On a Thursday morning we all met at the Virginia G. Piper Sports & Fitness Center (Spofit for short--Spofit is an awesome fitness center for people with disabilities). We all packed our dry bags, made sure we had everything we needed, teens said goodbye to their families, and we all climbed onto a big bus to take us to Flagstaff. We stopped in Flag for lunch and to pick up one of our river guides, then continued on the road for 3-4 more hours before arriving at our first campsite in Utah and meeting the rest of our guides (6 all together). That night we had dinner prepared for us by the guides and staked our claim on campsites. Every campsite is divided into boys camp and girls camp, and on this trip we never once set up a tent! Each of us get a sleep-kit with a sleeping bag, tarp, little air mattress, and a sheet. The teens all lay their tarps out of the ground and sleep right on that. Most of the adults use a cot (definitely easier on our old bones than the ground...and for people like me, a little distance between me and the creepy crawlers really eases the mind.). I remember on the last trip I was super freaked out and uncomfortable about this but did it anyway and by the end of the trip loved it. This time I was able to start out only mildly uncomfortable on night one, but this was eased simply by looking at the sky. Would you believe I saw 10 shooting stars on the first night?! It was pretty amazing.
The next morning we're awakened by a guide yelling "COFFEE or HOT CHOCOLATE." This is our alarm clock, if you weren't already awake from the morning sun. Then it's time to change, get 'cleaned up' (which I use the term pretty loosely), pack up your own stuff, and then as a group pack up the entire campsite. We make a bag line to pass everything on and off the boats at each site, which really makes it light work all around. Which is great because there is so much equipment needed for 33 people total to raft and camp for 4-5 days! On this first morning we took a short hike to see some petroglyphs, which is always so cool to see. Then we headed to the boats... Each morning we are assigned to different boats so you have chances to meet and spend time with different people and try out each type of boat. We have 5 oar boats which carry equipment and that a guide is in control of, plus 3-4 passengers, except for 1 boat which just carries equipment and in my experience is always run by a kind of guide in training--they are still learning and can't take passengers yet. Then we also have a paddle boat which has a guide and 6 passengers. On the paddle boat everyone obviously has a paddle and takes direction from the guide on when and how to paddle. Finally, we have 3 kayaks, or what they call "duckies" that each hold 2 people. From this point it's just cruising down the river until we stop for lunch. I'm having a hard time remembering where we stopped for lunch this day, but there's always time for swimming and playing in the water whenever we stop, and I believe we took a short hike to more petroglyphs. After lunch it's back to the same boats until we stop for our final campsite of the day. When we arrive to camp we break out the bag line to unload. The guides set up the "kitchen" and we all lay our claim...the rest of the night is swimming, playing, talking, and eating before making our way to bed. I slept like a rock this night until early morning (my best guess is around 3 a.m? No watches on this trip) when I woke up to the moon, feeling like someone was shining a flashlight in my face, followed by hearing a pack of coyotes howling! It was pretty cool...even if coyotes are some of the creepiest sounding animals!
That morning after breakfast and packing up the boats we went for a hike to some native ruins. I will never tire of seeing these ruins and petroglyphs. It's so cool to see how and where people used to live and try to decode the messages left behind. After our hike, which was a longer and pretty hot one, we swim a bit to cool down before hopping on the boats. On this day we would encounter our first rapids, one of which is called "4 foot." The rapids that are named by a number get their name by how many feet the river bottom descends over the span of the rapid. Side note- the San Juan River is a pretty tame river. Most of the time you're floating along, and when you do come upon rapids they are generally class 2, and it's a pretty muddy river. Last time I went I remember being surprised at it's color (light brown), and this time it was even worse because of monsoonal rains in Colorado, which is where the water comes from. It felt like swimming and floating in chocolate milk, which I actually really liked (no need to worry about green water and what may be lurking...if I can't see anything then I can pretend nothing is in there..hah) So, after we went through '4 foot' we pulled over to play. You can climb out into the rapid and let go to let the rapid carry you down stream, pretty fun! It's always pretty excellent to sit in the river and just play in the mud and sand... I am a mud puppy! After we played for awhile we hopped back in our boats (oh, I was on a paddle boat this day) to head to camp. Our camp on this night was so cool. We were in the canyon so we were surrounded by canyon walls and girls camp was on top of some giant rocks right next to a rapid. We could hear the water clearly all night. I saw the coolest shooting star of the trip that night! Oh, and on this night, the guides took a night off from making dinner and the sidekicks did the cooking. We all brought masquerade type masks to wear while serving dinner as a surprise for the kids, and the guides had a chance to kick it with the teens.
