The first shock of cold hits your toes and shoots up your spine to your brain, making you start to wonder if you'll make it through this ordeal with all your phalanges and limbs intact. By the time you are in to your knees you think that you might just escape with a sever case of hypothermia. You search your mind for possible excuses to leave: "Uh, hey guys, I just forgot, I left the iron on. I gotta go!" *dash out of the river and down the road back to your warm cabin and bed* Unfortunately, such excuses are not to be found, and peer pressure is such that you continue to wade deeper. And then you sit down on your tube and know: you are going to die. This river is SO COLD that you will be lucky if you escape with your life.
The river pulls you along as it plunges over and between huge boulders. It's not called the Boulder River for nothing. If you are lucky, you avoid falling off your tube and escape banging body parts against rocks and tree branches reaching into the water. If your are unlucky, the waters around you, just fresh from the snow packs on the mountains, will keep the wounded areas numbed until you leave their embrace.
You paddle wildly with your hands, in an attempt to avoid the scarier looking parts of the river, while at the same time trying to keep your hands out of the searingly cold water. It doesn't work very well. In spite of your best efforts you are almost certain to hit some rocks and go over some rapids that are a little intense for an inter-tube. However, if you are lucky, you may see some ducks shooting the rapids with you.
The only sounds you hear over the roar of the river are the whoops and hollers of people freezing, banging into rocks, and going over rapids. And the delighted and slightly terrified laughter: "I don't know what I was thinking, but this is awesome!"
Once your whole body is almost entirely numb, you will reach the point where you emerge from the river and sprint to the 88 degree pool. Dropping your tubes and stripping off your life jacket you leap into the life-giving warmth of the pool. Ahhhhh.
That may have just been the best part of the summer.
The river pulls you along as it plunges over and between huge boulders. It's not called the Boulder River for nothing. If you are lucky, you avoid falling off your tube and escape banging body parts against rocks and tree branches reaching into the water. If your are unlucky, the waters around you, just fresh from the snow packs on the mountains, will keep the wounded areas numbed until you leave their embrace.
You paddle wildly with your hands, in an attempt to avoid the scarier looking parts of the river, while at the same time trying to keep your hands out of the searingly cold water. It doesn't work very well. In spite of your best efforts you are almost certain to hit some rocks and go over some rapids that are a little intense for an inter-tube. However, if you are lucky, you may see some ducks shooting the rapids with you.
The only sounds you hear over the roar of the river are the whoops and hollers of people freezing, banging into rocks, and going over rapids. And the delighted and slightly terrified laughter: "I don't know what I was thinking, but this is awesome!"
Once your whole body is almost entirely numb, you will reach the point where you emerge from the river and sprint to the 88 degree pool. Dropping your tubes and stripping off your life jacket you leap into the life-giving warmth of the pool. Ahhhhh.
That may have just been the best part of the summer.
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