On Saturday, September 29th, I went whitewater rafting for the first time in my life. I had won a contest from 604pulse earlier in the summer for rafting for two with Canadian Outback Adventures in Squamish and was very excited to experience whitewater rafting at last!
 
We checked in and suited up at Canadian Outback headquarters at the Executive Suites Hotel & Resort. We were given a wet suit, booties, helmet and a life jacket, then off into the bus we went. I recommend that you bring as little as possible. I had a small bag but the inside of the bus is really muddy and wet and your bag is highly likely to fall off the seat when it drives back down to the end point. The only thing I carried out with me was my waterproof camera, which I attached to my life jacket.

It takes about an hour to go all the way upstream where we start will start our adventure.


Our guides preparing our rafts!


Our raft's guide was Rick, a Kiwi living in Squamish!

All loaded up and ready to ship off!
Yeah, I'm wearing my glasses. They didn't fall off in the water ahaha!




The scenery is gorgeous! The Elaho is a glacier fed river that contains spectacular views. It was really nice between the calmer parts of the river to be able to appreciate what was around us. And because the river is glacier fed, it is around 3-4 degrees C year round. We got to experience this coldness first hand when our entire raft crew jumped into the water at the first opportunity! It was so cold!!! Resist the urge to scream because ice cold water will just go into your open mouth. This is first hand experience...I also seemed to never learn as this happened to me quite often, especially when you sit up at front.

I also got to sit up at the front of the raft, dangling my feet out in front WHILE riding the rapids! Aw man, I got such a thrill! I could literally see the waves of whitewater coming at me. It was like a roller coaster ride!

We were assigned to be the last raft but we had such paddling power (despite or because of a crew being almost entirely of women) we kept getting ahead of the third raft. Wusses! lol






Old man's beard moss grows only where the air is pure.

Lovely colours of lichens on the rocks.


Ahhh! My guide is trying to throw me into the river!


Here's our crew towards the end of our adventure. The only guy in our raft has his face obscured...If you recognize any of these people, please give me a heads up. I'm trying to find some of them! Thanks in advance!

Here's a compilation video of all the Go-Pro cameras from each raft that Canadian Outback uploaded:


White water rafting is super fun and exhilarating. They didn't name the trip Elaho Exhilarator for nothing! I was sad when there weren't any more rapids at the end. Even though it was about 2 hours, it felt like the adventure ended too quickly! I would recommend trying it out at least once in your life and maybe a couple more times.

Now, off to my next adventure!