“Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.”
~Ansel Adams
“It all happened on one late evening, where I received a call all of a sudden from my friend- an invite to Yosemite National Park and that turned out to tell my story of enchanting experience which will recede in my heart for life time.”
Before going to the story, let me give a brief introduction, where you can plot the nature’s show. It’s all forms of nature the Sun, Clouds, Snow, Wind, Water were all constituted to create blazing fire. May be that is the reason it’s called as Natural phenomenon.
Yosemite Firefall: Once in a Life time Experience
Every year during second or third week of February, the firefall event takes place during the sun set time on the Horse tail falls located on the eastern edge of El Capitan in the Yosemite Valley. The Horse tail fall is a very short fall of about 1500 feet. It is very hard to be seen through naked eyes. During this part of the season, on a perfect sunset, where the sun rays touches the water falls in such an angle where it gives the feel as it is a firefall or melting lava. In order to experience this natural phenomenon, mostly there are four factors which make or break the event to happen. There should be good amount of snow for the season, and there should be water in the Horsetail falls, good amount of warmness from sun to melt the snow and the most important factor it should be a clear sky. It’s like a hit or miss thing you never know, whether all this happens or not at all. Let’s see what happened:
Middle Fork American River, California is a unique place for an all day 18 mile white water river rafting . Though it is considered as Class III and IV. I personally experienced (Tunnel chute) Class V and remaining rapids as Class IV. It is one of the best places to do white water river rafting. It is must do activity for all those adventure lovers and here is my journey as follows…
We are group of 8 people planned for a White water river rafting trip for a weekend. So we booked for a one night camping and one full day rafting trip with Raft California rentals.
On Saturday of July 20, 2019 we started from our place and head to the camping place near Sacramento and it took about 3 hours. The camping has in built tents and it was so serene and far away from the city and it was near to some river and we heard some flowing water sounds near our tents. It was a good experience to camp there.
Next day we started from the camp site and we drove to Auburn and from there the rentals people took in their vans to the Middle Fork River, California . At around 10.00 A.M we get our safety and instructions about the White water river rafting and about the gear.
The most awaited adventure in my wish list:
For me personally, I always have an urge to experience rafting and got fascinated watching rafting videos in Uttarakhand, India. But never get a chance back at home. When my friends offered me to join their team, i could not resist . I recalled some of my friends horrible experience of their Rafting trips. I thought, i am confident enough to swim back to raft even if i fell, but the extreme river flow and rocks caused me bit worried. Thought of strictly following safety instructions and started the ride.
The beginning of the adventure…
In my raft, we were 6 people and except my other friend and myself everyone had previous rafting experience. And, as we carried the raft to the starting point, it was so exciting and I am still nervous as i didn’t set my helmet tight and felt some uneasy with the helmet. The water was cold but refreshing and exciting.
Encountering our first rapids- the Tunnel Chute
Our instructor was pretty much experienced and he give us clear instructions but we were not so synchronous in moments. He got annoyed but still patiently explained all the raft movements like forward stroke, backward stroke, lean in, and that made sense after a while after some trial and error and told us to look it the first person on left as the leader and to follow his moments.
We started our raft slowly in the Middle Fork River, and as we started getting used to the instructions, our guide was letting us know that – we will be encountering the first rapid of the trip – The Tunnel Chute (Class V) and he narrated about most dreadful stories happened while encountering this rapid and one thing I remembered was- The Tunnel Chute was the first and big drop off and once we go through this our views will be changed and we will be different person after passing it. I was bit worried, but I was holding tight and tucked in one feet completely in the raft and other one under a bag having full of weight and trying to follow the instructions.
Washing out by the white waters of Tunnel Chute Rapids
The Tunnel Chute- the Beast of all the rapids and How I survived
In few moments, we encountered our first rapid of the journey and for me it was first one in my life and I am encountering a Class IV rapid and this is called the Tunnel Chute Rapids .
Washing out by the white waters
Washing out by the white waters
Washing out by the white waters
As we came closer, there was a steep drop off and all of sudden, the raft was submerged in the white waters and we were all dislodged and I was sitting on the edge of the boat and all of a sudden, i am out of balance and out of the boat.
Sometimes Nature is not fair and neither do I
Swimming back to get into the Raft as if I am fighting for my life
I can still recall, I was dived into the big stream of white water and just hold my breath and I was dragged by the water and thinking as this were my last moments of my life and just praying to god not to hit the walls or rocks. I flew all the way towards the tunnel and managed to lay down not to hit the tunnel as it is just 3-5 feet above my head. I was so tensed and in panic but just managed go with the flow and when water got stabilised under tunnel, I swam back to another raft and other people pulled me into the raft and took deep breaths and finally, I survived from the tunnel.
Then, I went back to my raft and slowly started recovering and it was so horrible but still exciting experience. One other raft also completely fell off at the the tunnel and luckily no one got hurt. But after this experience, I was happy that I survived and now, I know that even if I fell from the raft, I can manage to come back again. That gave me some confidence though.
After some time we were going through the river and the guide explained about how the tunnel was formed and it was a man made one and then he explained about the locality and people who lived earlier used to do gold mining. The Guide used to inform us about encountering our next rapids and their names and how their names originated. I remembered some of them are chandler, kanaka, parallel parking and Mike Tyson.
The whole journey was so relishing as we were in the middle of the river covered with green trees. Though it was a sunny day, it gave us subtle joy when we were getting splashed by cold waters while we encountering the rapids. After two hours we had lunch provided by the rental people and then continued to raft again.
Riding through the Chandler
Another Monster the Chandler- 8 foot drop off
After lunch, I sat in front side of the raft and rode as per instructions and successfully encountered the Chandler. It was great experience as we went through 8 foot drop off, with in seconds we were completely drenched, floated and passed through the swifts of the stream. Certainly, the credit goes to the instructor, as most of the raft’s directions are meticulously managed by him and we just followed his instructions.
Each rapid we encounter was a new challenge and never know, what will be going to happen and we were so focused and worked as a team in knocking off each rapid and cheering after each successful ride by tapping the paddles. This experience perfectly syncs to the life experiences of how we see the problems in life and over coming them. Before getting close to the end of my journey of all day 18 mile rafting, I jumped into river and swam for couple of minutes in the freezing cold steady stream of river. It was joyous experience to float peacefully through the stream.
Successfully riding through the Chandler Rapid
Astounding ride through the Chandler
The whole journey was a complete out and out adventure and it brought me the importance of being alive in just a span of seconds and overcoming the challenges and celebrating the success by tapping the paddles and team work and guidance of a good mentor. All this brings me to do more white water river-rafting adventures in future.
