I am not going to lie; I am nervous.  Earlier this year, my husband had this grand idea of floating the Smith River. This requires entering for a special permit and hoping you get drawn.  My husband arranged a huge group of people to put in for the Smith River permit and guess what, someone pulled it! We leave soon and it turns out I don’t know a soul going on this trip except my husband and our two kids…..and yes, we are the only ones going with kids. Oh boy. Because I am slightly introverted, this is pushing me out of my comfort zone, which is a good thing.

Ever since I found out we were going to float the Smith River (and after I got over the shock that we have never camped from our raft before), I began doing research. I read blogs, watched videos, and searched Pinterest.  However, it did not really ease my mind.  Now, I had too much information.  We will look like complete novices out there with our raft stacked with 35 drybags – just like the Clampett’s truck rolling into Beverly Hills. I even considered buying one of those camp rocking chairs to strap on top just for the effect. I am still considering my in-laws offer of their wooden rocking chair.

We started really prepping one week before launch.  After our second very wet adventure to Wallowa Lake over Memorial Day, my husband decided we needed some sort of easy packable shelter. Yes, I know, who camps at Wallowa Lake in a tent over Memorial Day when you know it always, ALWAYS, rains or snows over Memorial Day weekend? I know, I lived there for most of my childhood.  So, last Saturday we sat in our front yard constructing a two pole, six staked shelter. I kept asking if maybe there was a YouTube video on constructing tarp shelters after several attempts, but my husband refused to be beat by a tarp and two poles. He wasn’t, he won!  “Ye of little faith,” he says to me.  Still, I am sure it may have been faster to use technology (in fact, here is a lovely infographic from Rollingfox.com. We ended up with #18, Dining Fly).

Here are the things I researched and blogs that hopefully haven’t led me astray.

1.0  What clothing do we pack and how do we pack it? I am terrible at light weight packing, so this one really stressed me out.  I didn’t grow up camping, so this is not second nature to me.  Plus, I am not a big fan of most of the fast drying, water wicking river attire.  It sounds petty, but they aren’t very flattering for people larger than a size four.  Additionally, it is terribly expensive and I hate spending money on something that makes me feel uncomfortable.  That being said, other than putting my foot down on zip-off pants (which I will probably regret someday – don’t’ tell my husband I said that), we have enough of the right clothing. The weather forecasts we will need the full gamut of rain clothes and long johns to shorts and swimwear.  We each have a giant dry bag to put clothing in. Wish us luck!

      • Oars.com had a great instructional video on clothes packing.

2.0  What do we eat, how do we pack it, and how do we keep it cold? This is another hard one for me. My husband cannot have gluten, so figuring out easy meals that aren’t terribly messy for five days is a challenge. You also must pack everything out, so it needs to be packed in a way that produces the least amount of waste.  We also have to worry about the natural habitat, so we cannot have messy foods that leave a lot of fragment waste when washing.  This takes major planning.  Some blogs suggested simple breakfast foods like instant oatmeal, bagels, yogurt and fruits, but this is not a reality for my husband.  Instead, I tested gluten free pancake batter, made gluten free muffins, froze sausages and picked up dehydrated hash browns.  Lunch will be sandwiches day in and day out; I may hate sandwiches by the end of this trip.  Luckily, dinners have been assigned among our group.  We took the first night, Taco PARTY! And then there is always snacking, a must for anyone with kids – apples, carrots, trail mix, jerky, bars, chips.

      • This video taught me how to layer my food and the importance of having a drink cooler separate from your regular cooler (oh man, where do we put a second cooler?)

3.0  How do we pack the raft? The question of all questions.  Honestly, I still don’t know how all of us humans are supposed to fit in the raft after we put our gear in.  Every tutorial has a separate raft for all the gear and a separate raft for the family, their day dry bags and a cooler. This will be a challenge.  Hence, I may be sitting on top of the gear in my rocker like Granny Clampett, while the kids hold on for dear life to the gear and Jacob (my husband) straddles the wood in his captain’s chair.  We are novices for sure.  Jacob showed me a slideshow of rafts on the river packed to the hilt and I was like, yeah, I see that, but I also only see one person on that raft…..where is everyone else?

      • This is the only instructional video I found. (note to self: create video on how to pack raft for families not being guided)

4.0  How do we stay clean? If sweaty, a dip in the river with biodegradable soap will do the trick.  Plus, we bring face washing cloths for evenings and mornings.  We are a young family, so we bring wipes and hand sanitizer with us everywhere; that is just the way we roll. Of course, we don’t forget our toothbrushes to keep up on our oral hygiene. A tip from the good folks at CrossCurrents Fly Shop is to stash an extra set of clothes in the truck to change into for the trip home.

