An update from students Isabel Haas and Anna Baker: The last three days, we have been rafting and kayaking down the Klamath River. Overall, the sites and the scenery were beautiful and amazing to see. We saw many birds, including a bald eagle! Instead of sleeping in tents like usual, we slept on tarps to see the night sky and star gaze. The raft instructors of River Dancers were really nice and had lots of information to share about the area around the river and the Native American tribes. We were able to go down a class 4 rapid, and although some of us flipped out of our kayaks, it was a super-fun experience! Tomorrow, we have the rock climbing/mountain biking day of our trip. Two of our instructors, John and Zach, have been talking about the biking and climbing for the whole trip, so we are extra excited. Can’t wait for what’s to come!
An update from student Ethan Thomas: On July 1, we started rafting on the Middle Klamath River in northern California. The first day we pulled into the parking lot and started fitting bright orange life vests. John, our River Dancers rafting guide, gave us paddles and we were put into rafts, duckies (inflatable kayaks), and the “mini me,” a smaller raft. I was put into a ducky and soon we were off. We paddled down the river hitting smaller rapids all day and had a great time. Once at camp, we set up our tarps and some people swam across the river to an awesome jumping rock. I jumped in the water and landed with a huge splash!
An update from student Carole Thompson: On the whitewater rafting trip, we all had a lot of fun. We were able to steer the main part of the raft when we were in smoother places. We also swam as we were going down the river. We even swam a couple rapids, which was so much fun. We rode in the main river guide’s boat, and he told us stories of past trips he has been on. When we got to our campsites, we had evening meeting and did plus/deltas. Everyone had a lot of plus’s and hardly any deltas because it was so much fun! On our last day on the river, we stopped about two miles down from where we had camped. We got out of the rafts and hiked to this beautiful waterfall where the water was cold, but well worth swimming in. When we got to it, we all jumped off a rock into the pool below and had fun swimming for about 30 minutes. We went back to our rafts and had lunch, which was delicious as usual, then we got back on the river. All together the trip was a lot of fun. If I could do it again, I wouldn’t change a thing!