People naturally tend to gravitate to the familiar. It seemed like people were lining up on the rafts the same as yesterday. Cheryl and I decided to start mixing that up a bit and switched rafts. Beside we might get a different perspective of the canyon from Tres and Amber.

I was a lot better at regulating temperatures today; using the wet floppy hat when hot and removing it when cold. Today would be the quietest in terms of frequency of rapids. It gave me a chance to experiment with layers. I wore a rain jacket over my long sleeve shirt. The rain jacket helped with the mild breeze generated by our forward motion, but did not keep me dry. The waves hit with some force and water would find its way into, down and out even the smallest openings. The hood served more like an upright scoop to catch water that made it into the opening around my face and funneled it downward.

At mile 43.5, President Harding Rapid, we came across a raft solidly wedged on a rock just past the top of the rapids. Tres and Tyler found a line on river right to get past them; both pulled up into the eddy below the rapid on river left. We all climbed out and walked back up to the top of the rapids to see if we could lend a hand. All the outfitters are very good at looking out for each other that way.

The crew of four had been struggling to dislodge the raft for 15 minutes before we arrived with no success. The river had already peaked for the day and slowly dropping levels would only continue to make things worse. Shifting the weight of the crew and trying to rock the raft from different positions was not helping and was tiring the crew. A rope was thrown from shore to the raft and tied to the bow of the raft. We got a line of bodies on the rope and started a tug of war against the river and the rocks. The crew continued rocking as we pulled. Eventually the rocks released their grip on the raft and set it free. The crew appreciated our help and it was a nice way for us to add some excitement to an otherwise quiet day.