Our first landmark is Ten Mile Rock, a huge boulder that normally stands way out above the water. But with the floodwater we could only see its top. Winger pulls our boat up to the rock and tells Dan, a community college professor who is the unofficial leader of the Californians, to jump onto it for a photo. Dan’s been coming out to the river since 1965 so Winger figures a photo of him on top of this rock that’s normally inaccessible will be quite the souvenir. 

Dan jumps onto the rock to have his picture taken. And then really quick, another passenger jumps off the boat and climbs up as well, ruining the photo op.

“Lou, we just want Dan on the rock,” Winger says. That’s Dan on top in the photo above, looking down wondering why Lou is on the rock. Here’s a closer crop:

Lou just stands there oblivious. His wife starts yelling for him to get back on the boat but it’s too late; we’re drifting away. They’ll have to settle for the photo of Dan + Lou. Everyone with a camera takes one. I can just picture Dan’s office today, with his framed photograph of himself and Lou, on the top of Ten Mile Rock. 

Next up was Badger Creek Rapid. A ranger had reported that Badger was washed out and nothing to worry about. With that in mind I hopped up onto the very front of the raft ready to get right into the fun of things. I was wearing shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt and had a Nikonos underwater camera strapped to my life-jacket. Jack, a 63-year old so energetic and athletic that we started calling him Jack Lalanne, hopped onto the front tubes with me. “This should be good,” I said. Jack smiled, also excited.

As the rapid approached, I looked behind me at the others on our raft and saw one of the Californians, a 73-year-old, sitting up high in the middle of our boat holding a huge camcorder on his shoulder and filming the ride. I hoped he was holding on.

Then Badger came up and swallowed us. By the time I saw the fifteen-foot deep hole in the the water that we were racing down into, it was too late to retreat. Staring into this watery void that we were about to crash into, there was no way I could photograph anything. I simply held on for my life with both hands and all my strength. The front of the boat dove into the hole and we smashed into a wall of water. Instead of being a nice, cool splash, the freezing water slammed into me like a baseball bat.

I held on tight but the mammoth force of water knocked me all of my weight back onto my right arm, hyperextending my elbow. Pain shot through me as if bones were broken. After we cleared the rapid I looked down and the lens on my Nikonos had been ripped halfway off. My hat was saved only because I had clipped it to my life-jacket. Jack had lost his hat and glasses. At the back of the boat, I learned the elderly camcording man had fared much worse. 

As we hit the hole, he had been thrown into the air and landed on some metal boxes three feet in front of his seat. There was blood everywhere. His camcorder was ruined. When they opened it up to get the tape out, water poured from of the camera. One of the river guides patched up the man’s bloody arms with band aids. He was in pain but luckily was not seriously injured. 

We turned around to watch the raft behind us go through the rapid, expecting a great show. But the boatman easily steered around the huge hole that we had plunged into. That’s when I realized our boatman, Winger, was a kamikaze. He ran every rapid head on. And if there ever was a hippo in our way, he probably would pull a pistol and shoot it. 

After the rapid, the long float to camp was miserable. My clothes were drenched and I was cold and in pain. People kept commenting about how badly I was shivering. Being me I just stayed miserable and did nothing to fix the situation, even though dry clothes were at hand.

We pulled into camp cold and tired. The boats were unloaded and the guides handed out tents and cots. They announced there would be a demonstration on how to put up tents and assemble cots. That’s when I took notice of a loud guy I’ll call Hot Head. When we loaded up the boats this morning, he had made a big fuss because his family wasn’t all on the same boat. The real shame was that they weren’t all on their own boat, because then they would have been isolated to one boat and we wouldn’t have had to deal with them.

Hot Head had already carried cots and tents up to where his group was camping. I guess he figured he didn’t need the demo on how to set up the equipment. How hard could it be? Prince and I watched the demos and had our tents up quick. I looked over at Hot Head. He was obviously lost, unable to figure out the equipment. And he was starting to get pissed. It was enough to put a smile on my tired face. About then is when I heard what would become Hot Head’s familiar teeth-gritted catchphrase: “Damn it to hell!” 

As darkness fell, a nearly full moon rose and lit up the canyon. It was breathtaking. We ate steak and slept with the calm sound of the river passing us by.