Rio Chama

At the beginning of June, Mike and a few co-workers decided to raft the Rio Chama and patrol since some of the river is on BLM land.  They had to check out a few places that are only accessible by raft as well.  Another wife and I decided to join for the 3-day journey.  So the five of us put in the river around noon on Friday and took out early evening on Sunday.  I had never done any sort of rafting so it seems logical that they put me in my own one-man ducky.  ;)  It really wasn't too bad because there were only about 6 rapids over the course of 30 some miles and the most difficult we faced was class 3.

Me and my ducky.  A hat and my water keens were critical for this trip!

Mike also had a ducky - during the class 3 rapid, he did run into the rock cliff...eh hem...but I didn't.  :)  No one flipped their ducky's during the rapids but I always wore my helmet when we got close to the rapids...just in case.

 Here's our crew - three of us were in ducky's and then 2 were in the raft carrying all of our gear, food, tents, coolers, dry bags, etc.

A lot of sunscreen was critical for this trip!

These zip off pants were the BEST! When zipped off they became bermuda shorts(perfect length) and they were super comfy!

We took a few short hikes.

Our view from our tent on Saturday evening.  Two in our party were veteran rafters so they thankfully knew what they were doing, planned all of our breakfasts and dinner, & knew where some great camping spots were.

Campfire - of course we had 'smores!!

It was a really fun trip because it was not busy on the river at all - for this river, you have to have a permit to raft so the number of rafts and groups were very limited.  Like camping, I really enjoyed disconnecting from the world on this trip and getting to know some of Mike's co-workers a little better.