Whitewater rafting!

Over Memorial Day weekend, we went down to West Virginia and went whitewater rafting. On the way, we stopped in Clarksburg, WV to take a tour of the FBI fingerprinting headquarters there. We saw the computers that hold the fingerprint files, and other neat stuff.

When we got to Hilo, where the tour was run from, we looked around, and went to the campground to set up camp. We all were a little nervous about what the next day would bring.

When we got to the "base", we were served a contental breakfast. Then we saw a saftey video about what to, and not to do. We went to the gear shed where we suited up to go. When we got on to the bus, we knew that there was no turning back. After a fifteen minute trip, we were at the launch. There were three boats, seven people and a guide to a boat.

The first rapid wasn't so bad, it was a class 2, about the lowest, but then we learned that there would be 3's to 5's. 6 being the highest class is the most dangerous. The rest of the rapids were not as bad as we thought they were going to be, mostly because we were sort of used to them now. We had lunch on the river at a nice shady spot. Later, we stoped at a big rock to jump off of, it was lots of fun. The river had a nice view of the New River Bridge, of course we were 1000 feet below it, so we could see all of it.

The only place that anybody fell out was when we went back into the rapids, called surfing. Two people fell out, Ryan Laurie, and Jason Ehmke. Ryan lost his shoes, but luckly we got them back. It was lots of fun on the river, but then we had to go.

The next day, we hiked through the gourge. We saw lots of mines, and we got to hike up a hill about / <-- that steep. 8-/ It really wasn't that steep, but it sure felt like it. As soon as someone comes up with pictures, they will be on here.

Update: 2001
This trip was a lot of fun, mostly because it was out of state, dangerous, and expensive. This trip continues to be the standard of Troop 201's different outtings.

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