‘You interested in Chilliwack river rafting?’ texted my friend, Ram, a couple of months ago. I am not the one to say no to adventure plans, so I replied in the affirmative esp. since gathering a group for an activity like this is such a task. Fast forward to 2 months later I found myself with a group of friends driving to Chilliwack for the rafting. The group consisted of my friends Ram and Akshaya and their friends Ragul and Jaya. There were 4 other people whom we met after we reached the Chilliwack rafting resort. In all we were a group of 9 people.
As we were pulling into the resort parking I was surprised and slightly dismayed by the number of people I saw. It was far too crowded than I imagined it would be but thankfully it did not affect our experience in any way. After introductions, we made our way to the office where we checked in. After this we had our complimentary breakfast which was a simple affair of pancakes and scrambled eggs. After this, one of the guides from the resort gathered all the different groups together and gave a brief description of the different types of rafting experience they had on offer. The basic one was the Chilliwack Classic which offered around 3 hours of rafting and a small break. This one had mostly class 2 and 3 rapids. There was another more adventurous option called the Chilliwack Canyon rafting which had class 3 and 4 rapids but overall as a group we decided to go with the classic option. I wouldn’t have minded the canyon option though as this was my 3rd rafting experience after ones in India and USA, and I was looking for more thrills.
Next, we filed into a line and let the guide know about out choice and handed over our waiver forms. Then we were handed our wet suits with a life jacket and a helmet. After putting this on, plus my Go Pro, we made our way to a waiting bus which took us to upstream of the river, to the starting point of the rafting experience. After getting down, we regrouped and there was another pep talk by one of the guides who gave some instructions and guidelines about what to do and what not to do. After this all the diffirent groups were assigned their guides and rafts. We were informed that our group of 9 was too big and we will have to split into 2 smaller groups. This made me furious. If the agency cant handle a group of 9 they should not allow a group that big to book the tour. Its as simple as that. Anyway, we had no other option than to comply and we split into 2 groups. Ram, Akshaya, Jaya, Ragul and I remained in one group and the rest another.
Soon it was time to go into the water. Our guide Kelly introduced herself and directed us to our raft which we soon boarded, as did most of the other groups. We were all lined up on the side of the river like World War 2 boats just waiting for the command to go. One by one the rafts started going into the river and in a few minutes it was our turn. Slowly we started paddling in. Kelly explained how the commands from her work. When she says ‘forward’ we all paddle forward. When she says ‘stop’ we all stop. When she says ‘right forward’, those of us sitting on the right side paddle forward. If she says ‘right back paddle’, then those of us sitting on the right have to paddle in the reverse direction. Same for the left side. Paying attention to the instructions is an important part of the rafting process. After a few minutes of gently drifting in the water we soon encountered rapids and the fun started. After 20 minutes of rapids we stopped for a break. This is where Kelly told us there was a surprise for everyone. We wondered what it would be and everyone made some guesses. After a short hike through trees we emerged into a clearing with a waterfall. It looked beautiful with the base of the waterfall throwing up a mist of water. The beauty of the place, however, was a bit spoiled by the crowds of people (yes, I know that includes myself). Everyone lined up and had photographs taken with the waterfall in the background.
From here we walked back to where our rafts were tethered on the water and resumed out rafting. Next followed a full hour of many rapids of varying levels, amazing views of the surroundings, collisions with rocks; some accidental, some intentional. It was a lot of fun but as I was feeling a bit let down. I thought the rapids would have been more intense and we were almost approaching our end time. But I soon found out that I was wrong. It was only going to get better. There were two sets of major rapids that were next. One was something called the tester rapids and the last one was the final rapids which was the most intense. Kelly told us that if were not comfortable with the intensity of the tester rapids we had the option of skipping of final rapids. This was exciting to hear as that only hyped up the tester rapids.
Soon we started going through the tester rapids and they were fierce. We were enjoying it. Now and then we were jolted out of our places but most of the times we quickly regained our positions except for one time. During one rapids, as the raft dipped in the water and was coming up after riding the wave, Akshaya fell into the water. As I had the best view of her, I could see everything happen in slow motion. As the raft swept upwards and made a slight tilt towards the left, Akshaya, who was sitting diagonally to me on the right, slowly tumbled backwards into the churning white water. I could see the expression change on her face from excitement to panic as one moment she was on the raft and the next she was in the water. In that moment I was unsure how to respond. One part of me was telling me that Kelly, our guide, would do something about it. The other part was telling me that I should immediately reach over and help her. But I was sitting on the opposite side and I was a bit hesitant about disrupting the balance of the raft. Ragul, though, who was sitting in front of me on the same side as me, responded within seconds, reached over and started pulling Akshaya back on the boat. By this time the rest of us had the same thought and we all started reaching out to her. Kelly quickly instructed that some of us had to keep paddling so me and Jaya resumed paddling while Ragul and Ram helped Akshaya get back on the raft and back to her position. She was shaken but all good. After a few minutes of just relaxing she was back to her normal self.
We loved the tester rapids and none of us were looking to skip the final rapids so we continued on. The final rapids were also intense but we thought not as severe as the tester one. After this our rafting trip ended right near the resort. One final task was left and that was to lift the raft and keep it on one of the trailers. Though mighty tired we kept the raft on the trailer and made our way back to the office where we returned the suits. We wrapped up the day with a lunch at one of the Indian restaurants in Chilliwack. Overall a good weekend.