White-water outing can be filled with splashy surprises
A bouncing, soaking, exhilarating expedition
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 A raft full of whitewater enthusiasts hits a large standing wave on the Millers River. (Globe photo / Mark Wilson)  More on New England Water fun in New England Paddling at L.L. Bean Kite surfing in New England
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The following outfitters run rafting trips in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Some also offer instruction and experiences in other outdoor activities. Depending on the level of difficulty, there is sometimes a minimum age required for trips; some outfitters offer serene floating excursions for families with young children. Trips usually run though foliage season in mid-October. Prices listed below are for day trips and include lunch. Prices vary with age, season, river, and day of the week; the ranges indicate the lowest child price to the highest adult price. Most companies also offer group discounts and package prices for longer excursions. |
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ERVING -- When we signed up for a day of white-water rafting, we imagined it would be like a prolonged roller coaster ride. We were wrong; it's rougher and much less predictable, more like riding a fluid Brahma bull.
But while the bull clearly comes out of the chute with bad intentions, the river is more apt to play with you. First, it may lull you with a patch of lightly churning water, and then, just when you wonder why people think white-water rafting is exciting, your guide yells, "Paddle hard forward!" and a wave of icy water slams into you, twisting your raft sideways. As you gasp in surprise, the boat suddenly goes airborne before it begins a dive toward the bottom of the river.
Our day began about 2 1/2 hours west of Boston at Zoar Outdoor, an outdoors outfitter in Charlemont that offers kayaking, canoeing, and rock-climbing instruction as well as camping and rafting trips. We joined a line of people being cheerfully shepherded through the registration and suiting-up process by Zoar employees. Because the river's temperature hovered somewhere in the high 30s, wet suits, supplied as part of the outing, were a must.
After we had struggled into neoprene overalls, booties, and splash jackets, we trooped across the road to collect helmets, personal flotation devices (PFDs), and paddles. Armed with our gear, we divided into teams, boarded buses, and headed for Millers River, 40 minutes east in the town of Erving.
At the river, the Zoar guides divided us into crews of up to six people, gave us our instructions, and informed us that in a crowd this size on intermediate white water -- we numbered more than 100 -- the odds were that we'd have three or four "swimmers," or people knocked overboard. If that happened, we were told, "roll onto your back, aim your feet downstream, and look for help."
With that prospect gripping our imaginations, we filed down to the river and took our seats on the sides of our inflated boats. This was counterintuitive: Instead of sitting inside the raft, we were supposed to perch on top of this bouncy rubber tube. We were instructed how to anchor our feet while being buffeted about. Then we pushed off into the riffling current: four of us plus our wiry guide, Kevin McMillan, a consummate professional who directs Zoar's rafting program.
He sat in the stern, using his paddle like a rudder. The sun glinted on the small waves that smacked the sides of our boat. After the long April cold snap, the air temperature had soared into the 50s, and the day was glorious. A few minutes later we were bumping down a stretch of class III waves, two-foot whitecaps that occasionally boiled over into spouts.
McMillan then informed the four people in our raft that it was important for us all to get wet, "because it makes you better paddlers." Before we could say "Huh?" he had steered the raft back and forth across the river, hitting all the surging patches of icy white water. He democratically made sure that we all experienced the equivalent of having a 10-gallon barrel of ice water thrown in our faces. "It's exhilarating," he said. "And besides, you won't be uncomfortable when it really gets rough."
Really gets rough?
McMillan explained that what we had just passed through was only class III water, a "warm-up" for what lay a few miles ahead, a class IV stretch called the Funnel.
White-water paddlers divide rapids into six classes of danger and difficulty, with class I being the easiest -- riffles and small waves -- and class VI being "extreme and exploratory," rarely attempted even by experts. The nine miles of river that comprised our trip included mostly class II and III. Plus the Funnel. To put things in landlubbers' terms, if you think of class III as a softball game, class IV is hardball.
While the class III rapids bounced and soaked us, the Funnel got very serious about separating us from our boat. And within the first hour after pushing off, we were in it: The river dropped suddenly, pitching our boat into four-foot waves. "Paddle hard forward!" McMillan shouted as we roared into its churning waters. The Funnel seemed to come at us from all sides, driving water into our faces, then tossing us to the right and left in quick succession. More than once, we were knocked from our perches.
Luckily, we all managed to stay inside the raft, rather than going for a very cold, early-season swim.
After we were spit out of the Funnel, we rode a class III stretch, soaring on adrenaline, before pulling over for lunch at a lovely clearing. Food for the hungry horde materialized in minutes, beginning with salsa, hummus, and chips, followed by a hot chili. The main course was turkey or ham sandwiches on bulkie rolls with trimmings. Dessert was cantaloupe and cake.
Eaten outdoors, after such a strenuous bout with the river, it all tasted far more delicious than it ever would have at home. But the most popular ingredient proved to be the thermos of hot water that allowed us to ward off the river's chill with hot cocoa or tea. Rested and restored, we scrambled aboard our rafts again.
The river dropped into a quiet ravine lined with hemlock, pine, and still-bare hardwoods. Once leaves begin to sprout, McMillan explained, the tree roots would begin sucking water from the river, and the water level would drop several feet. By mid-April, trips on this river were done and Zoar had switched to the Deerfield.
White water depends partly on the natural spring bounty of snowmelt and runoff, which swells most Northeast rivers until about the end of April. After that, rafting outfitters become more dependent on scheduled dam releases used to control flooding or generate hydroelectricity.
With the most difficult piece of the trip behind us, our raft crew relaxed and joked with the other boats in our party. McMillan, whose rambunctious streak grew wilder as we entered the last few miles, used his paddle to splash any boat that came too close, and about a dozen paddlers reciprocated. It was good fun on a beautiful day on a gorgeous river.
As we neared our pick-up point under the French King Bridge, McMillan told us we would steer around a hole that lay ahead. One of our party asked, "What's a hole?" A spot where the water was falling over a submerged rock and tumbling back on itself, McMillan said, and the next thing we heard was a demonic cackle as he steered us directly into it.
"Paddle forward," he called, as we plunged over the rock and entered the equivalent of a spin cycle. Three of us landed in the middle of the boat before we broke free of the current. "That," he said, "is a hole." Guide humor.
We managed to laugh; after all, it was our final thrill of the day. Bused back to Zoar, we changed into dry clothes and watched slides of the day's rafts shooting the Funnel, taken by the Zoar photographer. Seeing our raft and all the others pitching through plumes of spray, at moments submerged in the green water, we realized that we hadn't been imagining it. Those waves really were that big.
Jane Roy Brown is co-editor of AMC Outdoors. Bill Regan is an artist and photographer. They live in Western Massachusetts.
