Last weekend, we went white water rafting in Ohiopyle, PA on the Youghiogheny River. It was my first time rafting and I was nervous hearing about how some people die doing the sport, but I'm still here to tell the tale!
Ohiopyle is by Uniontown, where my dad grew up in Pennsylvania, so it was around 3.5 hours from Cleveland. When we finally arrived, we had gone through long stretches of highways then a bunch of windy roads and finally drove through a cute small town. There were cabins lining the state park full of little tourist shops and restaurants.
After signing our lives away to the rafting company, we got a small tutorial on what to do in certain situations, including when we crashed or fell out of the raft. My sister and I teamed up with the most experienced rafters in our group and began our journey by carrying the heavy raft down to the river with paddles, helmets and life jackets in tow. The river was especially crowded and full of groups on guided tours. We were going the river unguided, though, so we made sure to pass up as many groups as possible.
As soon as we got into the river, we started paddling towards the first rapid. I was excited to find out what it was like, but nervous at the same time. We hit the rapids head on and I thought my sister and I were going to fall out of the boat, but we held on tight and stayed in as we splashed up out of the rapids. We made it out alive! And it was so much fun! I couldn't wait to do it again. In the mean time, the water was calm as we flowed down stream to the next rapids. The other boats in our group had splash wars with us and the guys in our boat finally tackled us into the water. It was cold, but it felt good.
As we went through the other rapids, other boats in our group tipped or wiped out. Our boat always stayed afloat though, and we finally parked it on the side of the river after all of the other groups had fallen out. We got out of the boat and hiked back up to the top of the rough rapids to jump in and float the way back down. I was really nervous to do it, thinking I might drown, but once I did, it was really fun and I did it a few more times. The rapids would pull you under for a second or two, then spit you right back up.
We went through a few more rapids and then our next stop was at a big rock we could hike up and jump off of into the water. Standing at the top looking down was really startling, so without thinking, I just had to jump off. It was a blast so I climbed up a few more times to do it again.
After jumping, it was a race to see which boat would make it out of the river first. We took the best paths down the rapids and passed up other boats and finally made it to shore first. We decided we had won gold for being the first boat and only boat of the group to not tip over.
We dried off, saw some snapshots of our journey, and went to get some food. We had some awesome fall-off-the-bone ribs at Highwaters grill. We ate so much since we had been paddling all day. We were sore and bruised, but the food made up for all of that.
It was a long ride home, but the trip was totally worth it. I can't wait until I get to go again!
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