Rafting the New

In Summer 2004 my husband and I went to Pennsylvania and West Virginia for vacation. On our last day before heading back home we went white water rafting on the Lower New river and had a great time. Before this we had only gone rafting on the Ocoee, which is fun, but not as wild as the New.

The company we went with was Rivers Resort. While I'm sure most companies offer a similar experience, that is the one we went with and the guides were very good. This is very physical, but also very fun. You should be a confident swimmer, but you will of course have a life jacket. The river offers from class II - V rapids, and they are mostly one after another, which is what makes it so difficult. The highlights of the ride were stopping to jump off a tall boulder into the water, and flipping the raft, more or less on purpose. Let me explain: after going over a particular rapid, all the rafts pull over to the side and wait their turn to "surf" the rapid. You come at the rapid from the side, and then paddle like crazy to get into the current between where the water goes down and the white water churns up. When you get there you can stop paddling and stay in the middle of the current. After a few moments the current spits you out, and sometimes that involves flipping the raft. So, we did this twice, pretty good, no flips, and were laughing at all the people who had flipped, but then karma kicked in I suppose. It flipped our raft, and I did bump my temple on a rock, despite my helmet. When I resurfaced it took me a while to realize I needed to swim to the side if I didn't want to go downstream alone. I swam sideways, until I was in the current that circles back up into the rapid. This is where all the rafts are floating and waiting for their turn. Well, the rules are supposed to be, if some one's in the water, pull them out, even if they're not with your group/guide company. so I get sucked up to the first raft and I'm like "hi" and they just look at me blankly and don't help me. At this point, I can feel my legs being pulled under the raft, and I really do not want to go under, because on the other side of them is another raft, and another, and another... I wouldn't be able to get back to the top... so I push off from them and try to make it to one of the Rivers rafts which, after being squished a little between some other rafts waiting for their turn, I finally manage to do. We get reorganized, I get back in a raft with my husband (who has lost his paddle) and the others from our raft, and we're on our way again.

Thankfully, we stopped shortly after that for a riverside meal, and we were all able to compare our scrapes and bruises. The meal consisted of sandwiches you make your self from huge piles of deli meat/cheese and etc., chips, and some Oreo Refrigerate-to-make type desert. By the way, pieces of cheese are really hard to separate with a plastic spork. After the end of the ride, we went back to the saloon which is run by Rivers at their campsite. Everyone was given two free drinks, and we all watched the video, which had been shot along the way, on a big screen. So, of course, we bought the video for maybe a little too much, but how could we resist? Recorded on the video, in all it's splendid glory, is our flip. I'm proud of my husband because instead of going into the water in a jumble like the rest of us, he held on to the top of the raft until the very last. The drinks after were nice bonus, even though I was limited to soda, it being a few months before my 21st birthday.

This is definitely worth doing if you like rafting, but this probably shouldn't be your first trip. The upper New is milder. The Ocoee, in South East Tennessee is good, and I'm sure there are many others.

Some advice: make sure you bring extra clothes, and make sure you eat a good breakfast. I'll give this an A, and I'd do it again, brain damage and all.