Day 48 - Revelstoke - Golden

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After everyone got up, there was no real rush to breakfast then pack up and go. Breakfast was being served for us. And it was all-you-can-eat pancakes!
We all made our way up the trail to the main office building, and took our seats on the first two picnic tables whilst our order was placed by Todd, and waited for it to come. To pass the time, we tried to point out the other KOA’s we had stayed at on the KOA site maps that were acting as tablecloths. Needless to say we weren’t that successful, but that disappointment was soon replaced when the first batch of pancakes turned up. Accompanied by some sweet maple syrup they were delicious – in my case at least! So much so that I had 5 pancakes in all.

After breakfast and making sure we were all loaded up, but not before some of us changed into our swimwear underneath, we left the KOA behind and finally made it back onto the highway for the short journey to Golden, where we first headed to our next campsite, to discover we were sharing a rather large opening in between woodland with a small tented community on one side and a wagon train circle, which I’m pretty sure was not in use and more for show than anything. The small community was over 100 people strong with at least half that many ridge tents as well, or as I know them, Nigers. They were exactly like the ridge tents we have used back at home on previous Cub Camps. Several thousand miles apart, two small worlds seemed to have been joined up for a day or so. Incredible!
Towards the bottom of the opening was our site, and we ditched the trailer as well as Annabel, Sarah and Sumi, and Todd took us to a place nearby where we were going rafting in the Kicking Horse River.
After we checked in at the very small reception office, our school bus soon pulled up and we climbed aboard and were joined by another group, before we were whisked off along the highway, the Trans-Canada Highway, further along the cliff route, traversing the river flowing far below. When I say flowing, I actually mean raging. And it didn't help that the weather was far from overcast.
As we gradually made it up the climb and along the Trans-Canada, we were told the story behind the name of the river. James Hector, who was charged with finding a route for the Canadian Pacific Railroad, was knocked off and then kicked in the head, and was left for dead by the rest of the search party. Somehow he survived and eventually completed his mission.
As you can imagine the 4 tour guides who accompanied us on the bus had a right laugh at each other, and looked to ease any fears of what was about to happen quite easily. I was even used as a demonstration on how to put our life jackets on properly.

When our bus finally made its destination at the start of the rafting somewhere along the river, we were soon encouraged to suit up in the appropriate wetsuits and helmet.
There were no huts or rooms to change in, just everyone getting undressed and into the wetsuits all in the open next to each other right by the rapids.
When we were finally all dressed in our suits, we joined the rest of the 80 strong group of rafters and guides around the rafts and were taken through our safety instructions. Despite a few jokes thrown in, it was all done in seriousness and all of it was taken in by me. The last thing I wanted was to fall out of a raft and go under. I don’t even like going underwater in the bath!
When the instructions were finally finished the groups were sorted out. There were 9 rafts in all, with Trek getting one to itself. Sadly Steve, Joanna, Kristina and I were not included and we were joined on our own raft by another group of 4, all women, a mum, 2 daughters and a visiting friend from France or somewhere.
All 9 rafts were rubber dingy rafts, except 2 that were 2 hulled catamarans, which the 4 of us had. We took up the left side of our craft, with yours truly at the front, and Steve, Joanna and Kristina behind me in that order. Our tour guide was on a mounted seat in the middle at the back, and had two large oars in which to control our direction and rowing generally.

Once we were pushed off the bank into the heavily flowing river, we were throwing straight into our experience. We were told that the river was flowing more rapid a little further down the river, which we would soon be coming up to.
As we started paddling along the river, our guide introduced us to 2 manoeuvres that we would need to use when coming into the rapids. As I was at the front, along with the girl at the front on the right, we were told that we would be setting the pace and rhythm in which we would be paddling.
All of a sudden the tour guide yells “forward” and we all got down and started paddling as fast as we could, not getting in any sort of rhythm. The command was yelled again and again, unless he called “back” when we would go in reverse.
Very quickly the rapids started and there was definitely no turning back now. The constant commands of “forward” were given and the rhythm still wasn’t there, but enough was done in each burst. One of the manoeuvres was called ‘downslide’ in which I had to lean over the side of the hull, putting my oar under water and grabbing it again as we couldn’t ride the waves and the impact of a spot of water that threw us upwards more than forwards. I’m not the best fan of water, but was doing ok at that moment. I basically had no choice if I wasn’t.

