DAY 14 - White Water Rafting!!
We got up this morning at 6:30am, packed up our site and headed onwards out of Banff National Park. Banff was absolutely beautiful with a cute little town - but honestly it was far too busy/touristy for our style. With the overcrowding everywhere and crazy hype up, it takes away from the true phenomenon of this stunning place. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there, but were definitely ready to continue the adventure!
We headed back onto the TransCanada highway, arriving at Yoho National Park. We popped in at a first come first serve campground (Kicking Horse Campground) and were lucky enough to snag a spot for the night. I've got to say, growing up camping and learning the tricks of getting a better or non-reservable site has helped us an insane amount on this trip already. Now that we had a site reserved, we made our way to Alpine Rafting in Golden BC where we began our white water rafting adventure!
We arrived at 9:30am, signed our waivers and suited up. Full wetsuits, booties, splash jackets, life jackets and helmets were provided. Everything was a little moist and a little stinky still, but it was all part of the experience right? After we were all suited up we loaded up on a bus and headed to our starting point on the Kicking Horse River. The river got it's name in 1858 when a famous explorer was kicked by a packhorse - very literal 😂 It was also Canada's first transcontinental railway, and arguably some of the best rapids in the West coast.
Arriving at the top of Kicking Horse River ready to go, we grabbed our paddles and couldn't help but laugh that every single guide had hair past their shoulders (some dreadlocks, some just gorgeous locks). Guess the saying is true "long hair, don't care". After getting the quick peptalk about how not to drown, we hopped in with our guide Bill. Bill was a dreadlock guy, not a locks kinda guy. He was an extremely cool dude that used to teach in the Ottawa River rapids but had the opportunity to move to BC so why the hell not? On our raft of 8 we had a set of Aussies, set of dutchies from the Nederlands, a father and son and of course us. Me being the adrenaline junkie I am, convinced Melinda to sit on the very front of the boat so we'd have the best chance of getting wet/falling out hahaha (spoiler alert we didn't fall out 😔). After Bill explained the techniques which were; forward, hard forward, back, hang on, and GET DOWN we were ready to tackle the first rapid called "alarm clock". What a wake-up call that was. Not even two minutes into the trip and we were head first into the rapids getting completely drenched. It was at this point that I no longer cared that they smelled like the clothes you leave in a bag for a week after the beach, and just appreciated that we had something on to keep us relatively warm and dry. After passing through alarm clock (which was a very easy class 3 rapid), we basically coasted down the river until we made it to a landing for lunch. The reason it wasn't too intense before lunch was because they had a family tour as well and focus on the basic commands. After lunch is when it really gets fun. For lunch I had the salmon with some Caesar salad and roasted potatoe wedges, and Melinda had the same except steak instead of salmon. Sitting down next to the Aussie couple who were in their mid 50's, we decided to get to know them a little better. We told them how we would love to go to Australia but everything there kills you, to which they replied "nah you should be more scared of bears". Lol whatever you say. As they told us how they love Vegemite we told them how they should switch and just eat all dressed chips! Which took a lot of explaining as to what all dressed chips were.
After lunch we climbed back into the raft, this time sitting second from the front, and let the dutchies take the lead... BIG mistake. It's clear they've only ever ridden their bikes and never hoped in the canoe because they could not paddle to save their own lives. Fearing for what lay ahead, Bill told us we were about to hit "portage shotgun".. a hard class 4 rapid... And to go hard forward. All I could think of at that moment while his dreads flew through the air, was that he was our rafting Captain Jack Sparrow, and I could trust that. We crashed into the first two rapids extremely hard, nearly throwing me out of the raft before coming to a complete stop. Our raft ended up getting hungup on a rock and as the other 4 rafts passed us, our Captain Jack had a sheer look of panic on his face. I immediately headed into the front part of the raft and jumped up and down and as Captain Jack saw this he told everyone to do so and we ''shotgunned' through the rest of the rapids. It was awesome. It truly doesn't get more Canadian than going through glacier fed rapids in a raft through the Rockies. Making it past the hardest part of the run, we switched positions on the raft before hitting the class 3's and easy class 4's. Screaming hard forward and hang on, Bill led us through the rapids with ease and made it an incredible experience for everyone. Making it to the end we had the chance to jump out into the Kicking Horse River, and without hesitation everyone jumped into the icy cold water. It was amazing floating down the river next to the raft but then Bill had to pick all of us up into the raft. Now I'm a thick dude, but Bill, he wasn't so much. He gave a good hull on my life jacket and I got about half way into the raft and had to crawl the last little bit which was not so easy soaking wet. All amped up I went straight for Melinda to pull her into the raft. As I counted to 3, I pulled with all my might and nearly threw both of us off the other side off the raft! It was amazing. So much so we couldn't even sit back up because we were laughing too hard. We made it ashore and helped load everything up before jumping on the bus and heading back to the center where we got picked up. Ripping off our wetsuits and drying off, we changed and decided to have a little snack before heading back to camp. Opening up our bucket of dry food, there lay on top.. All dressed chips. I completely forget we bought them the other day in Banff. They were very tempting to dig into, but looking over my left shoulder was our new Aussie friends. It wouldn't have felt right if we didn't give them a parting gift, I mean we could've died in that raft together. We handed over our prized bag of chips, settled for a cliff bar, and went back to camp. Once arriving to the campground, we quickly threw our tent up and showered in Yoho National Park. We got dressed and went for dinner with my aunt and uncle in Golden B.C. We went to The Bears Den Burger and Bar for some excellent burgers and beer where we met up with my family. It was such an incredible evening catching up and seeing a familiar face so far from home. After taking us out for dinner and giving us a parting gift, we grabbed a photo infront of the bear said our goodbyes and headed back to camp. I can't stop saying how incredible this trip has been so far and how great the first two weeks have been. Looking forward to seeing what Jasper has in store for us this week!
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