I went to a rafting trip with Outdoor Recreation Center of OSU. We started from the Packsaddle State Park and took out after Mill City. This is actually exactly the same trip as we did 4 years ago. But it was still fun to do it again. The rapids are mostly class 2 or 3, not too difficult, but still exciting. It wasn’t too cold today although there was no sunshine.

Our guide was a girl whose name is Sandra. She is a 4th generation Japanese American. She is very much into water related activities like rafting and kayaking. She even encouraged me to take some Kayaking lessons, which sounds tempting :P. She also recommended Umpqua river, which has a great scene and also some higher level rapids (3-4). The best season might be early summer, when the water is still big. Hmm, looks like I might want to look up some rafting companies in the area and see if they have any such trips.

She also let me take over and practice some guiding for the latter section of the trip, when the water was pretty smooth. That was a fun part. It wasn’t that easy to be a captain. The guide stick is longer and heavier than normal paddles, and I had to paddle hard to steer. It was also hard to coordinate the timing to get the boat to the exact position when it passes the rapids. We also don’t want the raft to go through the rapids sideways, coz it increases the risk of rolling over.

It was a fun trip to warm up for the summer. I am looking forward to some more strenuous and difficult rafting trips this summer.