CALL IT THE DAY OF WARDROBE MALFUNCTIONS. ONE HUGE wave in Utah’s Cataract Canyon ripped my rain pants from my left ankle to my crotch, and another yanked off someone else’s shoe and threw it into the Colorado River. I was just grateful that there wasn’t a foot still in it. And both of those things happened before we even got to the dangerous part of our whitewater rafting excursion with Western River Expeditions.
As our boat with 14 passengers and two guides approached Big Drop 3, the last and gnarliest of three Class V rapids, I figured the Colorado River would eventually get tired of destroying clothes and turn its wrath on the people wearing them. I gripped the rope in front of me and the rope behind me and wondered what fresh hell Big Drop 3 had in store.
Through the two dozen rapids to that point, the guides had told us to ride the waves like they were bulls. We entered Big Drop 3, and legendary bull rider J.B. Mauney’s voice suddenly popped into my head, as he once told me of his mental approach to riding bulls: “Think long, think wrong.”
I tried to stop worrying and vowed to hold on no matter what. A guide yelled “SUCK RUBBER!” as the nose
