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Celebrating 40th Anniversary 2009!

CELEBRATING Our 40th Year of Outfitting ” River Magic” in 2009

The Dvorak’s have a BIG year ahead (2009) and want to share the fun with all our guests and friends. It will be our 40th year of outfitting whitewater trips,  Bill and Jaci’s 40th wedding anniversary and also their 60th birthdays!  They have some wonderful adventures and surprises to share with everyone this next season, so stay in touch.  We hope you will watch the SPECIALS page online and sign up for our newsletter to take advantage of the EARLY BIRD DEALS (book by 12/15/08) discounts.  CALL 800 824-3795 If you have your vacation dates set for 2009, call us today and we’re here to offer those specials now.  Colorado is getting it’s first snow and the high country is still full of fall colors with white caps on the peaks.   Thanks for a great season and don’t forget to VOTE for your canidate of choice on November 4th.

Here’s to High water, Whitewater & Friendship!

Jaci and Bill Dvorak

Summer Over

Rafting Season is Winding Down – Now What? This summer thousands of tourists and locals enjoyed top of the line rafting on the beautiful rivers of Colorado – the Whitewater Capital of the World. Whether it was relaxing with a slow float or getting an adrenaline fix with Class 5 rapids, rafters took advantage of every sun filled day in beautiful Colorado! The Arkansas River alone had a 3.97% increase in visitors from 2005 to 2006 and the numbers continue to grow in the summer of 2007. Now that another fantastic rafting season is coming to a close many companies are closing their doors until next season, but for those who can’t stay away from the river, Bill Dvorak’s Kayaking & Rafting is the answer.

Dvorak’s Kayaking & Rafting provides the river enthusiast with guided fishing and hunting trips in the fall that can range from ½ day up to 5 days! The trips are offered in several locations in the Southwestern United States and range in price. Fall is an excellent time for fishing and Dvorak’s Expeditions provide ideal trips for those who want to take advantage of every last second on the river!

For the past 38 years, Bill Dvorak’s Kayaking & Rafting has been guiding the avid adventurer on rafting, kayaking, and fly fishing trips on various rivers in the Southwestern United States. Bill and Jaci Dvorak pride themselves on providing a quality experience for all guests as well as excellent customer service and their staff works with the same outlook. For more information on customized river trips, visit www.dvorakexpeditions.com.

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Parade Magazine, Take an Active Family Vacation 1995

Live Longer, Better, Wiser
That special time together should recharge body as well as spirit—and bring you closer. So…

By Bonnie Tandy Leblang
March 12, 1995, Parade Magazine

GET THE WHOLE FAMILY together and go do something fun and challenging. You’ll be surprised at what happens.

When I go by vacation with my sons, Bryan and Eric, whether for a week or a weekend, we look for action. We’ll hike to the top of a hill to watch the sunrise, or bike along the coast to spend time at the beach, or ski. “It’s more fun to do something, like ski, than to spend two hours waiting in line to go on a two-minute river-rafting ride at some theme park,” says Bryan, who’s 14.

Such holidays, which needn’t be expensive, are healthful for both body and mind, and they often give rise to happenings that become family stories told and retold down the years. My family still talks about the time, 14 years ago, when my mother, at 60, tipped over in a canoe on the Delaware and went bobbing downriver while my dad—instead of rescuing her—immortalized the moment with his new video camera.

Doing things with the kids can end up making adults more adventurous too.

That’s what happened when Bryan and Eric persuaded me, at age 40, to take a stab at the slopes. They’re experts, while I’ve eked my way up to the intermediate level. They tolerate me anyhow. “You can do it, Mom,” Bryan will tell me at the top of a difficult run. “Just don’t look down!”

You don’t need lots of money to enjoy vacations together. If money is a factor, adapt your leisure pursuits to your area. Ever since my mom floated downriver, canoeing or rafting has been a part of our family reunions. You’ll find canoe, kayak, raft or even tube rentals at most lakes, ponds and rivers, often for about $25 a day for each craft. Just be sure to don life vests.

