What a way to end a trip!!! 

A perfect morning in camp starting with yoga and coffee, a good breakfast and back on the river. Perhaps a little hungover for some of us. That had been one amazing party.

This morning was awesome. From the minute of our departure from camp, to our lunch stop several hours later, we had continuous whitewater. Again, all four of the ducky’s capsized at least once. We were all getting use to this daily dose of ice cold water. One duckier (I won’t mention her name) aimed directly toward a boulder in the center of the rapid. Caught in the current and unable to veer away, hit the boulder and wedged itself there. Climbing out of the boat and standing on the rock, not knowing what to do next, CQ instructed her to stay put. Luckily, our raft was near enough to turn, paddle furiously up stream and get her off of the rock.

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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There was something bitter sweet about returning to camp on the final evening. We knew this was the last campsite we would all be sharing. Upon arriving back after our hike, we were greeted warmly by our guides. It was as if they felt the loss, too. They encouraged us to get cleaned up and get ready for dinner.

Freshened up and ready to eat, we meandered back to the beach for drinks. Ooops, who are these guides? They had been stolen and replaced by some strange spiritual force. It might have been the cliff painting Indians, or maybe it was Satchquatch!  But where several good looking, nature loving boys once tended our camp, we now had slutty, floozies in bizarre dress……. not a fashion icon among them!

Now, of course, we couldn’t let them have all the fun by themselves- so after a few drinks everyone joined in and the party began………..

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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It is quite enjoyable starting the day at 6:00 AM with Yoga. I have never tried it before but this was a trip of firsts, so I was game. I did find it to be helpful to relax my sore and stiff body. As the sun was rising in the sky, there I was trying to balance on my mat. Okay, so it wasn't picture perfect, but check off another first for me.

This morning was the first time we have seen threatening rain clouds. So far the weather has been stunningly perfect. Figuring it doesn't matter anyway if it rains, because we will already be wet from the blasting through the rapids.

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Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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Another beautiful morning on the Middle Fork. This morning several of us started our day by doing yoga with one of our guides, Bronco who was leading us in the exercises. Stiff from the previous days of rowing we needed to stretch out and relax. Especially because what we had in store for us later today was amazing.

Mid afternoon we stopped for our daily picnic lunch on a beautiful sandy beach surrounded by cliff walls and forests of every shade of green. It was great just sitting on our butts, relaxing, while our guides prepared lunch.

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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Today started out great. We woke up to a warm magnificent morning, had a lovely camp breakfast and headed for our boats. By now I was getting more daring. I like adventure and itʼs so much more fun to do things the hard way. So today I chose to go in a ducky (a one person inflatable kayak) and I started downstream. My confidence was high, but little did I know it would be mostly white water until our stop for lunch, 3 hours later. (I said I was adventurous, I didn't say I was always smart).

As soon as we got to a relatively calm area I was told to flip my ducky and get into the cold water. This was a test to make sure I could get back into the kayak in case I flipped in the rapids. After struggling for several minutes, with my life preserver around my face and kicking furiously, I entered my ducky ready for whatever the river had in store for me. I was ready……. At least I thought so. Again we were in the rapids. A rock, a bump, a wave and more white water. I paddled furiously through the rapids. Luckily for me, my daughter Jenn, who is an experienced kayaker, shouted out instructions to keep me upright. “Go right, mom! Do you see that rock? Now left!" At least for the time being the correct side of the kayak was in the water.

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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This morning we woke up to about 37 degrees. As I crawled out of my cozy warm sleeping bag and made my way out of the tent, the cold air hit me like someone spilled a bucket of water over my head. I grabbed my ski hat, gloves and fleece and headed towards breakfast. Thank heavens for hot coffee and a hearty breakfast.

Immediately after breakfast we disassembled our tents, packed them in the dry bags and went straight to our boats. We were as bundled up as we could possibly be for a day on the chilly river.

Again the day started out with ice cold water and some pretty dicey rapids. As soon as we made the turn out of camp where the river veered sharply, the sun hit and warmed everything up. It was amazing to watch everyone peeling off the layers of clothing that we had just piled on to keep warm.