5.0  How do we stay hydrated? If the weather cooperates, we will be hot and need plenty of water. We are bringing a 5-gallon jug and we replaced my husband’s 20-year-old filter with a new one. He, and the REI guy, assured me it was perfectly safe to use in the upper contiguous state as our primary water source for the trip.  As we float by cattle, I will remind myself of this.  Plus, there are two natural springs along the way we can fill-up at – best water on earth!

6.0  Where do we go to the bathroom? I wasn’t going to talk about this, but I’m not going to lie, this is a true concern for people like me.  I have heard horror stories of people holding in their waste (who am I kidding, we all know I am talking about poop) on these trips.  This is incredibly unhealthy, but I get it.  This trip doesn’t require a groover, a portable bucket with toilet seat, unless you want to bring one.  Luckily though, I have been told there are outhouses at most of the campgrounds.  I am not sure I believe this, so I am hoping my kiddos and I can relax enough to make this a non-issue.  Urination is easy peasy.  The other night I looked in my backyard and saw my kiddos peeing on the same tree, and yeah, I have boy and girl twins.

7.0  Where do we camp? I hadn’t really thought this one through, for some reason. In a blog by CrossCurrents Fly Shop, they laid out the good, better, and best campgrounds throughout the trip. Their trip is set-up for four nights on the river and ours is only three, so this didn’t help me.  Luckily, the blog said all the campsites are nice.  My husband assured me it would all work out and I am just going to go with that.

8.0  How do we stay safe? Safety is a concern, especially when bringing two six-year-olds on the water.  Talking to my neighbor a few days ago, she told me about her boss chopping his foot with a hatchet on his last trip down the Smith (she blanched for a moment and apologized for telling me that).  There is no cell service on the Smith River (for any other circumstance – this is a lovely feature), but that does leave people without emergency response in the instance that someone chops into their foot with a hatchet.  One could get a SAT phone for these particular instances. That incident required hiking out to find help the following day.  It is important to take safety precautions, always have a first-aid kit (a large one and a small one for your day use bag).  Don’t forget the calamine lotion, the Smith River has poison ivy and mosquitoes.  AND HAVE BEAR SPRAY ON YOU AT ALL TIMES!!!

9.0  Will the kids have fun? I believe this will be easy as long as the weather cooperates.  Between playing along the river looking for skipping rocks and crawdads and trying their hand at fly-fishing, we can hike to see pictographs, snack, read, and explore. But if the weather turns into Memorial Day weekend part II, what do we do? The challenge is that we are stuck on the trip until take out. If rain pops up now and again, we are prepared with our rain gear, my husband’s hard-earned shelter and of course, card games and books.

10.0  But what if it rains the whole time? I watched a videoblog by Traveling Mel and it was wet.  I watched the whole thing, hoping it had a happy ending, but (spoiler alert) it did not. It rained the whole time and they cut a day out of their trip because of it.  Their biggest challenge on the wet days was staying warm in the raft because they can’t keep moving while getting warm by the fire.  They still left the river in awe of the majestic scenery they had crossed, so it must be amazing!  We are just hoping for mostly nice weather on our first multi-day rafting trip, so my kids (ahem, and this mama) want to do it again. (Tip: Remember to pack your own firewood and fire starters.)

11.0  Last but not least, how do we handle moving our truck from put-in to take-out? Our group decided to pay for one of our vehicles to be shuttled to the take-out and we are making the extra drive to take our other vehicles to the take-out. It is less expensive that way. However, you can pay for all your vehicles to be transported and that may be the easier solution for you.  While my husband and the others drive back and forth, I will be entertaining the twins and putting together the TACO PARTY! The shuttle information is here:  http://smithrivershuttle.com/

So, are we ready?  Well, not entirely, but we have a pretty good plan.  Mostly, I just want to get this first multi-day trip out of the way so the worries are gone and so I can create a video on how to pack your raft so everyone fits. Everything I read says expect all sorts of weather.  My Dad used to tell me that we have a 100% chance of weather today and you can’t change it.  That is pretty much a metaphor for a lot of things in life.  My biggest takeaway in preparing for this trip is that regardless of the weather, this will be a memorable trip!! Wish us luck!