If you live near a coast, snorkeling is easy to learn and great fun to do, as is basic sailing. For other water opportunities, consider the Boundary Waters Wilderness Canoe Area along the Minnesota-Canada border. It’s a paddler’s paradise, with more than a million acres of wilderness and interconnected lakes that are ideal for exploration., Or try an overnight outing on the Salmon, the Colorado or one of the many other rivers throughout the U.S. (about $375 to $465 a person for a three-day trip). River rafting can be a high adventure in white water or a relaxing ride in calm.

“Choose a river that’s compatible with the ages of your children,” says Jaci Dvorak of Dvorak Kayak and Rafting Expeditions (800)-824-3795.

You might also buy a tent, rent a campsite, pack some food and take the family camping. “My kids still talk about the shooting stars we saw,” says Bob Ronshagen of Milford, Conn., recalling the meteor shower his family witnessed while camping on Cape cod.

Hike the mountains in your area or within one of our national parks to discover wildlife treasures. As you enter a national park that charges admission, buy a Golden Eagle Passport ($25), providing free entry for a year to all 136 parks that charge a fee. If you plan to stay overnight, be sure to make reservations and get permits way ahead. At some parks, you’ll need to call almost a year in advance. For details, see

The Complete Guide to America’s National Parks (Fodor’s) or a similar source.

Don’t overlook references listing active vacation ideas, including The Ultimate Adventure Sourcebook(Turner) or Great American Sports and Adventure Vacations: 500 of the Country’s Best Outdoor Trips and Sports Schools (Fodor’s).

Dude ranches range from resorts that include golf, tennis, swimming and fine dining to small, homestyle places. For complete details on U.S. ranches, read Gene Kilgore’s Ranch Vacations (John Muir Publications).

Consider a wilderness trip with an outfitter who’ll set up camp, provide food and be your guide. “It’s a real family togetherness activity,” says Terry Pollard, owner of Bald Mountain Outfitters (307-367-6539), which has been taking families into Wyoming’s Bridger Wilderness for more than 30 years to fish, hunt and just enjoy the outdoors, beginning at $195 a day for each person. Find outfitters by word of mouth or contact the state’s Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Forest Service.

Before deciding on a specific trip, get lots of information. Ask what the price includes and what it doesn’t. Inquire about pre- and post-season prices and other special rates that would make the trip more affordable. Ask if there are age or height restrictions.

For vacations, planning is key. Investigate thoroughly, but remember: Adventure involves the unexpected.

Chicago Tribune 2002

Classical rafting
An adventure in music, with a river on the side
Story and photos by Alan Solomon
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 25, 2002

GREEN RIVER, Utah – Imagine, if you can and if you will, the audience at a symphony concert. Picture their age, what they’re wearing, how they’re groomed.

Now, imagine them sweaty. Imagine them with squirt guns. Imagine them on the sandy bank of a river between canyon walls in the early evening, listening to great music played by musicians wearing T-shirts, shorts and sandals.

This was the Classical Music White-Water Raft Trip.

The brochure sent out by Bill Dvorak’s Rafting & Kayaking Expeditions calls this offering “The Classical Music River Journey.”

Say that out loud: Flows like Debussy, doesn’t it?

But here’s what we’re really talking about: Seven nights of wilderness camping in Utah’s beautiful Desolation and Gray Canyons. Pretty fine dining. Tents and primitive, um, facilities. There’s no getting around that.

Eight days on rafts and inflatable kayaks on the Green River, with low water leaving much of it flat or lightly riffling, but some rapids approaching Class III on the hysteria charts (i.e., difficult but not life-threatening, unless you do something really stupid).

And along on the trip: four musicians—one of them a violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, another a cellist who performed at Barbra Streisand’s latest wedding—playing tunes by the likes of Mozart and Bartok.

Sandstone and sunsets and Stravinsky, plus crepes suzette for dessert.
Not your usual adventure.

“It’s a strange mix—classical music and wilderness camping,” said Dvorak, a distant relative (“some sort of fifth cousin”) of the composer. “A lot of classical music aficionados are not wilderness campers. To them, a Motel 6 would be a wilderness experience—so it’s kind of hard to market.”

