A year ago I took my first whitewater rafting trip with a group called Class Five Chaos, and this weekend joined the same group for another trip down the Arkansas River. Once again there were about 150 people camping for the weekend, with well over 100 of those joining in on the rafting adventure Saturday afternoon. Just like last year, Kim and I drove down to the same campsite after work on Friday. After setting up camp and enjoying a couple of cold ones near a fire, we were off to rest up for the big day.

Unlike last year, the Royal Gorge section of the river was open, and that’s exactly where we took our rafts. This is a section of the river rated at class IV or V with rapids named things like Sunshine Falls, Boat Eater, and Wall Slammer. Despite the tough conditions and large group, I’m told that only one person ended up in the water all day and that was one of the guides who was trying to help keep another rafter in the boat. I guess he did what he wanted to do, but with it he ended up falling into the chilly waters himself. So it was a very successful trip full of lots of smiles and laughter.

After rafting, we all rode buses back to the base of operations for the rafting company where a party was setup. We had great bbq for lunch, lots of Shiner beer, two bands, and even a cornhole tournament. Of course Kim and I entered the tournament, and eventually went on to win the entire event. It took five victories, one of which was a complete shutout, but we came out on top in the end and won a set of smaller traveling cornhole boards from Shiner and a couple of CamelBak backpacks!

After the fun at the party wrapped up, it was back to the campsite for the annual flip cup tournament. We entered the tournament, but when it came time for our first match we couldn’t find our teammates and had to forfeit. We stuck around to watch most of the action though and had lots of laughs along the way. Along with the flip cup we also had more good times around campfires and eventually were off to bed. Sunday was a long drive back to Denver with sore bodies and not enough sleep. That’s the price to pay for an awesome weekend. Some pictures that Kim and I took from Friday are posted below. We forgot the camera the day of the rafting trip but I’ll keep my eyes out for any photos of the cornhole champs.