As we left Jasper we were held up by a road closed after an avalanche. When we arrived at the river we unloaded the raft and were issued with our wetsuits and life jackets. Ron demonstrated how to get into the raft and secure yourself. He also told us what to do if we fell overboard.
The river looked wide and fast flowing as we carried the raft to the bank. I was at the front of the raft for the first part of the trip. Off we set. The trip was a 5 miles long and ranked as class 2 so not too difficult.
Ron told us that following the hot weather the river was running higher and faster than normal. He estimated that the river was running at 10 kept. The journey time would be 50 minutes, whereas a couple of weeks earlier it would have taken 75 minutes. During the journey the cloud cover reduced and we were in sunshine for most of the trip.
Off we set. Ron explained that he would ask us to row to that we would move faster than the water so that he could steer the raft. Our first set of rapids were not too big but it did leave our feet rather wet. We didn’t paddle all the time and during the rests Ron told the history of the area and pointed out the flora, fauna and geology we were passing.
The next two sets of rapids were hard and at times the raft shop upwards leaving me with no water to put the paddle in. Waves splashed over us.
Eddie, the driver, had taken the bus further up the river and as we rounded the bend he was there taking a few shots of us struggling against the waves.
Just after this the two of us at the front exchanged places with those in the second seats.
Ron then announced we were about to arrive at the last chance to be swept overboard, and up ahead we saw the tell tale white horses. We paddled like made so that Ron could steer us into the middle of the rapids. We were lifted up and throw down over and over again. Screams of laughter and excitement could be heard.
There was one last rough patch as we went under the bridge and we were told to paddle like made to Ron could steer to the landing area. We failed to make the first inlet and had to settle for the second one. The raft following us up failed even that and ended up about 30 metres further down river.
By the time we had got changed and been driven back to the pick up point the pictures had been burned onto a CD ready for us to take away. We drove back to the cabin had a snack and relaxed. I put the wet underclothes on the back on the car to dry in the sunlight.
After our rest I suggested a trip out along the highway eastwards towards Hinton. So off we set. After about 10 kilometres we passed the entrance gate. The scenery was slowly getting flatter and no t looking too interesting so we turned round. We saw a sign for Wild Horse Lake, 5 km, so we turned off, straight onto a dirt track, a very rocky dirt track. We gave up after 2 km and turned round as the dust was getting too much.We joined the queue waiting go through the Park Entrance. When we got to the front we were asked how long we are staying and then discovered there is a $20 per day charge for staying in the park. Thanks to the ambulance a couple of days we had saved $40 plus tax.
I wanted to take some photos of the mountains so we droved passed Pocahontas and back towards Jasper. We stopped to take photos of some mountain goats that were climbing on the rocks at the side of the road. As I walked back to the car I noticed that my shirt was hanging from the rear windscreen wipers and suddenly realised that I hadn’t taken the clothes off the back of the car. God knows where they were. Rita made sure she reminded me that I was as bad as my Dad, who had driven off with a cake still on the car roof some 40 years earlier.
We are now back in the cabin packing for our journey to Cochrane tomorrow. We will be stopping off on the Ice Fields on the way.
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