There were, nonetheless, 22 of us on this journey, enough to fill five oar-powered rafts. Six were staff, including Dvorak and wife Jaci, three guides/boatpeople and a young Englishwoman with the catch-all job title of “logistics”; the classical quartet—the classic two violinists, violist and cellist; and the rest of us, 12 guests in all, men and women, most in their 40s and 50s—all music lovers and, it turned out, all rafters of varying experience.

Included were a couple of ringers, pals of Dvorak with ties to the industry: Jerry Mallett, president of the Adventure Travel Society, a trade group and consulting firm; and lawyer Jim Pearson, the society’s chairman when he isn’t ski instructing, dive instructing and generally counseling.

Both would make valuable contributions to the journey: Mallett, rowing one of the rafts, would manage to flip one of them, which not only added excitement to the week but, given the drought-stricken river’s low water level, was almost impossible; and Pearson would bring enough first-rate single-malt Scotch to make the rest of us forget he was a lawyer.

No one contributed more to the success of all this than the musicians, and we’ll get to that.

The journey began on the Green River at Sand Wash, a onetime ferry site. Access was by small plane and bad road. Lisa Kruer, a river ranger, briefed us on what we were about to experience: canyons, cowboy history (Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and their Wild Bunch roamed here, their roamings in part abetted by cooperative, well-compensated ranchers happy to supply fresh horses), Indian graffiti and landscapes little changed from the time of John Wesley Powell’s pioneering 1869 float trip.

“The only wildlife that isn’t here that was here when Powell explored the Green,” she said, “is the grizzly bear and wolves.”

Before we’d leave the river 84 miles later, we would see great blue herons, a golden eagle, mule deer, bighorn sheep, a beaver, the usual (but not that many) bugs, two wild turkeys, ducks, bats, lizards, frogs, a couple of non-poisonous snakes, one scorpion, one toad, hoofprints of wild horses, paw prints of a black bear and tracks of a mountain lion.

There would be hikes to homesteader ranches and a moonshine still, to Indian petroglyphs and pictographs, to streams of cool, clear water ready to drink.

There would be a hailstorm the first night in camp—hail the size of Milk Duds—and a cloudburst on the last night.

There would be rafting for most of us—oars powered by Dvorak, his guides, Mallett and the occasional volunteer—and kayaking for some, in one- and two-person inflatables.

There would be heat. Temperatures in the canyons easily exceeded 100 degrees; water fights (squirt guns, then buckets) and occasional swimming stops kept things tolerable.

With the Green grudgingly navigable, what in wetter times would be successions of thrilling rapids—dozens in all—would be reduced to maybe five or six that made the heart quicken.

Which in the larger picture didn’t seem to matter much.

Here’s why—and this part of the story began around 20 years ago, when a hike into a canyon led to a man playing a harmonica in what was a natural amphitheater.

“The acoustics were just phenomenal in there,” Dvorak recalled. “One of the guys on the trip was a violinist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he said, ‘This would be a great place to play music.’ ”

Our first campsite on this trip was at a cottonwood-cooled bank called Rock House Bottom. The hailstorm had been just a late-afternoon blip; the morning was brilliant. After breakfast, the non-players hiked into the very canyon where Dvorak had found the harmonica player—and that’s where we found our string quartet, which had set out early to set up.

Barry Socher, violin. Los Angeles Philharmonic, founding member Armadillo String Quartet, concertmaster for three regional orchestras. “I play for a living,” he said one day, grinning. “I play, and once in a while someone sends me a check.”

John Morrice, violin. Assistant concertmaster of the Fresno Philharmonic, teacher and bandmaster of six bands and orchestras from junior high through junior college. Once played violin with The Who. That’s right. “I’m not just stringing you along… ”

Shawn Mann, viola. Los Angeles Opera, freelance. At 32, youngest of the group, the only musician doing this for the first time and the only one who brought his primary instrument. Knows all the viola jokes (“What’s the difference between a viola and a violin? None. Violinists’ heads are bigger.”), plus some great trombonist jokes.

