White Water Kayaking at the Taos Box

This weekend I made the decision to try white water kayaking.  It looked like fun, I had never done anything with rivers/rapids besides float trips, and it was cheap.  The weekend ended with severely bruised legs, scrapes across my hands, and a huge knot on my elbow and barely being able to sit down.  Would I do it again?….maybe.
        So we started with a “lesson” on Friday night at the indoor pool.  Five minutes into said lesson, and we were kicked out by lightning in the area.  We had enough time to practice one skill, one time, which was how to pull the emergency release if you end up upside down in your kayak.  So, it had never occurred to me that you were actually stuck, inside the kayak.  I had the idea that you were just sitting in it, legs in front of you, and if it tipped over, you just fell out.  Not the case.  If you tip over, you are trapped underwater with the kayak on top of you.  You are then supposed to tuck your body towards your legs, raise your fists to the outside of the boat and knock to alert others that you are upside down.  You then wait, until someone comes over to your boat and allows you to pull yourself up using their kayak as leverage.  This is of course, the beginner method.  Who would know that?
        Saturday morning, I lazily paddled around the river (Taos box area).  The first horrific thing to happen was a drunk man, fell off the bridge over the river, hitting his head as he came down and then not being able to swim once he surfaced.  By the time we were able to convince his friends he needed to go to the hospital despite him asking for another beer, he was in shock…really smart to play on the edge of bridge over rapids filled with rocks.  Anyway, we started heading down the river and I decided to try and catch a current.  I was promptly flipped over to my dismay.  I silently panicked before walking through the steps.  I did not hear a kayak hit my kayak.  I waited another few seconds then desperately tried to reach for another kayak but did not find any.  I finally pulled the emergency release and was quickly caught up in the current and dragged across some large rocks, but, I did still have my boat.  One of the instructors came over to help me empty out my boat and told me I had tilted the wrong way into the current – hmm, we hadn’t covered that in the 5 minutes of lessons the night before, odd.  So I survived, but was a little shaken.  I was then informed that you can actually learn what is called a kayak roll.  When you sense that you are falling, you somehow use your momentum and paddle to roll through the fall and end up upright.  They offer a class in this method which I immediately signed up for once the day was over. 

Lower part of the Taos Box

        So I spent the rest of the day trying to stay on the straight parts, twirling around in circles as I lost control of my kayak in the current and trying not to get eaten by the triranhas (trout + piranhas) – Taos joke I guess?  The rapids that we went through at the end were quite a bit of fun and easier to stay upright in than the fast moving current.  I followed it up the next day at 10,000 Waves in Santa Fe with a soak, Thai Massage and facial.  Ask for Lesley for the massage if you go.  I was finally able to sit comfortably in my car on the way back home after she pulled my limbs in so many different directions.  They claim it is possible to be taller after a Thai massage, which is kind of weird.