The Great Kayaking Adventure

One of the highlights of our Whistler trip was when we rented a double kayak and cruised down the River of Golden Dreams. It was {of course} just shockingly beautiful. We started out on the most stunning lake. It was glassy smooth and we were the only people out. It was amazing. We decided to save some money and be our own tour guides. We felt our kayak experience would be sufficient to float down a river without paying $100 extra for someone to do it with us. The winding river proved to be a little difficult to maneuver, but we got the hang of it. There were thousands of lily pads with beautiful yellow flowers blooming throughout a whole section of the river. I had never seen anything like it. Again, so so beautiful. Things began to get a little precarious at this point, when the river narrowed substantially. We spent a large amount of our time with Tyler yelling "Duck!" and I would proceed to lie flat down on the kayak as we crashed from bank to bank into the bushes. I don't know if we have ever laughed so hard before. It must have been quite a sight. Then just when we thought we were getting it together came the only "rapids" of the whole river {if they even qualify as that}. We would have been fine were it not for 1) the gigantic tree that had grown into the river and 2) if one of us {that will go nameless...ahem...Tyler} could remember right from left. Lets just say things didn't go as planned and we paddled ourselves right into that tree and got wedged between the bank and the tree. I knew at that point we were done for. Tyler still believed and did a decent job of getting us untangled. I almost thought we were going to get out unscathed, but just as we freed ourselves we paddled just a little to hard and dipped one little inch of our kayak under the water and BAM. We flipped. Those babies are pretty hard to flip on your own, but when they go they go fast. As we were whisked down the river we both somehow managed to stay by each other and hold on to our paddles. I am still not sure how we kept the paddles. It was definitely not a conscious thing. Anyway, long story short, the kayak finally got stuck in some wood and trees in the middle of the river and Ty was able to get out of the water. I was in a slightly more precarious position. I was holding on to dear life {meaning the kayak} with my feet behind me down river. Finally we both managed to drag ourselves out of the water. Then the real challenge of getting our kayak out and dumped began.Obviously we are brutally strong...err...Okay actually we think we must have had a serious adrenaline rush because that thing weighed A TON. Water is heavy friends. In case you didn't know. But finally after much heaving and hoing we managed to drag the thing out and dump the water. Honestly, I was incredibly impressed that we got it out. As were the staff that owned the kayaks. So a little while later with some very wet clothes and slightly damaged pride we were able to hop back in and finish the river without any more hitches. We were actually able to stay pretty warm while we were paddling, but as soon as we got out of the kayak I started shivering like I never have before. Glacier river water is COLD! After a nice and very hot and very long shower we were able to have some serious laughs about our little mishap. It all happened so fast that I didn't really have time in the moment to feel scared. We did however recognize that it could have been much worse, so we were happy and grateful that it all worked out. I am so glad we were able to finish because it was so incredible. And at least we have a great story to tell right?