Rapid Recovery, Continued...

We ate an early breakfast on Sunday so we could set out by van for the Middle Fork. We were with a new group of people; our friends from Saturday were exploring farther reaches of the South Fork. We had a fleeting pang: We now knew we could handle those Class III thrills, but would we be up to this extra challenge? Our new fellow adventurers were from San Francisco and led by Lonnie, a high-spirited joker with a glint in his eye, who had done this trip before.

This was going to be no quiet morning, so we immediately put on helmets. With Machiavellian cunning I arranged it so that Suzanne and I were in the middle; the two young men who positioned themselves in the front seats, Jeremy and Gerard, looked tough enough to take whatever might come.

And it came quickly. We pushed off and immediately went into a swift, bouncing ride through rapids that drenched us with ice-cold waves. If we weren't awake before, we certainly were now, and we were alert enough to be ready for the Tunnel Chute, which was definitely one of those highlights Suzanne had said she didn't want. It started with a narrow, sharp fall of water down a chute, and then the river tore into a shadowy, 90-foot-long tunnel and swirled down its narrow course for a few heart-stopping moments as the raft careened from wall to wall. As we raced through, I didn't have the time to feel guilty when I saw Jeremy and Gerard submerged in a wall of water; I was too busy ducking. Then came the sun and quiet water for a while.

In the calm, Suzanne turned to me with a sheepish expression. "I think this is more fun than yesterday!" she exclaimed.

The rest of the day was an intensification of Saturday's experience. The sun was hotter and the water colder, or at least more aggressive, and the calm stretches were so inviting that some of the rafters took voluntary dips into the river. At one eddy we spun for quite some time, trapped by the currents in a curve of the river, before releasing ourselves.

The afternoon was coming to a close, and the relaxation after the excitement made everybody a little rowdy. Water fights between the rafts kept breaking out. Suddenly, to my total astonishment, I saw Suzanne take up her paddle and start splashing! Of all people, she splashed Josh, who had led yesterday's rowdy raft! Josh counterattacked with enthusiasm, and Lonnie gleefully joined in. We all got wet all over again. I guess even the most staid of wimps can get carried away from time to time.

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