An Amazing Experience for the Entire Family
I booked this trip for my family to honor and celebrate my daughter's high school graduation. In addition to my daughter (18 years old) we had my son (14 years old) along with my wife and myself. My son was skeptical when first told of the trip. He said that he liked "hotels and hot tubs and pools." Within the first few hours of our journey he looked at me and said that if the trip was going to be like this he was going to have a great time.
We were on the river the entire trip. In 5 days we covered 84 miles. The scenery was amazing, my daughter grew tired of me saying how beautiful everything was. The flight to the landing point was exciting and really added a lot to the trip. It was a great ride and a lot of it was over the river we were going to go down later that week. There was some hiking but not a lot. We saw wild sheep and a mountain goat. The weather was very hot (over 100) but with the low humidity it was bearable. Of course, when things got too hot we hopped into the river and it was so refreshing.
At night we choose to sleep outside and the night skies did not disappoint. There was no moon, so we were treated to milky way views that we could not see in New York. The bugs weren't too bad, we used lots of bug spray. The camaraderie that was built over the 5 days was amazing. There was a mix of young children and teen agers and great families. We all made fast friends and had a good time.
The guides were full of energy, insight and were extremely knowledgeable. They fed us and kept us moving and seemed to really love their jobs and being with us for 5 days of rafting. The food was great and there was more than enough. Three of us are vegan and they were EXTREMELY flexible and made sure we had what we needed for our diets. I can't say enough about the guides - Taylor (the leader), Emily, Drew, Stu and Mitch. WRE's best as far as we were concerned.
The rapids were tame at first but slowly built. There were a few class III rapids on the fourth day and they were quite challenging. This river is not for the adrenaline junkies, but is more than challenging and gave my son and his new friend a lot of excitement.
We had good weather and the water temperature was warm enough. We packed too many clothes and really only used two sets - underwear, T-Shirts, shorts, etc. At night my wife wore a fleece, but that was it. Never needed pants or the rain gear. We used LOTS of sunscreen and a hat was mandatory. There were umbrellas for the rafts, but most days strong wind gusts would blow them down.
When we got home my wife and children told me that this was the best family vacation we had ever taken! We look forward to our next river adventure next summer!
