Arkansas

Flat water in Brown's Canyon.


Big Horn Sheep.

Melanie's Aunt and Uncle are in town for a few days, so we went rafting on the Arkansas. The river has a reputation for being the busiest and most commercialized in the world, but we were pleasantly surprised to find Brown's Canyon relatively unoccupied on a June Sunday. Despite the sparse humanoid population, we still managed to have a user conflict. A ghetto-fabulous raft pulled into our lunch beach and asked if they could share. I was about to point out the vacant beach just downstream when Karen (Mel's aunt) busted out the Southern hospitality and told them it would be no problem at all. This didn't bother me in the slightest until the rest of their party landed on our beach. They had four rafts and numerous kayaks, about 30 people including some yelling children. I took a cue from my mom, and told the leader that we were misinformed as to the size of their party and no longer wished to share our lunch beach. After some smart remarks, rude comments, and lots of stink eye they moved on downstream. Even so, I was totally impressed by the Ark's great scenery and top-notch rapids. Monday, we moved a bit further upstream and made a couple of laps on the Numbers section. Again, I was pleased by some great read-and-run class IV.

The highlight of the trip for me was seeing 12 yr. old Dane Jackson and 13 yr. old Jason Craig tear it up in the Salida play park. These kids are some of the best playboaters I have ever seen. They were throwing down loops three at a time and doing some crazy stuff I had never seen before. What a good life, sponsored kayaker at age 12.