Rafting

Water. It seems like such a simple word. Add freezing and training to that and you get my training for my summer job. This past summer I worked at North Woods Rafting as a white water raft guide. Before I could officially call myself a guide I had to go through training, but this wasn’t the ordinary show up watch a video and then attend a CPR class type of training. Well, we did watch a video and take a CPR certification class, but there was much more to it. On the first day of training I arrived at 7 am on a cold May morning. Now for most people May is a month where the weather is usually nice and warm, but I live in northern New Hampshire. Here that May day was barely 36 degrees and the water temperature wasn’t any different. We were shown a video and sized to receive our guide gear. After struggling into a wetsuit and layering on as much fleece as possible we were read; albeit slight reluctant to begin training. The first bit of training was rafts themselves. We were taught how to open and close valve and the terminology that goes with the rafts. We were shown how to blow up the boats and how to tell when they were done. A few facts were thrown into the mix also. For example did you know that most river rafts alone weigh around 200 pounds? Also if you leave a fully inflated raft in the sun the heat would cause the chambers to expand and eventually explode! Next we loaded up the trailer and headed to the Pontook Dam on the Androscoggin River. The senior guides showed us how to properly give a safety talk while making it fun and then the training really began! The water was running at record highs and the waves were amazing. It was too bad no trainees noticed because of how cold we were! The wetsuits, helmets, life savers (PFD’s) and splash jackets we wore provided little protection the freezing water. If it wasn’t enough just being cold were trying our hardest to remember the information being yelled out as we crashed into waves and...io