Harry Gilbert, cello. Freelance, composer, plays a little mandolin. The one who played cello at the Streisand party, Marvin Hamlisch conducting, “but I never saw the bride.” A very good story you won’t read here.

None are paid for this, except for the free ride.

“There’s no other way I can tie all the elements of my life together so well,” explained Gilbert, who has done this for seven straight years—twice this year. “The combination of nature and the music is unbeatable.”

There they sat, on metal folding chairs, in that natural amphitheater, surrounded by absolute magnificence—and there, for us, they played “Summer,” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” And somewhere in the Vivaldi, seamlessly, came just a little bit of Gershwin. It was “Summertime”—Socher had slipped it into his arrangement—and on this warm summer morning in the desert, it brought chills…

Every day, sometimes in the morning after breakfast, in a grove or on a beach, sometimes in the evening before dinner, sometimes both, there would be a concert. Maybe an hour, give or take. Mendelssohn, Haydn. Mancini. One hot evening: “Sleigh Ride.” And also, there was Jim Ito.

He was not part of the string quartet—he’d paid out of his pocket to be here—but he was no less a part of the magic. A Los Angeles florist and landscape architect, this was his fourth time on this journey.

At the first campground, when the storm had passed and the air had turned still, he had taken his two recorders—those flute things—and found his own canyon wall and, alone, he played. Some melodies I didn’t recognize. One I did: “Stardust.”

On the raft, he would play as we slid between resonant canyon walls—sometimes two recorders at once, the soprano and tenor recorders making their own harmony. He brings them everywhere.

“I’ve gone all around the world looking for churches and walls and cliffs that work,” he said. “A lot of the Renaissance churches in Italy, they’re designed to envelop you in the sound. In some

of them, you can play to the echo.”

One afternoon, on a raft, with Harry Gilbert pounding out the percussion on the rubber, Ito—on a recorder—played all of Ravel’s “Bolero.”
One evening, playing a guitar (he also brought a guitar) and joined by Gilbert on mandolin, Jim Ito sang “Cielito Lindo,” in Spanish. Some of us joined in the chorus. That was on Mexican Night. Margaritas, quesadillas, chicken fajitas, sopapillas and more margaritas. There would also be New Orleans night (blackened swordfish, bananas Foster), French night (boeuf bourguignon and those crepes) and other good nights.

“You know the most dangerous thing about white-water boating?” posed Mallett. “The real dangers are gaining weight from the food—the food is outstanding—and skin cancer. All boatmen get skin cancer. I’ve got big chucks out of my back, more on my face… ”

About half the journey floated through Desolation Canyon, whose walls become great rock cathedrals and castles, the colors easing gradually from a mustard brown to stripes of all shades to Monument Valley red.

Then it changed. Past McPherson Ranch—Butch Cassidy and Jim McPherson were pals—the red rock faded, and Gray Canyon matched its name.

Some of the Gray Canyon rapids, even with the water low, offered a bit of challenge. It was at Three Fords Rapid that Mallett, an experienced boatman, nonetheless flipped his raft. (“We were futzing around and I wasn’t paying attention,” he said. Except for a few bumps, no one was hurt.) Ten miles farther, at Coal Creek Rapid, a rock caught Mallett’s raft and held on until he got help.

At the camps, we would talk about canyons and rivers and rapids. The Dolores, the middle fork of the Salmon, the Lower Canyons of the Rio Grande, the Rogue. The Colorado.
“The Grand Canyon—I mean, all these are magic places, but that one is especially so,” said Socher. “Every side canyon is another paradise.”

“It’s not overrated,” added Mallett. “It’s just overwhelming.”

And over post-dinner refreshments we would spot satellites gliding among the stars—the international space station did or didn’t buzz our camps multiple times—and there would be the stars themselves. There is nothing like the starry sky of a desert wilderness, unless it’s the glow of canyon walls on a moonlit night.

