Fall Trip Wrap Up 2011

This September CUKC splashed its way into a new school year with our biggest trip yet!

We left the CU parking lot Friday night to barge our way onto the River Run camp site. River Run happened to be the chosen setting for a wedding. Yes, we are all certified wedding crashers and, being the classy kids we are, we shared a bag of wine with one of the guests and yelled the chorus of “500 miles” into the late hours of the night.

On Saturday we awoke to a lovely breakfast of bread, bagels and milk-less cereal set out by Amy and Alberto. Some of us opted to snag some coffee and tea from the wedding party.

After breakfast, 40 of us hit the water while Farzona and Dave travelled down the river hunting for photo opportunities.

We had 16 rookies brave the Ottawa River under the wings of Billy Harris, Graham Ball and Cheryl McGregor. They spent the day at the put-in learning the basics and playing in the mud. The rest of us ran the main, catching surfs and cliff jumping. We definitely had more swims than the beginners – although a lot of that was me having disagreements with the rapids and my boat… not to mention loosing my paddle at Garb.

I did get it back after the river thanks to Dave but Juraj let me borrow his paddle while he ran the rest of the river without one – no big.

When we got back to the take-out the wedding party had kicked us out of our camp site and we were forced to carry tents on top of cars up the road to a new location.

We got a little bit of rain Saturday night but nothing too big to scare off the partying, booty beers, star-spinning and guitar playing.

Sunday morning was a foggy one but that didn’t last long – much to the dismay of a few rosy noses.

The beautiful weather made way for a stellar day of kayaking with less swims than the day before; YAY! And the beginners got to test out some whitewater on the middle!

After all was said and done I saw nothing but smiles leaving the river, chatting about their adventures. We packed up camp, ordered up the well-earned booty beers, and headed home from a successful weekend of paddling.