Day Two – Whisked away to White water at Wisp
Arose to an overcast gray sky this morning. We had breakfast of eggs, sausage patties,
and pancakes. The eggs were not
egg-actly egg-cellent, but with enough ketchup a few hardy souls enjoyed. One of the blessings of pancakes on the wild
is that no matter how bad they are, with enough syrup they taste sort of sweet
and mapley.
After breakfast most the crew clamored for another trip to
the falls. Brothers Evans and Barrus
made the sacrifice to take them down there again. I did, however, notice a gleam in their eyes
and that they had put on their swim trunks.
Bro. Evans assured me that he was just going to maybe do a little wading
as the temperature wasn’t that warm. I
told him I’d be willing to make a rather substantial wager against that being
the case.
Those of us who remained behind were lead by Brother Casillas
in a very engaging conversation about politics, a recently completed murder
trial, and various other weighty subjects. It was enjoyable campfire talk even though the
fire circle we were gathered around contained no actual fire. The
falls group returned and reported that all scouts taken were accounted
for. And, yes, Bro. Evans had managed to
do far more than wade. Coulda been a
rich man….
We had sandwiches for lunch with some chips, a piece of
fruit and bottomless fruit punch.
Interesting how much the PB&J is consumed over lunch meat. After lunch is cleaned up, we load up into
cars to head to Wisp and the Adventure Sports Center International (ASCI). Here
is the blurb from their web page: “[T]he world’s only adjustable whitewater
sports venue that offers class I - IV whitewater in a “controlled” environment.
The 1/3 mile artificial river features authentic whitewater rapids, and is the
most natural looking and feeling course of its kind in the world. Large
boulders, excavated onsite, frame the course and shape the rapids -- this is
not a theme park ride, but we are confident that Walt Disney would have been
envious. ASCI's raft “conveyor” conveniently transports you from the finish
pond to the start pool, eliminating the traditional shuttle of natural river
rafting experiences.”
Yes! Now that
smells like High Adventure!
We arrive
early to be sure we have a chance to scope it out and maximize our time on the
water. It turns out that this is a
fairly regimented process and they have it down to a science. We will not be called till 1:30 and then we
will be done right around 3:30 or so when they will shut down the pumps and the
river will drain into the bottom pond for the night. We sit on the rocks by the river for a little
while and then the boys realize that up at the top there is a bit of the water
that is buoyed off where you can get your feet wet. It is probably less than a foot deep but some
of them lay down in it to play and have breath holding contests. Some disappointed 4 year olds are
displaced. I find a spot under the white
canopy at a picnic table and wait our turn.
Up on the big board for the 1:30 time are listed 4 Casillas groups – 3 rafts
with 5 people and one with 6. There are
at least 5-10 other raft groups that will be going out with us at 1:30 but most
of those are comprised of smaller groups.
Bro. Evans divvies up the raft groups.
At 1:30 we are called to gather around Jay, a 40-ish year old bearded
tan gentleman wearing shades, a t-shirt without sleeves, and swim trunks. Something about him reminds me of a cross between Barry Gibb
of the Bee Gees and Chuck Norris. Instead he launches into his spiel using
jokes that he has clearly used countless times before laying out how it is
going to go down. We can leave our stuff
we wish to have dry after at the drop off area and if we don’t our odds of
seeing them again are extremely long should they fall out. We then walk over the bridge and down to the
boat house where we don some very fashionable life jackets and helmets and head
out to hear Jay do some more of his spiel including a discourse on the dangers
of your oar while in the boat due to its ability to slice skin and remove teeth
from your neighbour and a cheap stuff joke about the gentlemen keeping their
legs together should they end up overboard and heading towards a rock. A few uncomfortable chuckles follow. We are taught how to tighten up our jackets
as they will be used if needed to help extricate us from the river should the
need arise. It was then finally time to
load up and move out.