But with all that, it was the music and the musicians that made this different. Talk of conductors, good and bad and terrible. Of hauling instruments in a trunk down rapids. (“I know one time I had $300,000 in there,” said Bill Dvorak.) Of the economics of being a classical musician, of weddings and bar mitzvahs and of favorite music-stand partners and of orchestral politics.

Questions—questions like, What does a concertmaster actually do? (Partial answer: Plots the bowings, so the strings’ bows go in the same direction at the same time.)

More viola jokes: “What’s the difference between a violin and a viola?” “The viola burns longer.”

A French-horn joke that won’t make the paper.

Barry Socher, esteemed Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist, doing Elmer Fudd singing Wagner: “Ki-ill the wabbit… Ki-ill the wabbit… ” And the music. The music.

“I love Haydn,” said John Morrice, “but Dvorak, ‘American String Quartet.’ The second movement, it’s just like a river trip. “It starts with a beautiful, flowing melody, and you have all sorts of little variations with it. Gorgeous. We’ll probably play it.” They did. The music was glorious. Then we went back on the river.
They had become the same.

IF YOU GO

THE TRIPS
“Classical Music Journeys” from Bill Dvorak Rafting and Kayaking Expeditions take place in June (Dolores River, Colorado/Utah, four- and seven-day trips) and late July-early August (Green River, Utah, eight days). Dolores prices range from $997 per person for the short trip to $1,775 ($1,600 for kids through age 12) for the longer one; the Green River journey is priced at $1,745. Prices are for 2004 prices and schedules are subject to change.

THE DIFFERENCE
The Dolores’ waters are typically clear and cold, the run cuts through some forested stretches, and the rapids can exceed Class IV (“very difficult”) when the flow is right; the Green River, warmer and carrying more sediment (but fine for swimming), runs through remote, eye-popping desert canyons most of the way, with rapids up to Class III (“difficult”). Both offer side-hikes to Indian petroglyphs and pioneer structures, and both rivers’ conditions are subject to nature’s whims.

WHAT’S INCLUDED
Rafts or inflatable single and double kayaks (your choice; or you can switch from one conveyance to another), all meals and most beverages (including wine) on the river, music, guides and some local transportation. Most special dietary needs can be accommodated.

WHAT’S NOT
Your tent, sleeping bag and associated personal camping gear (some of which can be rented at nominal cost); air fare and, on the Green, transfers to the put-in sight; car shuttle to takeout points, if needed; most alcoholic beverages beyond wine; tips (optional); and lodging and meals at arrival and departure points when not on the river.

ALTERNATIVES
Dvorak offer non-musical raft trips on the Green and Dolores Rivers at substantially lower prices. Sample: A six-day Dvorak trip down the Green (same route but two days shorter than the musical version, with somewhat less-elegant dining) was priced at $872, $788 for kids 12 & Under

INFORMATION
For information on Bill Dvorak’s Rafting & Kayaking Expeditions, call the company at 800-824-3795 or check www.dvorakexpeditions.com on the Web.

Tour du Jour 1993

Sampling the Tour du Jour: Isn’t that Special
By Mary Forgione, Daily News Staff Writer
Sunday, May 30, 1993 Travel Section, Daily News (edited version).

Members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic perform concerts in the wild on a Colorado river rafting trip.

To tour or not to tour, that is the question.
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and arrows of outrageous traveling companions Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.
And by opposing – stay home.

If you like the notion of traveling with a tour group but are wary (or weary) of sharing your hard-earned vacation with 30 strangers whose interests are limited to grabbing gift-shop glitz, take heart.

Special interests may be a dirty word on Capitol Hill but tour operators find that trip, cruises and workshops pegged to a particular theme or pastime make tour groups more compatible. And though theme trips appeal to narrower audiences, they also provide a creative market niche for companies that want to offer more than run-of-the-mill tours.

For example, river rafter Bill Dvorak discovered that the red rock canyons of the Dolores River in southwestern Colorado is the perfect setting for challenging rafting – and Mozart.

