The latest adventure trip offered by Terramar Adventures in Philadelphia was a whitewater rafting trip to the Poconos. At about 12 noon we all met up at Pocono Whitewater rafting. The run rafting trips through the Lehigh River Gorge which has class I II and II rapids. The trip was about 5 hours of time on the river, a little overview of safety and what to expect, about a 20 minute school bus ride to the trail to walk down to the river and about a half mile to a mile hike down to the river. After about an hour of setup, intro and travel time we hopped in a raft and shoved of down the gorge.
It has been 20+ years since I went white water rafting and was excited to be going again with a great group of people. There were seven people in the raft, a bail bucket, a lunch bucket (minus the lunch) and of course we all had paddles and life jackets. This particular weekend was a dam release weekend which means they let a ton of water out of some dam upstream somewhere and there is enough water in the gorge to create some rapids and go rafting.
The water seemed to be lower than the last dam release trip becuase they didn’t release as much water from the dam. Despite this, there were still some great rapids but also a number of shallow spots where it was a little rough going. While going thorugh one set of rapids and getting a litle stuck, I fell out of the raft and held onto the raft as my butt and feet bounced off the rocks while we went down the river. The other people in the boat did a great job of helping me get back in the raft as I also tried to save a bunch of our paddles from floating away down the river. There was a bet going with Sarah who had been on the previous trip. If either of us fell out of the boat, it would cost the victim dinner so she got a free dinner at the BJ’s place a few miles down the road. It was a long day & I was exhausted. After watching a little Warren Miller, back at her place I went home and hit the sack. The next day was outdoor laser tag at a state park not to far away. It had been ages since I played laser tag and it was quite a struggle to get up and get to the park the next day.
