Rafting the Penobscot with Three Rivers Whitewater Rafting

I'll start this out with saying - best day EVER! :)  I had done a whitewater rafting trip on the Penobscot with Three Rivers Whitewater Rafting a few years ago with some girls I work with.  Our guide, Josh, was great, and we had an amazing time.  Due to one of the girls in our raft not being able to swim very well, we didn't hit the rapids as hard or surf like the other rafts - no complaints to the guide, as he was just doing his job and doing it very well!  But I had always wondered what it would be like to get in a raft full of crazy people like me .... this weekend that's what I got!

I'm always trying to drag my friends along on these little adventures, so when I had a weekend open up to book a trip I called up Sarah and Rashell to see if they wanted to join.  I don't think they had to think too long on that one!  We packed up and headed for the Penobscot Outpost on Friday afternoon with plans to spend Saturday rafting and Sunday hiking.  The Penobscot Outpost is worth the trip all by itself.  Friday night was karaoke night, and between the guests, the staff, great food, and cold beer we had an awesome night.  Three Rivers has several options when it comes to accommodations, but being that we are all County girls - we obviously chose to rough it with a tent campsite. :)  The campsites are very reasonable at $10 per person per night, and with The Boatman's Bar & Grill on site - there were definitely some good times to be had.  I will also say that this is one of the cleanest camp sites that I have ever stayed at.  The staff at Three Rivers have high standards, and it was a pleasure camping there.  Should you ever visit them and not want to rough it in a tent over the weekend, they also have several other options available.

We started our Saturday off right with a buffet style breakfast before gearing up and running through a safety briefing.  Being that we had such a good time on the last trip, I had requested Josh as a guide on this trip, as well.  While they accommodate those requests whenever possible, it turned out that Josh was on an overnight rafting trip that weekend.  No worries, though, as we ended up in a raft with one of the owners, Tony, and I dare say there is no one that knows the river better.

Once everyone had their guide assignments, we loaded up onto the buses and headed for the starting point of our 13 mile rafting trip.  The water level wasn't quite as high on this trip as it had been a few years ago, but I think that was a good thing.  We were able to take the time to put the raft in and go through some of the basic commands Tony would be giving us during our trip.  The first time I had rafted the Penobscot, we did not have this luxury since the water was running at about 3,200 cfs rather than 2,600 cfs - which sucked us right into the first rapid rather quickly.  After going through "all ahead", "all back", "back left", "back right", etc. we started on our way down the river - with our first rapid being a Class V!

To sit here and give you an accurate description of how much fun this river was.... it can't be done.  It's one of those things you have to experience to understand.  All I can say is that they live up to "The Home of Serious Fun".  We had a raft full of crazy people like me that wanted to hit every rapid as hard as we could.  I've heard people say before "I went rafting, but I wish I had been in the fun raft."  Well we were that raft!  We took one hit so hard it broke the zipper on our raft!  Don't worry, we were fine - it didn't affect the raft's ability to hold air, only it's ability to hold it's shape.  It was loud, but we were almost to our first stop on the trip so we just picked up another raft there.  Plus we got the bragging rights that we were so awesome the raft couldn't handle us ;)

Lunch is included as part of the rafting trip, and I remember sitting there at the picnic table just being in awe of Maine.  Which, if you have read other posts on my blog, happens quite often and with good reason.  Here's just a sneak peek of why I say that now:

Photo by Three Rivers Whitewater Rafting.

Here we were, all 100+ of us, sitting around picnic tables having a hot lunch that the guides prepped for us over a fire next to the river.  People from all over were connecting, enjoying the great outdoors, and it's just always a good feeling to witness that.