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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This morning, dressed and ready for the river, we boarding our bus and headed for a beautiful winding drive to Boundary Creek where we “put in”. (Launched our boats into the river). After a thorough briefing of safety and paddling skills, an introduction to our guides and the rest of the group, we then shoved off.
 

Feeling quite adventurous this morning, and figuring it was now or never, I chose to sit in the front of the paddle raft. We pushed off and almost immediately we hit our first white water. As we plowed through the raging rapids, the excitement replaced all of my anxiety.
 

From that point on there was one rapid after another. First came Bend Rapid and Murph’s Hole, which were class ll rapids. These turned out to be a piece of cake compared to what was to come. We then hit three class lll rapids in a row keeping us paddling furiously through “Hell’s Half Mile”.
 

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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My daughter Jenn has a birthday this month and she always wanted to kayak/raft in the Salmon River area…..especially the Middle Fork Salmon. So it seemed natural to take her on this trip. Little did I know that this birthday present for her would be scaring me half to death.

Making plans for the O.A.R.S. Salmon River trip was very easy. I deliberately choose the end of July because the water is usually down a bit; but still very exciting. BUT NOT THIS YEAR!!!!! Being somewhat of a novice in white water rafting and a person who has not camped a lot, I was looking for a relatively calmer experience. But mentally I am now ready for some major excitement.

The trip was planned way before all the rivers flooded their banks and the snow melt, instead of early spring, hung around until July. As I sit on my deck looking up at the Rocky Mountains, I canʼt believe that this is July 18th and we still have this much snow.

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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We woke up to a crisp sunny day which is perfect for starting a hiking trip. After a breakfast that was fitting for Olympic hikers- which we are not- we headed to the Bohemia Hotel to meet up with our group from BACKROADS. Immediately, we were welcomed by our tour leader Steffi who made us feel like we were best friends forever. We were introduced to the rest of our group and headed for the bus that was to take us on our two hour bus journey to Zlata Koruna. wove through the little streets of Prague until we reached the highway toward the countryside.

The Czech countryside is quite beautiful. Due to all of the rain, the fields are a beautiful emerald green and the plantings are just starting to spring up. The Czech Republic grows mostly the products that go into making their beers and the seeds for canola oil which they use for fuel. What did seem strange to me was the lack of live stock in this area. There were some, but a very small amount for the amount of grazing land that was available.

Lunch was a lovely picnic on the grounds of an old monastery called Zlata Koruna. Which is also the name of the town. The food was prepared by our hiking guides and was incredible as you can see in the photo. We were then briefed on what to expect on our hike.

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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This morning we arrived in the beautiful Czech Republic city of Prague. Now I know why they call this city the "Paris" of Eastern Europe. It definitely rivals the beauty of both Vienna and Paris. We took a cab from the airport, checked into our hotel and immediately started to explore the town. Glistening with the dampness from a recent rain, the city began awakening. Our first stop was the Old Town Square where the hustle and bustle of hoards of people congregated to start their busy day. Vendors, setting up stalls to sell a variety of foods and local tourist items; entertainment in the center of the square and tourists starting their day of exploring. All this added to the excitement of being in a foreign country.

One of the most outstanding buildings in Prague is the Old Town Hall. It is a combination of several Rennaisance and Gothic structures. One of the main attractions is the old clock tower. It is an Astronomical clock where the top section has mechanical figures that show the zodiac signs and the lower section is a calendar. It is a must to be here on the hour to see the clock in action. As the town grew, and the town hall needed to be expanded, the old homes next to the tower building were added. On the left of the clock tower is a beautiful Gothic entrance to the Town Hall and Tower. The building to the left of that one has the Old Town Coat of Arms and the tourist information center. Each building has it's own unique quality and interest.

Written by Beth Robbins

Robbins is a Philadelphia native who grew up loving culture and the excitement of city life. She attended undergraduate school at the University of the Arts and received a master’s in Fine Arts at Temple University and The Tyler School of Art. Robbins taught art history for 16 years and sponsored off-campus trips for high school and college students. Her interest in travel sparked when she backpack and trekked on her own throughout England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean for five months. She later started an interior design business and art consultation company. She has two children and currently lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado within the Rocky Mountain high country.

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