This will probably turn out too long and boring to read, so give up now.
President Stratton of my stake presidency knew something bad was going to happen and had an uneasy feeling about our trip. He prayed about it and ended up with an assurance that nothing permanently bad would happen and that the Lord teaching his flock a lesson. He didn't tell us that until afterwards.
21,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) was the highest in 9 years. The trip wasn't too terribly scary for the first large portion of it. The worst rapids weren't until Lunch Counter. Lunch Counter doesn't sound like a very scary name until you've almost lost your life in it. After almost losing your life in it, you start to think of yourself as the lunch at Lunch Counter for the vultures after death.
There's no going around Lunch Counter. Either side of the river has swirling pools of water ready to suck you in and flip you. The only really option is to go straight up the middle which is where four consecutive large walls of water running parallel to the bank of the river are ready to flip you into either of the two swirling vortexes. None of the pictures taken really portray the horror. I'm the bottom-most person in the picture except for our river guide in case you can't tell.
We went up the middle and got through the first three large walls with much grief, but the last was just too much. It was simply bigger and faster and more furious than our raft (which is quite large and fast itself). We flipped sort of diagonally backwards and people were mostly thrown out of the raft before the raft was even halfway tipped.
People like me who can't swim, thought we were going to die. Some girls who could swim just fine thought they were also going to die because two things made it harder. First, we were covered by a huge raft and had to get out from under it. Second, if you were lucky enough to do so, you probably also had someone land on top of you and as they were struggling themselves, they were inadvertently holding you under water. Then, as you came up out of the water and started choking and swallowing and spitting and gasping, you only had one second to do so before another rapid covered you and the process started all over again.
After clearing all of the rapids, we hit a point where now we could constantly keep our heads above water. Thinking straight was still a challenge. I tuned out everyone around me. Kali Browne tried saving my life and I kept saying, "No, no, no, no, no, no." But what I meant was, "No, thank you Kali. I'd rather have just me die then both of us." Most swam to other rafts that made it through. Luckily, they did make it. I can only imagine if more than one had flipped. A raft was screaming to me to swim to them but I was ignoring them. I wanted to make it to shore. I didn't realize that it was probably a bigger chore to make it to shore than to swim to the raft.
Some well-meaning individuals threw ropes out for us to grab. This was a huge morale booster until after grabbing it and it becoming taut, we went under water and started drowning again. I let go and thought, "That was a stupid idea!" Every time I would get close to the shore, the water currents would pull me away from it and boy are they powerful. Eventually, I swam with all my might towards a tree that was overhanging the shore and I grabbed it and it flung me to shore. That was painful.
I sat there amazed about what had just happened, but then my thoughts turned to everyone else out there. I started praying my guts out. My eyes popped open for a second and I could see my garments. I followed them up my leg and realized that I didn't have any pants on. At some point, probably during the rope incident, they came off. My keys were in there so that was an unpleasant thought. One other girl got to shore at some point and she hiked to the road and walked back to the buses. The river guide also got to shore and the two of us weren't at an area where that was an option so we hiked to a raft up the river that stopped to get us. Boy did I not want to get back in--especially in garments. But I had my life, and who hasn't seen their dad walking around in garments? They were cotton so not see-through like mesh, thank heavens. Once in, Sister Miner had an extra pair of capris that I put on for modesty's sake. Ashlee South put her arm around me to keep me from shivering so badly.
We got our raft flipped back over and got back in. We missed as many rapids as possible the rest of the trip. You could tell our river guide was humbled. What I heard was that he hadn't flipped a raft in ten years and he's done some of the ugliest rivers in Zimbabwe. When we were back at the buses, we exchanged hugs, made sure we were all accounted for, and I changed the capris for some more unisex shorts that Meridith had.
No doubt there's much more to the story that's not included. I won't go into the ugly details about having to leave my car in Jackson over the weekend with all of our valuables in it and having to get a key in Pleasant Grove and then drive back later the next week costing around $450.
I think the most overwhelming part of this has just been the idea of death. Coming that close to death makes you think of the Plan of Salvation so much more deeply. I, as well as about five others, were rather traumatized by the experience and have all no doubt grown closer to the Lord because of it. But it's not just the experience itself that has helped us grow closer to the Lord. It's the fact that we're all trying to be more Christ-like as a result of the experience. That's what brings you closer to Christ. We're speaking kinder words, we're serving more often, we're taking advantage of life's blessings more generously (e.g., not wasting so much time). We grew much closer as a ward (as if we weren't already the closest ward in the world), and now we can take these experiences and carry them to others and help them to see things the way we do.
THE END (but not really because didn't die)
