Big Horn Sheep Canyon of the Arkansas River

On Tuesday, we drove a little while to get to the Arkansas River and saw helicopters putting out large forest fires. Because of the fires, the part of the river we were supposed to go rafting on, the Royal Gorge, was closed. Instead we had to go on the milder course, Big Horn Sheep Canyon, but it was still perfect for our day. We suited up in wet suits, life jackets, and helmets, and listened to a lot of instructions for being in the rafts. Our group went in two boats. The guide of our boat was K2, the first woman to climb the north face of K2 mountain. She's also a Kindergarten teacher! She was very serious about getting us to paddle right (which was harder than it looked!) By the end of the trip, we all had it down and we had a lot of fun. The water was so clear and cool and refreshing and there were little portions of rapids between calm water. I would love to go white water rafting again after this.

Parents' Boat:

Aren't these pictures awesome? There was a photographer who drove along the river snapping shots. We had no idea...our faces and expressions are real! This is called a paddle high five. We did this after correctly steering through rapids or doing something like singing "Happy Birthday" to David.

 So here, we did know there was someone taking our picture:

The rafting company also included a few pictures of the forest fires and the helicopters putting out the fires.

The two helicopters dipped down to the river and sucked up water, then flew to the hills and let it go. They did this constantly all day, probably for several days. There were many forest fires around. I thought we had one picture of open flames, but all I see now are smoke pictures.