Monday, October 15, 2007
So Fall break was spent at ACE Adventure Center, West Virgina, for a weekend of whitewater rafting, camping, and all round all male testosterone together with Zhengyan, Martin, and Kendrew.
Trivia: apparently, the Upper Gauley we navigated is ranked the 7th most dangerous river to navigate in the world, and 2nd in the United States.
Friday:
We arrive at ACE after 8 hours of driving, exhausted, and collapse into one of these:
Its more comfortable than it looks. They actually have beds with pillows inside the tents, but it was freezing (literally close to 0 degrees) at night so I slept in my sleeping bag anyway.
Saturday:
We conquered the Lower Gauley with our really cool guide Ken, who did all these crazy stunts with our raft, like making 2 people sit backwards, or rowing with our eyes closed.. it was freakin amazing. So whitewater rafting involves going through a whole stretch of river which is flat in some parts and punctuated with these spots of reallyreally fun rapids with funny names, like "Fuzzy Box of Kittens" and "Woods Fairy", which are deceptively cute till you actually encounter them and they threaten to capsize your boat or pull you into the water.
And there was one point when we actually DID fall into the water. Happened at Hippo Falls when our raft banked sharply up towards the right, causing martin and i to collide against zhengyan and kendrew and sending all 4 of us tumbling into the swirling water, with Ken giggling away at how dumb we looked.
We spent the night camping by the riverside of the lower gauley together with 3 cops who told us amazing stories about their professions. Our guides Ken and Jay cooked an amazing dinner of steak, which was so much better than the shit I got for restaurant week:
We then spent the rest of night chilling by the campfire, guzzling cheap american beer and soda, telling stories of girls, cop adventures, crazy things to eat, and looking at the brilliant night sky lit up with billions of stars. I saw like 3 shooting stars that night. Amazing.
Sunday:
We conquered the dreaded Upper Gauley with its Class 4 and 5 rapids, and the notorious Sweets Falls, with an inevitable 18 foot drop, and a narrow "sweet spot" gap you have to navigate through to avoid being capsized. Loved having lunch by the falls and watching other boats being capsized and taco-ed. haha.
We celebrated the end of the trip by splurging on an unnecessarily luxurious cabin for the night and cooking our very own steak/hotdog/fries/breaded fish dinner. And the kicker: a HOT TUB, under the stars. 4 guys, 2 bottles of wine, a 6-pack of beer, and uninhibited talk about the pretty girls. hahahahaha.
Adventure, alcohol, and azure waters behind the campfire.. I love it, I love it.
he rocked the party at 9:39 PM |