The next day I was on an oar boat again with a guide I met on my last trip in 2009. Now that everyone was pretty used to the river and what to expect the guides let the teens play around with manning the oar boats. On this day we went to another cool campsite to play called the Ledge (we didn't camp there this time, but we did on my last trip). It's called Ledge because there is a ledge in the rocks on the opposite side where you can catch a rapid and swim to the ledge. The guides also did a slip and slide by turning over the paddle boat. So you could get a running start and slide across the bottom of the boat into the river! After plenty of play we kept it moving to our next campsite. It was a pretty small camp that night which was kinda cool and cozy. This final day/night you could look around and see that things had changed. The group had really come together, became closer, really relaxed, and bonded. It was a night of painting nails, dressing up in costumes, face painting, and a talent show, which ended with a really special ceremony by two of the native kids on the trip.
The final morning, as you can probably imagine, is bittersweet. You don't want it to be over when everyone is really starting to find their groove, but you know that it is coming to and end so you may as well look forward to that shower for the first time in 5 days...! But before we leave we have one very important piece left to complete. After loading up all the boats we all sit for a closing circle, which honestly my eyes start to burn every time I think about it. In the closing circle we talk about what the trip has meant to us, what we learned or plan to take with us and because this trip is one of those things where tight bonds are formed very quickly it gets pretty intense. Just about everyone will cry and some to the point of not being able to speak because they can't even put into words what the experience and the people on the trip have meant to them. We do some symbolic sharing as well which can by funny or emotional, but completely special. It's a great reminder of why we all do this in the first place and how important this program is to continue on. After closing circle, we board our boats for a silent float the remainder of the trip...to reflect and really soak it all in. Nearing the end of our trip we were greeted by a little family of big horned sheep. Normally when we see them they just run away up the mountains, but at this instance they just stood and watched us and followed us and it was an awesome way to leave the river.
When we get to our takeout point we unload everything, deflate the boats, clean up, and board the bus back to Flag. We take our showers (which was pretty delightful), have a pizza party, and sleep inside for the first time. The next day we make the journey back to Phoenix to meet parents awaiting the arrival of their kids. As I watch the parents look at their kids I just wonder if they see what I see? Do they see changes in their kids and this group that are glaringly obvious to me? The parents want to come rushing out to see their kids (as I would too!) but their kids have work to do. Without even a directive given the kids know we first need to unload this bus and get equipment where it needs to go...THEN I'll go find my parents. I'm sure the teens are excited to see their families, but in some ways not nearly as excited as they thought they would be!
I worried that I might be a little jaded about it because my first trip made such an impact, I didn't think it could happen again but it did. "Every trip is different," you hear veterans say this and you know it's true but you still wonder. And I can say this trip was very different than my first trip, but equally awesome. I'm thankful it's something I was able to be a part of not only once but twice. If I had to compare the trips I would say on my first trip I may have felt more connected to the teens than the sidekicks, and on this trip I felt more connected to the sidekicks than I did 5 years ago. I had great sidekicks on my first trip, but I think I spent my time differently. And on this trip I respect these teens and had some great conversations and connections, but I also felt even more connected to the adults. Which is fantastic. I'm still in touch with some teens from my first trip and they are adults now doing great things in the world. And I know I'll stay in touch with some of the teens from this trip. But I do feel like I found some friends in the adults that I'll stay in touch with, not just pass by in facebook land here and there. Although I'm so happy to have them all, the passersby and the new friends, in my collection.
