could steer us pretty well, but half of steering is knowing where and where not to steer, and for that, I had no clue. I had rafted the Hudson before but had paid little attention to how to navigate the raging rapids. We were as green as you could be. Our gear was hardly adequate, our experience was next to nothing, but our desire for adventure was off the charts. Also with us that day was our friend Eric; he was planning on spending the day in his whitewater kayak leading us down the river. He chose to opt out of hitting The Otter Slide and instead stood on the shore filming the action with his cell phone. He had helped us scout the rapid out ahead of our launch. We had picked a line that we felt gave us the best chance of making it through without incident. To the right side of the rapid was a dangerous cave where the water could easily trap a swimmer inside, so we knew we had to avoid that. On the left side, the water was a little smoother, it didn’t have any caves to get trapped in, but it had a large rock that stuck out into the river, one that would be impossible to paddle around once we hit the fast moving water. We decided we needed to run the rapid in the center and aim for the left side just squeezing past the outlying rock face. To help us keep our bearings, we picked a boulder that was sticking out of the water close to the center of the river as our marker. Once we arrived there, we would have a good chance of hitting our projected path to safety. We just forgot one important thing: the water was going to rise over a foot before we hit the rapid. As we waited anxiously for the dam to open and the water level to increase, we discussed our excitement and apprehension about running this rapid. We rehearsed the plan out loud; we went over the procedures for if you fall out. Keep your feet up (So they don’t get caught in between two rocks causing you to get stuck underwater).
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