Cabarton Run

I wish I took more pictures, but I ended up in a kayak for the first time ever instead. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I had only ever gone rafting twice in my entire life, I was hungover as shit, and I was still wearing jeans. I felt like a ridiculous hipster trying to look cool on the river. In my defense, it was because I lost my swim trunks… and by that, I mean I lost my knock-off Batman onesie… Ok, I was rafting the night before in a onesie, which actually did make sense for that float, but that’s a completely different story.

Anyway, about a third of the way down the river, there ended up being an open kayak in the group and I asked if I could hop in it. It's only class II/III rapids, so I figured it’d be chill. I was upside down within the first 10 minutes and we weren’t even on a rapid yet.

I quickly discovered how hard it is to roll right side up, but also figured out how easy it is to bail ship and pull out. That gave me a little boost in confidence about the whole situation.

It was annoying draining the water out, so instead of practicing how to roll, I just tried to absorb as many tips from the crew as possible. I figured I’d just try roll again when I needed to and worse case, I pull out mid-rapid. It was a very literal crash course in learning to kayak.

Surprisingly enough, and probably just by sheer beginner’s luck, I successfully paddled my way through a handful of rapids. My arms were sore as shit towards the end though, and I completely pin-balled my way through the rocks on the largest rapid of the run. It probably would’ve been horrible, but remember, I was wearing a pair of mothafuckin' jeans. I didn’t get scraped up at all! I knew there was a reason why I spent a paragraph writing about my wardrobe.