I wish I
had more pictures to provide and more tales to tell from the various boats, but
I’ll be honest with you, I was there to enjoy myself far more than I was
concerned about providing this report. I
love white-water rafting. I was all
participant, but I’ll do my best to provide you a flavour of the antics of our
boat and some of those provided to me by other boats. My boat had Bro. Evans and myself, and Jacob,
Hunter, and Marcus. Our guide’s name was
Mark - he had just graduated from a satellite campus of Penn St., he was a
kayaker, and did this work and winter ski instructor to support his kayak
habit. He may have had other habits requiring
money, but those were not mentioned. The
old guys got in on the right side (think passenger side of a car) with John in
front and me behind with the YM on the left and the guide in the guide
position. We practiced some strokes and
realized that those YM were being overpowered by the old guys – probably something
about our knowledge that we are not invincible (contrary to what the YM think
or themselves) and that our lives might depend on rowing through some of those
rapids. So we had to follow Marcus’
stroke pattern so they could keep up. After this brief tutorial where we learned the
“forward”, “back”, and “rest” commands as we floated around the end pond we
paddled over to head up the conveyer belt to the top of the course.
At the
top of the course off to the right hand side is the beginning of what I
consider the course. But to the left are
two rapids where the water comes out of the pump. Our guide steers us over to those to start
out. As we are edging into the rapids headfirst
the boat swings around and out goes Hunter heels over head out of the
boat. We chuckle at his expense while we
pull him back in. This is going to be fun.
The rest of the trip down is fun as we ride the rapids. As we get to the last one that drops you down
into the pond at the bottom, the guide says something about how you can lose
the guide and he uses the catapult action of the drop to shoot himself about 3
feet into the air while doing a back flip out of the boat. Hey, we want to try that! Once he got back in we all jumped in while we
floated back around to the ramp up to the top again.
Rather
than bore you with a blow by blow of each trip, I’ll share just a few with you here, including some tales from other
boats that we heard only after the fact as we were discussing the day around
the campfire later that night. Our next trip down we wanted to shoot Marcus
out of the boat, and lets just say that at best his timing was off... there was
no launch. The third trip down we all
were to launch out of the boat when the guide gave the signal. He gave the signal and I went to jump and pretty
much just fell out of the boat. Bro.
Evans who was right in front of me was more successful in jumping which put him
out of the boat before me such that as I fell out I was able to provide him
with my body to land on. Bro. Evans and
Jacob enjoyed seeing who could catch the other off guard and tip them out of
the boat – and I believe both were successful on multiple occasions. We had some king of the raft battles after we
had turned over the raft in the bottom pond area. I couldn’t even get up onto the raft let
alone battle for king. I think Hunter
found the water most often. You had to
be very careful when you were sitting across from Marcus as his first move when
any waves would show up would be to move into the middle of the boat – leading with
the t grip of his paddle. Bro Evans and
I were both thankful for the helmets as they deflected multiple blows from
Marcus’s paddle. We surfed a number of
the waves and even had a double surf with another raft from our group for a
while. We got out and jumped off a
boulder into the flow. We attempted to
deflate other rafts from our group.
My favorite
memory, and one I hope I will remember for many years to come, was when we
swamped our raft. It was nearing the end
of the day and we went over the rapids sideways to try to swamp. The raft was tipping up but hadn’t gone over
yet. I was at the front right and Bro.
Evans on the front left. The left side
was down and we were trying to get the right side to flip over it. I remember standing up and leaning towards
the water and the center of the raft while grabbing the panic
strap to pull the boat with me. I looked
down and could see Bro. Evans on his back, looking up at me, the water rushing
just below his head as he is about to go under.
About that time Jacob grabbed his panic strap and jumped forward and the
raft flipped and we all went tumbling into the white water. I was laughing so
hard I almost swallowed a wave and drowned myself! That was a blast.
Brother
Barrus had one far less enjoyable fall from his boat. During one of the runs he was thrown
backwards off his raft but unfortunately, his foot was wedged tightly between
the side of the raft and the floor of the raft.
He was upside down in the water and he couldn’t get his foot out. He felt his knee pull out and then twist – he
thought for sure it was dislocated. And,
he couldn’t get out. He later told us
that he couldn’t be sure how long he was stuck that way, but it was long enough
that his life was flashing before his eyes and he did have a moment he wondered
if this was how it was going to end for him.
