Mary's Joy

The alarm clock went off at a little before 5:30 am and though I was excited for the day, I let the snooze button cushion the sharpness of the waking. I finally rolled out of bed, and got on the road to meet the Common Ground folks for a 6:30 departure to the Snake River in Wyoming for some white-water rafting. While I was still wiping the sleep from my eyes as I rolled through Smithfield, an amazing site met me – runners wearing reflectors and headlamps who obviously had been up a lot earlier than I had. Turns out they were going to pretty much the same place we were.


The Common Ground Adventures office was abuzz with activity as participants were filling out forms and loading gear and volunteers like me were doing whatever we were asked to do. There was a lot of excitement in this diverse group of 21 people heading out to play on the water. The drive of around 3 hours was kept active with conversation between Bryce (our driver and activity leader) and several others in the van. It was entertaining enough that I never opened the book I brought with me. When the river came into view in Alpine, WY, I was pretty excited. We reached our destination, rigged rafts, had lunch and deposited the second van at the shuttle point. We were ready to go!


There were people of all ages and abilities so most processes took a good amount of effort and time to get through. I did a lot of laughing as normal things erupted into humourous moments again and again.

I have to say that a young man named Keenan who was manager for 3 teen boys on the trip had his hands full with his active and playfully delinguent charges! We all got our life vests on and raft assignments and I pushed us off from the shore into the #2 position of the 4 rafts and we were floating the Snake!! Heather was our captain and I was sitting in the front of the raft by Mary, a young woman whose excitement could not be contained and whose eruptions of joy and squeals of delight kept us all entertained the whole trip. Heather was an experienced river guide and it felt nice to just relax and enjoy the ride. Even the smallest rapids were fun for Mary and her laghter was constantly contagious. I had been nervous about helping with participants with disabilities – I just didn’t know what to expect. Turns out that Mary led the way in the fun dept. and I just had to follow her lead! When the rapids had the raft surging up and down through the waves, there was no way to wipe the smiles off our faces.


At one point we lost view of the lead raft and ended up getting a little close to a rock wall in strong rapids on the right side of the river. As Heather tried to get us closer to the middle, there was a thud of some kind followed by an outburst (later repeated with delight by her crew!) and I looked back at a guide missing one paddle and an absolutely priceless expression on her face! Quickly, Heather regained composure and had another volunteer, Macie, free up the extra oar and they were able to quickly get it in place. While this was going on, we were gently bouncing off the right walls all the while in pretty rough water. Then the river pushed us across, right toward a wall on the left side that threatened to flip us over. Heather rowed with heart to get us heading downstream but the current was so strong and into the wall we were going. With mighty pulls of the oars, Heather slowed us so we just kissed the wall and then continued around it. Since Mary was in the front of the raft with me, she thought it was way cool that we got to bounce off the wall! Our safety kayaker who watched this whole event told us that he had recently seem 3 rafts get flipped by that same wall. We were stoked that we survived! And the kayak was also able to retrieve the lost oar so after a little yoga and breathing exercises, we were fully loaded and ready to rock the river again…


Most of the big rapids had names, but we didn’t know which were which because we were having too much fun. At one point, another raft that was carrying Mary’s mom and siblings got close and Mary and others in our raft carried out a water battle with the other raft. Some accused me of being involved but I was just bailing water out of the raft and didn’t realize the other raft was directly in the path of the water I was throwing! Mary seemed very excited at splashing water at her mom. Kept yelling (in amongst the laughter) something about getting her back for feeding her too many vegetables…


As we approached one of the last rapids, I wondered why there were lots of people lined up on the right side of the river. As the full rapids came into sight, it was clear this was the Lunch Counter rapids and these people were here to see us flip! Heather lined us up and we went into these waves that seemed taller and deeper than our raft with a vengeance and lots of excitement. The first wave covered us with spraying water and then we dove down into the next. Our guide kept us straight and we went through these crazy waves like pros, except we were laughing like amateurs! Mary held on for dear life and was smiling through the whole thing! As we settled into calm waters, we felt bonded and like a team that won the big game. In spite of penalties (losing an oar – 15 yard penalty, to be assessed on the opposite wall) we stuck it out and overcame the odds and we were working together and laughing together and floating together. Somewhere around the time I was revelling in our successes, we came around a corner and saw a ramp on the right side and a bunch of rafts lined up. There were no rafts down the river and we saw other rafts from our group on the shore as well. The realization hit that this was the pull-out and we were strongly in the current going the wrong way, away from our friends! Heather dug in to pull us out but the current was too strong. I jumped to the middle of the raft (after receiving captain’s order!), facing Heather and while she pulled with all her might, I also grabbed the oars and pushed with all my might. With the strength of us both pulling and pushing in rhythm and Heather pointing us in the right direction, we made slow and steady progress and finally were able to get into the large eddy on the right side of the river. From there, Heather took full control and we were able to get ourselves back where we needed to be. I don’t think anyone even noticed our little emergency, except maybe a couple of the teen boys who were thinking there was gonna be more food for them if we just kept going…


There were 21 smiling faces at the end of the run. You could see it was a great float in the eyes and the voices of all the participants and volunteers. After unrigging and packing and loading up, we took care of the shuttle and then headed home. Funny how quiet the ride home was compared to the trip up! After Bryce put earphones in to listen to a book, I pulled my book out and did some reading I hadn’t had time for in a while.


After we passed through Soda Springs, we started seeing the runners on the road that we had seen in Smithfield early in the morning! It was then we realized this was likely a relay race between Logan and Jackson (I later verified this online). We honked and waved at several of the leading participants as we thought it was pretty amazing what they were doing and wanted them to know it. After all, the organization I was with was all about getting everyone outside, doing the best they could with every ounce of potential they had, and that’s what these runners were doing as well. Along with these racers on the road, Mary, Heather, Bryce and 17 other participants and volunteers were reaching their potential on this day. It was a good day for quiet heroes. And lucky for me, they let me ride their coattails and enjoy the parade!