White Water Rafting – June 3, 2026
I’ve always wanted to go White Water Rafting! It’s been on my bucket list for a long time. And although this trip didn’t end up the way I had expected (!) the first part of the trip was amazing!
I went up the night before we were to leave and stayed at the Hualapai Lodge. My trip was booked with the Hualapai River Runners and they met in the lobby of that Lodge in the morning so it was easy! It was also the only company that did single-day trips through the Grand Canyon! We took a bus from the Lodge to the bottom of the Canyon where the trip started! We stopped along the way to grab some photos of the canyon (or maybe to give the bus a break on the dirt roads down!).
There were three rafts + an additional raft that carried all the food and the dry bags. I was on a raft with 7 other people from the same company on a team-building trip! They were so unbelievably nice! (And later I realize that they might have been the only reason I survived this trip!! 🙂 ). We started the trip and immediately hit some awesome rapids! They were SO. MUCH. FUN!!
And it was at this point that everything went downhill for me! We stopped to hike up to a waterfall. I was laughing hysterically one minute and the next I couldn’t catch my breath! I felt like I had just hiked Mt. Everest! I sat down on a rock as the rest of them hiked back to the waterfall. I went to get back on the raft when all of them came back and immediately passed out!
I ended up moving to the raft that was carrying the dry bags and the lunches so I wouldn’t ruin the trip for the rest of them. From there on out for the rest of the trip I just laid on a bench in the raft and projectile vomited! Every once and a while I would stick the camera up from under the jacket I was laying under (so I wouldn’t fry from the 110-degree heat) and take a picture or two!
I may never know what caused it! It might have been the burger I got from Sonic on the way up there the night before. I ate half of it for dinner the night before and finished it up for breakfast before I left.
We were to take a helicopter out of the canyon which I was really looking forward to, but we had to hike up the helipad first! Had it not been for the guys that were on the raft I was originally on, that basically half-supported me up the stairs to get to the helipad, I might have ended up as Vulture food!
But… The helicopter ride out was still awesome! They helped me back to the bus from the helipad we landed on and I did a lot better on the ride back to the Lodge!
I got some Gatorade from a Circle K stop along the way back and drove back to Phoenix that night! While it wasn’t the trip I was expecting, at least I didn’t DIE!!
I want to try a re-do this trip in the near future!