Fortunately for all of us, but particularly for him, it was not the end
of his trip here on the big blue planet and he was pulled from the water.
Too soon
our 2 hour timer ended and final runs were completed and the boats stowed. We returned our jackets and helmets and were
transformed from river gods back to mere land lubbers once again. They had photographers along the course and
monitors at the end. We spent some time
reviewing the pictures they took and then took one of our own.
We loaded
into cars and made our way around the mountain over to Wisp resort. Wisp is a ski resort during the winter, but
during the summer months they have a zip line course, a ropes course and a
mountain coaster. A mountain coaster is
similar to an Alpine Slide which I have been on before but a little more
advanced. You sit in a hard yellow
plastic moulded sled with a seat, back support and head rest with a seat belt
on. The sled is connected to the tracks
and they claim it won’t come off the tracks – even though we watched them load
a few new sleds to the track while we were there and there appeared to be no
special hardware that had to be clamped on to secure it to the track. The only controls are two poles that stick up
on the sides that are perpendicular to the sled. If they are pushed all the way forward the
brakes are off. If they are left up the
brakes are on. It was determined almost
instantly upon arrival that anyone using their brakes on the way down should
have attended camp up here last year rather than this year.
The ride up was much like riding the chair lift up the
mountain except you had a better feel for the steepness of the slope as you
were on it rather than above it. About midway
up you were released from the lift and immediately began the descent. It was a little difficult to keep the brakes
off because you had to lean forward and down while at the same time attempting
to keep the centrifical forces from slinging you around and doing permanent
damage to your kidneys. There were a few
less than silky joints in the track that were not all that pleasant but it was
a pretty fast ride down and flying through the couple 360 turns was pretty
fun. Some of the boys enjoyed it, others
thought it a little lame. I can see both
viewpoints. It isn’t worth a special
trip, but if I’m there anyway, I might do it again.
There was a little snack grill in the main building and those
who had brought their money enjoyed some poweraid and I saw quite a few orders
of french fries (and one of “chips” that looked a lot like french fries)
consumed by ravenous YM. It was clearly
time to get them back to camp for dinner.
We all loaded up and began the 30 minute trip home caravan style. Caravan style always reminds me of the song
Convoy but we had no CB radios. We were
driving along and the lead vehicle slammed on its breaks for something we
couldn’t see – I mean really, who can see anything around a Suburban. Bro. Casillas was in the second position and
was barely able to avoid John’s rear end by swerving to the right – which was unfortunately,
also where the cyclist that had started the episode had swerved off to. I’m pretty sure that provided the drivers
with far more of an adrenalin rush than the mountain coaster had managed but as
they say, no harm, no foul. The rest of
the trip home was uneventful.
We arrived at camp and began work on dinner – taco salad. Well, that was what the menu said. Instead, it appeared that most of the youth
must be lettuce intolerant and so they instead had nachos rather than salad. Isn’t there some saying about you can lead a
young man to lettuce but you can’t make him eat it? After dinner another game of volleyball took
place. At one point my team was included
3 Nates and 2 Scotts. “Nate that’s yours”
didn’t work so well…
Once again as nightfall came on us we gathered at camp for
devotional. Bro. Casillas had asked all
the boys to gather up a stone and they each had a chance to nail a Goliath forehead
(simulated by a tin can lid taped to a tree at the appropriate height) with a
wrist rocket for a crisp $20 bill. While
I think Hunter came the closest, no one was able to hit the target. We then had a discussion about David – about his
faith and courage. We talked about his
life and how he eventually made poor decisions that ruined not only his life
but his afterlife. We talked about how
faith is needed for miracles. The spirit
was really strong and I think we all enjoyed it. Not too long after he concluded, my peach cobbler
was ready and it must not have been too bad as there were no leftovers.
It was a great day with a great group of young and not so
young men. It was a day well worth the
cost, the hard bed at night, the mosquito bites, the vacation time used. This
was a day I’ll hopefully remember for a long time.
Quote overheard at dinner: “That’s not Carrie Underwood, that’s Quiet
Riot!”
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