In early June, he will load a cello, chairs, violins, violas, music stands and a flute into an enormous cushioned box, strap it to a raft, and proceed down the river with five classical musicians (led by Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist Roy Tanabe) and 15 participants.

“There’s music every day,” said Dvorak, who has been combining live music with rafting trips for the past eight years.

For information, contact Bill Dvorak’s Kayak & Rafting Expeditions, 17921 U.S. Highway 285, Nathrop, Colo., 81236; (800)-824-3795. Dvorak will lead a rafting trip featuring four members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and a flutist from the Santa Fe Symphony. Participants on the June 4-11 Dolores River trip in southwestern Colorado will hear four private concerts as well as other rehearsal sessions on their trip down the river. Cost is $1,450 per person.

NG Traveler Article 2006

National Geographic Traveler Musical Journey Dolores River Article

New York Times 2005

The New York Times
June 17, 2005
ADVENTURER; On the Dolores River, Whitewater, Running Deep and Fast
By ANNE GOODWIN SIDES

AT 3 a.m., I slip out of my tent and make a quiet pilgrimage to the river where the inflatable rafts are tethered. The gear boat’s padded bench is the perfect pew from which to worship the moonless, ink-black sky, pierced by innumerable pricks of light. On this first night of our trip down 47 miles of the Lower Dolores River in southwestern Colorado, it’s sort of hypnotic to think that the Anasazi, whose 1,000-year-old granaries and pictographs still adorn this isolated red-rock canyon, must have enjoyed the same aperture on the stars.

We’re camped on a grassy bank, a hundred yards upstream from a stretch of churning hydraulics known as Snaggletooth, a Class IV-V rapid choked with giant boulders, where sleeper rocks just below the surface hide violent pour-over ledges that drop into ”munchers”—holes that can trap a kayak or flip a raft like a coin. With record snows burying the San Juan Mountains, the Dolores is a roiling funnel of runoff, flowing as high as 4,200 cubic feet a second in May.

It’s been a miraculous spring for river runners, with high water across the West. Rafting and kayaking outfitters who had to sell off treasured family cabins and dip into savings to stay solvent after six years of drought are suddenly having a bumper year. As I drove out of Santa Fe, N.M., heading north for the Dolores, I passed a flotilla of bright-colored kayaks bouncing down the Santa Fe River—a startling sight, since the river has been bone dry in recent summers. In coffee shops around town, I’ve been hearing river rats’ tall tales about ripping up the Taos Box rapids. But their euphoria is never more palpable than when the Dolores is mentioned.

The lower section of the Dolores runs north for 173 uninterrupted miles near the Colorado-Utah border, dropping 3,000 feet in elevation before emptying into the Colorado River. It has a short, sweet season, usually beginning in late April and ending in early June—but only when there’s enough snowpack. Water levels have been so low since 1999 that rafts couldn’t run it. Few kayakers even tried it because it often meant more portaging than paddling. Meanwhile, river otters and blue herons flourished.

In its brochure, our outfitter, Dvorak’s Kayak & Rafting Expeditions, calls the Dolores ”a river of many moods,” which, given the unrelenting thunder coming from old Snaggletooth, must include cranky. It’s also icy cold at 46 degrees because the Dolores is fed from releases of snowmelt kept nicely chilled at the bottom of the McPhee Reservoir 20 miles south of us.

I’ve brought two of my three sons along—Graham, 10, and Griffin, who turned 8 the day we put in. I note the ominous-sounding ”Snaggletooth disaster recovery camp” marked on the waterproof guide’s map, just below the rapids that are now drowning out the sound of my own breathing. I’m beginning to feel nervous. I close my eyes, say a prayer to the river gods and spritz a ceremonial handful of river water up at the heavens before returning to my tent.

Three hours later, our lead river guide, Noah Marquis, 29, is wildly spinning a river runner’s coffee pot above his head to pull the grounds to the bottom by centrifugal force. With a soul patch sprouting from his leathery-brown chin, and kayaker pecs and biceps bulging through his tank top, he looks his résumé—he’s spent the last 12 years running the world’s most demanding whitewater from Nepal to Ecuador. But the Dolores is still among his favorites. Our other guide, firing up the camp stove and whisking pancake batter, is the laconic Matt Dvorak, 20, son of Bill and Jaci Dvorak, who were among the first outfitters in Colorado back in the 1970′s. Matt’s biceps are tattooed with angry-looking scars.