Slowly but surely we were getting into a rhythm with our paddling, after another pep talk from the guide to us leaders at the front, and we were now making our way through the 4 miles or so. At one point we passed an old ferrying line wire just above the river, which was used for ferrying supplies and equipment above the river from mountainside to mountainside. It was now in a derelict way with the majority of the cage smashed up.
At one point the rafts all stopped as we met up with the others and Steve and Joanna had a quick dip in the water. Have I mentioned just how cold it was by the way? Freezing didn’t even begin to describe it. With every ‘down slide’ a ton of water was thrown over us, mainly me and the other front runner, and despite our suites and jackets fully done up tight, a quart of that ton fell down the neck line and down our fronts, just giving us a slight reminder that we were not going to stay fully dry underneath.

The rafts set of once more, and we were soon caught on camera by the resident photographer who had driven back down the Highway we came up earlier stopping at perfect spots to snap us.
Eventually we reached the 4 mile mark and we were pulled over and up a bank and our rafting experience was over. But boy was it fun! In fact fun was the wrong word. More like exhilarating. It suddenly woke you up and got the senses going, especially on that particular cold day, with the clouds threatening rain.
Once we climbed off our raft, I made my way with the others to our bus to get our clothes and headed to a small tented area to get change, before heading back onto the bus for the ride home.
On the ride back, the rain slowly came, and by the time we touched base again, it was more than a light downpour, more of a heavy rain. Everyone seemed to run off the buses to cover, but me and a couple of others weren’t that bothered by the rain considering what we had just experienced. Todd had not turned up yet, so we were all waiting in the reception office, where we all purchased a souvenir top and as a Group a CD of the photos taken on our trip.

When Todd did arrive, he told us that we had Sarah to thank for putting all our tents up whilst we had been away, but before we headed back to camp, we stopped of at a nearby restaurant for a spot of cooked meal for lunch, much to Todd’s slight disapproval. He thought that we should be with the other 3 who didn’t come or at least considered them as we were thinking of eating out.

After lunch, we finally headed back to camp, to discover all our tents put up almost perfectly in a slight horseshoe. After taking our stuff into our tents, we were forced to seek further cover inside, as the rain returned. For the first time this entire Tour, Mark set up space in my tent as backup in case of the weather at night.
When we disappeared Group B headed to the nearby wooden structure for cooking of dinner, accompanied by Mark. Right by the structure was two toilets currently in the process of construction, but in full use yet. So when I made the trek up the slope to the toilet, I ended up staying and watching on as Steve was cooking his meat, and the others were preparing the rest of dinner. Oh and having a couple of beers at the same time. Already we were a little tipsy as we were having a right laugh, putting members of the nearby tented community off, making them all walk away eventually. Perfect, more room – and chairs – for us all to eat dinner!

After dinner, and as the sun had disappeared behind the heavy clouds first then the nearby mountain ridges, we all headed down to our site, and I started another fire for us. I was struggling with this one though, mainly because the whole area and wood was soaked, so much so that we got the fire starter liquid out and dosed the fire several times.
Eventually the fire was going, but as we were all having a drinking evening, Todd finally appeared absolutely steaming drunk, and grabbed the bottle of fire liquid, before standing right above the fire on a tree trunk chopping block and pouring lots and lots of the stuff on the fire, so much so, that I feared the fire would quickly jump up the stream of liquid to the bottle and Todd’s hands. Thankfully it didn’t but Todd never showed any fear whatsoever.

Eventually we all turned in for bed, with Sarah and Mark the only ones staying out, despite the talk of bears nearby. Sarah had even gone as far as setting her hammock, which she got in Seattle, in the wood nearby. Mark had taken one of the usual picnic tables on our site.

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