EMSC
Well-known member
I have to say, it’s been a very fun summer so far. Especially when compared to the 80-90 hour work weeks I was doing the past 2 summers :evil: . I hadn’t quite realized how bad it had gotten until I now have my weekends and evenings back again.
Although I have to say I feel like I’ve been getting “scooped” on my summer activities. First by Salida hitting the Snowy Range only one week prior to my camping trip up that way and then by Admin getting in some whitewater rafting exactly one week prior to a planned trip of my own…
My wife’s entire office and spouses were invited to a day (Friday) of free whitewater rafting on the Arkansas river as their summer ‘picnic’/teambuilding. It’s a 2.5 hour drive to Canon City where the trip departed which meant an early wake up call and departure. A relatively tame ride on the first day (mostly IIs and III’s). In fact, the first half day was pretty much a snoozer, though much better than sitting at work on a Friday! With some more frequent and bigger rapids in the afternoon session, including some ‘surfing’ of a wave a couple of times.
Our particular raft was ½ my wife’s work group and ½ a 4 person family with older kids (3 rafts total in our outfitters grouping). Over the course of the trip we only managed to lose one of the kids into the river for about a minute - ironically immediately after the commercial photographers shooting spot. Our guide was a young 22 yr old with 4 years of running the river already and he did a very good and professional job with everything (local college kid) while keeping it entertaining and fun. So good, that my wife and I signed up for the ‘real’ trip of running the Royal Gorge section for the next day and requested him as our guide. Quite impromptu as we had planned to drive home that night and instead found our just-in-case clothing we brought put to good use.
After the day’s rafting, we all went up to the bosses not-quite-finished hunting cabin (I was surprised to see that it actually was a rather small cabin, not a mansion stuck in the woods) which is part of a 9,000 acre ranch (now subdivided into 100acre+ parcels of course); about 25-30 miles out from Canon City; about half paved and half dirt roads to get there. A very desert climate in Canon City, and only partially mitigated by the distance and elevation to the ranch area.
The most fun part being the ‘idiot light’ for needing gas coming on as we were cresting the last hill on the way out into the middle of nowhere… #-o Good thing it was mostly down hill on the way back [-o< ! We made it OK and found a reasonable motel for the night down in Canon City.
The next morning we drove up to the Royal Gorge bridge area prior to rafting underneath it later.
The bridge is the highest in the world at 1,053 feet above the river. The whole thing is an amusement park so we didn’t bother to pay to get into the park (they have a funicular/rail that drops all the way into the gorge, other rides, old west looking stuff, etc…).
A lot more frequent and bigger rapids for sure in the gorge itself. Though the river was at moderate levels of 1,700 cfs (with max allowed flow for going rafting at 3,200 cfs). The water was cool but not all that bad. Our outfitter had 6 boats in the group for the day (including 3 boats with a religious group where all the men had button up plaid shirts on and the females were all wearing full length denim skirts – and they were freezing of course by the end in cold soaking wet cotton. But I digress).
We stopped at one point and jumped into a deep eddy, watched the train that runs through the canyon and had a helicopter tour doing stunts and buzzing 20 feet off the river. A great way to spend a 99 degree day.
Finally topping our 3 day weekend off with a long, hot day at the Mile High Music Festival. Ok, we showed up a bit late being tired from the first two days of fun coupled with a Sunday morning mtn bike ride. But we did get to see part of Flogging Molly (good energy, but heard one song & you’ve pretty much heard them all IMO), part of Rodrigo Y Gabriella (does not translate very well to a huge festival – small venue would be a lot better), all of John Mayer (did some decent covers of other groups songs in his ‘2‘sets), and all 2 ¾ hrs of David Matthews (great, great jam band of course; though he should stick to the music as he is a poor talker during the show).
So tired after all of that. And ready to do it all over again soon ;-)
Hope everyone else had a great weekend too.
Although I have to say I feel like I’ve been getting “scooped” on my summer activities. First by Salida hitting the Snowy Range only one week prior to my camping trip up that way and then by Admin getting in some whitewater rafting exactly one week prior to a planned trip of my own…
My wife’s entire office and spouses were invited to a day (Friday) of free whitewater rafting on the Arkansas river as their summer ‘picnic’/teambuilding. It’s a 2.5 hour drive to Canon City where the trip departed which meant an early wake up call and departure. A relatively tame ride on the first day (mostly IIs and III’s). In fact, the first half day was pretty much a snoozer, though much better than sitting at work on a Friday! With some more frequent and bigger rapids in the afternoon session, including some ‘surfing’ of a wave a couple of times.
Our particular raft was ½ my wife’s work group and ½ a 4 person family with older kids (3 rafts total in our outfitters grouping). Over the course of the trip we only managed to lose one of the kids into the river for about a minute - ironically immediately after the commercial photographers shooting spot. Our guide was a young 22 yr old with 4 years of running the river already and he did a very good and professional job with everything (local college kid) while keeping it entertaining and fun. So good, that my wife and I signed up for the ‘real’ trip of running the Royal Gorge section for the next day and requested him as our guide. Quite impromptu as we had planned to drive home that night and instead found our just-in-case clothing we brought put to good use.
After the day’s rafting, we all went up to the bosses not-quite-finished hunting cabin (I was surprised to see that it actually was a rather small cabin, not a mansion stuck in the woods) which is part of a 9,000 acre ranch (now subdivided into 100acre+ parcels of course); about 25-30 miles out from Canon City; about half paved and half dirt roads to get there. A very desert climate in Canon City, and only partially mitigated by the distance and elevation to the ranch area.
The most fun part being the ‘idiot light’ for needing gas coming on as we were cresting the last hill on the way out into the middle of nowhere… #-o Good thing it was mostly down hill on the way back [-o< ! We made it OK and found a reasonable motel for the night down in Canon City.
The next morning we drove up to the Royal Gorge bridge area prior to rafting underneath it later.
The bridge is the highest in the world at 1,053 feet above the river. The whole thing is an amusement park so we didn’t bother to pay to get into the park (they have a funicular/rail that drops all the way into the gorge, other rides, old west looking stuff, etc…).
A lot more frequent and bigger rapids for sure in the gorge itself. Though the river was at moderate levels of 1,700 cfs (with max allowed flow for going rafting at 3,200 cfs). The water was cool but not all that bad. Our outfitter had 6 boats in the group for the day (including 3 boats with a religious group where all the men had button up plaid shirts on and the females were all wearing full length denim skirts – and they were freezing of course by the end in cold soaking wet cotton. But I digress).
We stopped at one point and jumped into a deep eddy, watched the train that runs through the canyon and had a helicopter tour doing stunts and buzzing 20 feet off the river. A great way to spend a 99 degree day.
Finally topping our 3 day weekend off with a long, hot day at the Mile High Music Festival. Ok, we showed up a bit late being tired from the first two days of fun coupled with a Sunday morning mtn bike ride. But we did get to see part of Flogging Molly (good energy, but heard one song & you’ve pretty much heard them all IMO), part of Rodrigo Y Gabriella (does not translate very well to a huge festival – small venue would be a lot better), all of John Mayer (did some decent covers of other groups songs in his ‘2‘sets), and all 2 ¾ hrs of David Matthews (great, great jam band of course; though he should stick to the music as he is a poor talker during the show).
So tired after all of that. And ready to do it all over again soon ;-)
Hope everyone else had a great weekend too.
