I and my wife always wanted to do rafting but were hesitant to go for it primarily because we donāt know swimming and we have a 5+ yr old daughter. One of my friend suggested us āMiddle Yough Escorted/Guided Raftingā adventure trip.
With lots of questions and anxiety in mind, I enrolled for this adventure online for āMiddle Yough ā Family friendlyā trip at Ohiopyle (1pm slot, 26May19).
This trip is recommended for family and children age 5+, stretches for 11 miles. The enrollment includes a raft (four-six person), paddles, life jackets, helmets, snack lunch and transportation to river.
We reached āWhite Water Adventurersā office located at 6 Negley St, Ohiopyle at 12.30pm. We met our escort and she was able to answer lot of our questions and make us comfortable for our trip. She explained us the complete experience and assured us that since it is a Class I/II level (mild level), swimming skills is not mandatory. We changed into our river wear, put on our life jackets and we were all set to start our adventure trip.
(Some suggestions: Recommend you all not to carry any precious belonging with you like rings, ornaments etc. for your trip. You can leave all your other belongings in your car and handover the keys at the office attendant).
We were accompanied with another family of 4. We all onboarded a van who took us all to the upstream (approx. 20 mins drive from office). There was a brief instruction session by our escorts. Each family had an independent raft and accompanied by individual escort. We started our raft journey at 2pm and we quickly encountered some currents and rapids. It was fun, although we got caught into some rocks but our escorts assisted us to pass them. It was fun though.
Since our raft included myself, my wife, my 5 yr old daughter and an escort, we only had 3 sets of hands to paddle through the entire 11 mile stretch which was tiring at the end but it is an experience by itself. We took a break for lunch at mid route and were served with wrap, apples, cookies and water (Note: Since we prefer vegetarian meals, we opted for vegetarian lunch as part of our online booking).
After our lunch break we resumed our route. We encountered few more mild rapids and finally at 5pm we reached the end of our route. We all were tired but it was all worth an effort. The entire 11 mile route is very scenic and enjoyable. We walked couple of blocks to reach the office where we had parked our cars. We changed into our dry clothes and had some ice-cream at the nearby shop which was yummmm.
We thank āWhite Water Adventurers teamā and especially our escorts to make our trip enjoyable, safe and memorable one! Thanks a lot.
Cheers!
Mayur