could have related.
We finished eating and we all had the urge to sleep, we couldn't fight it.
While the rope still acted as
4:16 PM
Maybe it was the sun's constant assault on the top of my eyelids or maybe it was 3.5 billion years of an evolving survival instinct, but I woke up. As I lay like a corpse on one length of the pontoon I opened my eyes to the sky. What was overhead took a while to comprehend but when I finally realized what was going on, I awoke my brother. 'Dude.' I pointed up. He looked. 'Holy Shit!' Above us were about 6-7 hawks, circling, not more than 30 feet overhead. Yes hawks, buzzards, those that feast on the dead and the weak. They were huge! There we were, 3 bodies lying in the middle of a motionless river. We had to have been dead. I don't blame them for their rationalization; however I DID want to live. We grabbed our oars and started waving them frantically until the entourage above us broke up and flew away, disappointed.
The three of us just looked in the eyes of each of our sun burnt selves and silently digested the fact that we were just mistaken for carcasses. We gotta get home.
Looking ahead, we saw that the covered bridge was maybe 0.25 miles away. Salvation! The end was near, maybe another 0.5 miles or so. We reacted like rescued captives from the Bataan Death March. We hugged each other and cheered and possibly even shed a tear. But elation was soon replaced with extreme fatigue as none of us could stay awake! We played Rochambeau for who would have to stay awake. The loser awaiting his sentence like it was Russian Roulette. In the end, everyone called shenanigans if they lost so we decided that we could all sleep and that they would yell for us as we were passing. Staying awake was an impossibility. Let me repeat that. We were too tired to stay awake to paddle for less than half a mile to our end point!!!
We all slept.
4:45 PM
The sleep I had was a deep sleep but then I heard something. The sound of an accelerating car followed by the sound of that same car severely DEcelerating. The skid of tires. The halting sound of an engine turning off. A door opening. Footsteps in quick succession on the pavement and then onto rocks.
'HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! What are you guys DOING?!?!?!'
The three of us awoke abruptly, trying to get our bearings as we were sprawled around every inch of the raft, out cold only a moment before. We looked to the side of the river and there was our rafting guide with his arms spread out wide. Our savior. Our messiah. Wait, this doesn't look right. His van is stopped in the middle of the road on the side of the river. With the driver's side door still opened, the only audible sound at that moment was the 'ding ding' sound a car makes when you leave the keys in the ignition and the door remains open. That is how still and silent the river was at that moment.
We looked at him in confusion like, 'What the fuck is his problem?' My brother asked the only logical, the only POSSIBLE question.
'What, did we pass it????'
'NO!!! YOU HAVE ANOTHER FIVE MI-...'
His last word got cut off from a passing car on the road so my brother asked for clarification,
'MINUTES?'
'MILES!!'
...wow...
It took us 7 hours to go 5 miles. 2 hours longer than it was supposed to take us to go 10 miles. That's 0.7 miles/hr. The trip the previous summer my brother and I did? Yup, the 5 mile one.
'AND YOU HAVE TO HURRY BECAUSE THEY SHUT OFF THE WATER AT THE DAMN AT 5:30!!'
What the fuck?!
Flashback: When we were NOT listening to our guide give us his lecture before we got in our rafts, he was telling us how the flow of water to this section of the river is halted at 5:30 PM for some reason or another. Whatever the reason was, the three of us agreed that it was asinine at this moment in time.
4:50 PM
Unhappily, we grabbed our paddles and started to row. No one said a word.
6:20 PM
We kept getting stuck on more and more rocks in the middle of this fucking river. It was absurd. Rocks would jab into our asses as we grinded over them in knee deep water. Numerous times we all had to get out of the raft and CARRY the fucking thing 50 yards down river to a spot where the water was a little deeper. At this point the chafing on my balls had me limping like Kaiser Soze. I wanted to cry.
7:02 PM
Each paddle into the river wasn't so much us whisking through the water as much as it was us planting our oars in the mud like a shovel, grabbing the top of the handle and pushing ourselves forward in that manner. Yes, this was less tiring than carrying the damn thing.
We passed a bunch of fisherman in our raft. They looked at us like we were a donkey show.
As if he was stating a fact no more evident than the color of grass, one gentleman said, 'You know that in about 1 hour there won't be any water, right?'
'So we were told…Do you know how long ago the rest of the group came through here?'
'About 5 hours.' ...
7:50 PM
Yeah it was like this but with
The sun is practically setting. Having carried our raft the last 100 yards or so because we were literally walking on dirt at this point, we found our guide sleeping in the front seat of the van. He saw us and didn't say ONE word. He got out, helped us get the raft on the roof of the van and drove us back, violently, to the lodge where our car was.
It took us 10 hours to do 10 miles. That's a mile an hour. Fuckin a.
If you're ever so inclined... http://www.clarkeoutdoors.com/ but do it in the spring time, not July. Trust me.
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