”Are you a pirate?” Griffin asks Matt, as we sit around the breakfast campfire. ”What happened to your arms?”

”Oh these?” says Matt. It turns out he’d been attacked by a drunk with a switchblade, after winning one too many foosball games in a bar. Having seen his sangfroid on the river, I can image Matt deftly deflecting his attacker. Like every other river guide I’ve met over the years, he’s got Clint Eastwood cool in the clutch.

After breakfast we all hike down to scout Snaggletooth. Noah and Matt are hopping from one boulder to the next, parsing the river. Like fitting pieces of a puzzle together, they’re picking out lines, visualizing the sequence of moves that will let them safely punch through the seething holes. ”It’s a game of endless second-guesses, and split-second adjustments,” Noah says cheerfully.

Before our rafts are unleashed on Snaggletooth one at a time, the boys and I and our fellow guests, a jolly family of Texans, are given a quick course on what to do if we’re tossed from the boat and have to swim. We’re told to keep our feet up on the surface and pointed downstream to avoid submerged rubble heaps of tree trunks and rocks that can trap a foot or a leg. Then we’re supposed to ”relax into the cold” and try to steer ourselves to shore.

”Most of all, watch for the throw rope,” Noah says solemnly. ”Grab it!”

There’s a giddy excitement as we don our gladiator armor (Neoprene wet suits and booties, yellow rain slickers and life vests) and prepare to plunge into a pulsing, surging, masticating force. Having heard a few of Noah’s ghoulish river sagas over the campfire last night, we’re fully aware that a river can toss a raft skyward, crash over it, or hoist it up the side of a rock until it buckles.

Blissfully undaunted, everyone’s spirits are high—except Griffin’s. The guides have determined that given the speed and temperature of the water, it isn’t safe for an 8-year-old to raft Snaggletooth. He’ll have to hike around it.

Choking back tears, Griffin quietly tells me: ”It isn’t any fun to watch, Mommy. Please tell them I can do it.” I feel his disappointment, but I’m also relieved. Noah explains that if he were thrown from the raft, Griffin is so light he could be a mile downstream before they could scoop him out.

The first boat, with all five Texans paddling hard on Noah’s commands, takes the giant pour over head-on, with enough speed to get the raft across a muscular hole, but not before being bucked hard, rodeo-fashion. Noah then artfully sleds over a line of rolling ”haystacks” and weaves through a maze of monster truck-size boulders, riding the fast chutes of whitewater between them. When they’ve safely cleared Snaggletooth, Noah lashes his boat to the shore and sits with Griffin atop a fine viewing rock to console him as he waits to rejoin us.

Graham and I climb in the gear boat with Matt, who’s already decided the boat is too heavy to pass through that first foaming hole. His eyes are sweeping the riverscape ahead. In his characteristic gnostic silence, Matt’s chosen a completely different strategy—to ricochet the raft through Snaggletooth’s boulder garden, spinning and bumping, timing each rotation to avoid getting pinned on a rock.

This is not extreme whitewater. But from the second we launch off the first wave, running this rapid feels epic—as if we’re riding frothy giants. Matt’s recalibrations of every angle and velocity are as fluid as the changing conditions. There’s probably some elegant algorithm of river physics that would explain our erratic spiraling path. But it couldn’t sum up the exhilaration, fear, cold, surrender of control and triumph I feel all in one tumultuous moment. Then, as quickly and seamlessly as it began, it’s over.

My heart is beating in a familiar tempo again by the time we pass the disaster recovery camp. Matt gracefully negotiates the next gnarly rapid, Cannonball Wall, with Zen-like aplomb, moving with the current, harnessing its force.

