My first trip of the summer of 2002 brought me down south to go white water rafting with eight fourteen and fifteen year old boys. I did not do it alone, nor could I have without the help of my co-leader Dani (Danielle). This trip tested us physically and mentally as we travelled through time and space riding waves and vans.
We all suffered through two eight hour days to get down to North Carolina from Frist Valley YMCA. The boys nearly lost their sanity after long hours of driving. We had to do some group work to hold them all together as the tested our weknesses. This group needed a lot of special attention in the transition from the "real" world to our small trip community. There were some times when it was give and take, but in the end we made it to the river on time, which I knew would bind us more than anything.
We rafted four rivers down south accross North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia: The French Broad, The Nantahala, The Ocoee, and The Chattooga. We had the Nantahal Outdoor Center as our outfitters for the entire trip, and I am happy that we did (except for the mean lady on the phone). The first three rivers were fun, they started off relatively easy and got progressively harder as we went, and would have been great for the average person, but for the adrenaline junkies that I was with, it caused unrest. Every day after we got off the river it was, "when are we doing some bigger rapids? How big is the next river?" Thankfully the Chattooga section four was all that people said that it would be: big.
On the Chattooga we went over this one rapid called seven foot falls, for obvious reasons, and all dump trucked out (that is when everyone falls out of the boat). Even the guide came out of the boat, which made me feel better for it. We navigated successfully down all the rest of the rapids after this initial large shock. The next large group of rapids were a series of five falls, one of which is so technical that they don't even take people over it. These rapids were so built up by our gides that my gung-ho boys finally showed a bit of hesitation before lunging over white water. After all that exhileration we had the lovely pleasure of waking up at five am so that we could drive nineteen hours back to NY.
In the end I asked the kids if they had a good time, and they said yes. So, although tyring at times, this trip must have been a success, at least everyone made it back, we rafted all the rivers, and we all learned a heck of a lot about human nature.
This is Christophe signing off. Be well and live fully.
