Rafting on the French Broad

We are in the midst of our summer trip, which began with a half-day whitewater rafting trip down the French Broad river.  Greg's cousin Maris is working as a guide with the Nantahala Outdoor Center, and currently is stationed on the French Broad river in western North Carolina.  We enjoyed our 5-mile trip down the river, which included a lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs (no cold cuts for us!).

"Well hello, Miss Photographer Lady."

We shared our raft with a father and son duo - Rich & Richard - who traveled to the outpost in style in a candy-apple red 1950 Studebaker.  Nice.  Anyway, the French Broad has both Class II and Class III rapids, so it was just right for Greg - a relative novice to whitewater rafting.  Of course, this was a stroll in the park for Erin, who started her rafting career by going down the Chattooga River.  At any rate, she had a good time too I think.

The trip included a stop where rafters could jump off a small rock outcrop into the river.  Maris, Rich, and Greg jumped from our raft.

Awesome form!

Later, Rich and I jumped out of our raft and swam through a section of rapids (appropriately names Swimmer's Rapid), and then swam around for awhile before being rather clumsily pulled back into the raft by Maris.  

At another rapids section, Erin and Richard - on the right side of the raft - had to lean in to escape the clutches of a logjam, then at another section we boofed over Pillow Rock.  I mean, I guess we boofed - that's what Maris said anyway.  It seemed more like a raft crash where nothing quite happened.  It was touch and go for a moment, but we righted ourselves and nobody went overboard.  

The Pillow Rock boof was not documented, so here we are at another rapid.

Finally towards the end of the trip, we went through Rebar rapids, which are so named because of the rebar that sticks out of the water at that point.  The rebar actually comes from the ruins of a dam that was destroyed in the flood of 1916.  

All in all, we had a great time and this was a nice way to start our summer adventure.

Thanks Maris!