Chapter 1: The Otter Slide It was a sunny mid-April day. We slid the raft into the river and quickly got set in our places. Nick and Zach were in the front of the raft, Nick on the left and Zach on the right. In the back, it was Cody and me. I was in the back right, where the guide sits, and Cody opposite me on the left. Our paddles dipped into the water as we paddled away from the rippling waters of the eddy and out into the water. We were at the head of the Indian River. The Indian is a tributary of the mighty Hudson River, a premier whitewater river. At this time of the year, the water level on the Indian was too low to raft with any real success; but every day at 10:00 AM they opened the dam at the head of the Indian creating a “bubble” in the water level which made the river runnable for a window of time. It was about 9:55 AM as we paddled out into the center of the calm water. We found a shallow spot in the river about thirty yards from where the first rapid began; we stopped the raft there while we waited for the dam to open and the water to rise. Around sixty yards ahead of us was The Otter Slide. The Otter Slide is a raging, swirling rapid at the beginning of the Indian River. Most people choose to put their rafts and kayaks in the water just past The Otter Slide, but we saw the raging water flowing down the Otter Slide as a challenge to be conquered. In fact, just a week before our trip we took the hour drive just to check out the notorious rapid. It is not a long rapid by any means. Most of the rapids we would face that day would be anywhere from seventy-five yards long all the way to the “mile-long-rapid.” The Otter Slide is barely longer than 100 feet, but it drops steeply and has some intense waves and currents that make it extremely difficult. It’s narrow, stuck between two cliffs, so there is not much
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