Directly after lunch, we were set to hit Nesowdnehunk Falls.  I have always thought this was funny.  Let's feed you and send you on the equivalent of a rollercoaster ride.  My last experience with the falls was in 2011, and it was memorable enough that Josh remembered me even though it had been two years since I had seen him.  As I said before, we had a raft of 6 women (most of whom I worked with).  One of the women is deaf, so it made it a little more challenging for her since she could not hear Josh's instructions from the back of the raft.  She could only watch me and do what I did, as I was sitting in the front of the raft.  Before hitting the falls, Josh gives us the "game plan" - how are we going to approach this section of the river.  He told us that he needed us to paddle all ahead as hard as we could right up until he told us to hold on.  If we didn't give him all we had right up til that moment, we weren't going to hit the rapid how he wanted to.

The river bends left just before the falls, and you can't see the falls until you're about to head into it.  It's not really that rough before the falls, so you can actually hear the roaring of the water well before you get there.  The anxious feeling of not being able to see what's going on around the corner is crazy!  And it's heightened when you see a raft go around the bend and all you can hear is people screaming like they would on a rollercoaster.  When it's our turn, Josh gives us our instructions and we start paddling with all we have.  Till we hear "Oh sh**! Hold on!"  As one we immediately stop paddling and grab onto whatever we can near us.....and realize it was not Josh that yelled.  Being deaf, one of the women hadn't gotten Josh's instructions.  If someone could have gotten a picture of his face in that moment, it would have been priceless.  There was no time for us to grab our paddles and recover, it was all on Josh at that point.  When we went over the falls, the left side of the raft took a hard hit - which is where I was.  I got thrown across the raft and remember thinking along the way "Oh well!  It will be a good story!"  While I didn't end up going out of the raft, I did end up caught half in/half out of the raft and took quite a pummeling from the river.  But nothing I couldn't handle!  Thanks to Josh we came out of it without flipping our raft and a story that both us and the guide would remember.

Because of the last time going over the falls, I was a little anxious already.  Then I heard the falls.  Then I heard the screaming as the first raft went around the bend.  At this point I was pretty confident in the group I was rafting with NOT to stop paddling, but still my stomach was all butterflies.  We came around the bend following Tony's instructions and I remember that moment as the raft was starting to go over the falls.  Picture it - there you are in a raft at the edge of a 13ft waterfall looking down over the falls.  It's one of those moments where you get a huge adrenaline rush and time slows down... until we actually went over it.  On the first run of the falls (yes that's right we did it more than once!) we took the biggest hit.  The raft tipped up on it's left side.  I had a hold on the rope and leaned way back trying to transfer my weight as far that way as I could to keep the raft from flipping.  I joked later that it felt like riding one of those mechanical bulls.  We came out the other side with the raft upright but we were missing several passengers - including our guide!  There is a pool after the waterfall, though, so getting everyone back into the raft really was no problem at all.  With everyone loaded up, Tony asks us "Are you ready to do that again?"  That's right - we did the falls not once, but three times!

This view of the falls is from the opposite side of what we run.  It's more impressive from the other side of the river, but here you can see the exposed rocks in the middle of the river.  That's where we carried the raft upriver to run the falls again.... and again!  We also got the chance to do some surfing at the falls - which was a lot of work but so much worth the effort!

 The raft in the above photo is actually facing upriver.  Tony referred to the falls as "recess" because after lunch we stopped there to play for at least an hour.  Eventually we had to head back downriver, though, even though I honestly could have spent an entire day at the falls.

There are many rafting companies here in Maine, but I was impressed by everything about Three Rivers.  We learned a lot about the area we were rafting through, heard some great travel stories (I swear my bucket list doubled in size), and anyone that can put up with all those bad attempts at British accents and over abundance of sarcasm in our raft deserves kudos.  We had so much fun that we decided to stay another night and leave on Sunday rather than head north Saturday night.  With nightly bonfires, a band on Saturday night, and great people - how can you turn that down?! :)

Three Rivers Whitewater Rafting also has trips on the Kennebec River and the Dead River that run out of The Forks.  I have not had the opportunity to do either of these trips yet, but I plan on being there for Last Blast on the Kennebec in October.  Next year maybe I'll get up the nerve to do a Jump & Raft package with them (which includes rafting and skydiving).  For now, though, find Three Rivers Whitewater Rafting on Facebook and check out their website for more information on the trips they offer.