Shortly after the hiccups presented by next-in-line Three Mile Rapid, it begins to rain, gently at first, then in wind-whipped granules that peck at our faces and hands and soak us to the bone. Graham, who stubbornly removed his wet suit saying it was itchy back when the sun was out, begins to shiver violently. ”I can’t feel my legs,” he says, teeth chattering. Matt blows his whistle in two fierce bursts and both boats quickly pull to one bank. In the brief time it takes Matt and Noah to stall the boats and lunge into action, ripping high-tech rubbery-fleecy Hydroskin layers out of their packs, Graham is going hypothermic. His lips are blue, his body immobile.

With great difficulty, we stretch a skintight shirt, vest, leggings, a hat, gloves and wool socks over his wooden appendages. The cold has already set into my own joints, sapping all the strength from my fingers. Noah tosses me his sleeping bag and instructs me to swaddle Graham in it.

Matt spins the raft around so our backs are to the biting wind. Miraculously, Graham recovers enough in the next 10 minutes to breathe evenly again. The shuddering subsides. In another 15 minutes, the sun re-emerges, and we find a sandy beach where the guides whip out a lunch of trail mix, dried fruit and tuna sandwiches. We’re all ravenous. The children are horsing around as if nothing’s happened.

Later, floating past Disappointment Creek in glorious sunshine, Griffin is sitting cross-legged on the bow, gently bobbing through the waves like a little raja. ”Put the paddles to the water!” he commands. ”Get your backs into it, boys!”

The ultimate river runner, a merganser, escorts us through her mile of territory, making sure we don’t interfere with her nest. She dips and weaves, surfing the whitewater effortlessly, taking life’s cluttered waves head-on and making it look easy.

Rivers Wild

The Year of the Big Waters

THE rafting and kayaking season on the Dolores River may be coming to a close, but after a winter in which the Rocky Mountains were pummeled with snow, all the Western rivers that are fed by their runoff are having their first healthy flows in years.

Rapids are ranked from Class I (meaning moving water with small waves, suitable for beginners) to Class VI (nearly impossible and dangerous).

Just south of Vail, the Eagle River—so low the last few years that it’s barely been worth dipping a paddle in—has surged back to life this spring, offering Class V rapids through four-mile Gilman Gorge for gonzo kayakers, with more mellow fare further north. Heavy rains in May and June have extended the season on the Eagle through mid-July. It’s mostly a day-tripper river.

Flowing at three times its recent volume across more than 60 rapids, including some rambunctious Class III whitewater, the Green River is great for beginner kayakers, with trips available through a variety of outfitters through September. The Green, which also offers challenging rafting, threads south through Utah’s deepest canyon—called ”a region of wildest desolation” by the geologist-explorer Major John Wesley Powell. From July 23 to 30, Dvorak Kayak & Rafting Expeditions will run a classical music trip down the Green. Musicians from major orchestras take part in the trip then play in ancient sandstone amphitheaters along the way.

The Gunnison River, famous for its clear green water, is churning white this season, with a few wild-and-woolly Class IV’s that may deserve an upgrade. Accessible only by foot or horseback, the Gunnison is fed by slot canyon streams with crystalline swimming holes bordered by wildflowers. The season runs through September.

From the base of 14,000-foot Mount Wilson near Telluride in southwestern Colorado, the San Miguel River flows freely to the north through striated sandstone canyons and piney wilderness preserves for 80 miles, spilling into a desert confluence with the Dolores River. It’s an ideal family river, with Class II and III rapids along its upper stretches to ratchet up the adrenaline. This year the San Miguel is offering months of river running (April 1 through June) versus the usual tiny window of two-and-a-half weeks.

The last major undammed river in Colorado, the Yampa, courses through Dinosaur National Monument, where big horn sheep drink at the river’s edge. Every May and June this river rolls out Class IV-worthy waves, but this year’s generous snowmelt whipped up monstrous V’s in May at Warm Springs (considered one of the 10 big drops in the West) that have calmed down in the last week. The Yampa also has a serene side, with plenty of lazy floating past miles of tiger-striped canyon walls that shoot 2000 feet straight up.