Thursday, 6-19-14 was when I went to my friend, Wes Tang’s bachelor party along the Skykomish River.
Prior to rafting down the Skykomish River, I had no experience rafting … yeah, I was totally noob to the extent I didn’t know I shouldn’t have worn any cotton clothing while rafting. Moreover, I was not aware it was one of the most challenging rivers in Washington due to it containing a class 5 rapid called “Boulder drop” and other class 4 rapids; in fact, I thought rafting down the Skykomish was going to be like floating down a river and pretty laid back. To my surprise, everybody in our group including Wes and our guide fell out were ejected out of the raft not once, but TWICE … when I mean ejected, I mean people were literally FLYING OUT OF THE RAFT. Some would call the excursion a near-death experience, but I still had lots of fun probably because I didn’t have it as bad as the other guys in the same raft.
First Ejection (Boulder Drop)
Overall our rafting group was doing alright until there was over-steering on one side of the raft following immediate collision with a rock which ejected everybody out into the rapid, Boulder Drop. As its name implies, Boulder Drop was indeed an intense rapid and was rated class 5 which is the highest in terms of difficulty and danger in commercial river rafting; a higher rank would be class 6, but rivers in that rank are banned from commercial rafting due to being death traps.
After being ejected from my raft, I was underwater from 10-15 seconds before I was able swim up and catch the raft by grabbing an to one of the built-in side ropes. When I caught the raft, I saw our guide pull himself back to the top of it in an attempt to regain control. I attempted to lift myself up into the raft, but was unable due to the lack of strength and drifting into fast moving violent currents. However, the raft eventually hit a huge rock and the impact caused the nose of the raft to go up vertically and eject both the guide and me back into the water. After being ejected back into the water and despite knowing better, I tried to grab on to a huge rock, but slipped due to huge force of the rapid dragging me down. Also, one of my boots slid off.
When I reached a calm area after the rapid, which was on the right side of the Skykomish, I swam to the nearest raft which had safely navigated down the Boulder Drop with all its members accounted for. When I was lifted into the raft, I encountered Travis (Wes’s best man and my former roommate @ UW) and found my boot recovered to my surprise. By then I was already a bit exhausted because my life-vest hindered my breathing due to it being fastened too tightly by the guide before we started rafting. When I finally caught my breath, I was very worried about whether Wes or the other guys had injuries or even made it out alive since everybody was scattered.
Eventually, the other group members and I were reunited in our original raft, but Albert (Wes’s brother-in-law) had sustained a leg injury from hitting a hard rock that impaired his walking ability.
Second Ejection (Some Class 4 Rapid)
During this second ejection, it occurred in a class 4 rapid and our raft actually flipped over. The intensity was much less severe than that of Boulder Drop and just about everybody who was ejected were able to catch and hold along to the side ropes of our raft initially. However, we eventually encountered a very violent portion of the rapid and were disengaged from the raft. Like Boulder Drop, the group members and I were all scattered to different calm portion of the Skykomish. Eventually all the group members were recovered and relocated in our original raft, but Albert didn’t ride along us for the remainder of trip due to the lack of physical strength in his injured leg; he took the remainder of the trip with one of the two other rafts that had no incidents.
Final Thoughts
When we landed onto shore, Albert was still unable to walk on his own and needed two people to lift him out and help him walk. He mentioned that his muscles were really stiff, and he had to take Ibuprofen. I learned from the other group members that some of them were carried down through the right side of Boulder Drop which had some nasty rocks; I was lucky since I drifted down the middle of the rapid.
Overall, I believed we were the most physically fit rafting group since many of the members knew Wes through playing tennis, and Travis was professional scuba diving tour guide in San Diego. Had the guide been with a group with some middle age people or older or even girls with princess sickness/公主病 (click this for reference), the result would have been more catastrophic. One of the things that I found most amusing was that even after both ejections, Kyle May (one of Wes’s groomsmen) retained his sunglasses fully in-tact on his face with no scratches or cracks in the lenses.
The river rafting tour company’s owner and management were more to blame than the actual guide who got us all ejected twice. Our guide had just graduated from a university in North Carolina last May and had less than a month of experience guiding the Skykomish. In addition, he had no prior experience rafting down any other rivers in the Pacific Northwest, and most of his rafting experiences were through flood controlled dammed rivers. Also, there seem to be contempt from the other guides in assisting or guiding him which was even more unacceptable, since one of them was his older brother who knew his capabilities and habits better than anyone else.
Furthermore from my experience on the Skykomish, below would be some personal recommendations to prepare for it:
- Be certain that you and your whole group CAN SWIM
- Have prior experience rafting on class 4 or 5 rapids
- Ask your guide about the duration of experience he/she has navigating down the river
- Ask your guide if he/she has scouted the water levels of the river before navigating through Boulder Drop or any class 4 rapid
- Make sure your protective gear, particularly the helmet and life-vest are in prime condition and snugged on tight, but not materially hindering physical movements or breathing
