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"We’re going straight down the middle." - Pat (our river guide)

Talk about a team building event…yesterday, our finance team conquered a Class V rapid (with the support of a couple guys from our marketing and sales departments).  Boulder Drop is a rapid on the Skykomish River in WA, about an hour Northeast of Seattle and was running a true Class V yesterday — near 8,000 cubic feet per second poured across rocks bigger than small school buses.  Here’s a link to the USGS site, which monitors water flow.

Having never been rafting before, I was definitely the most nervous of the group — especially after listening to the 15 minute legal disclaimer speech that the rafting instructor (a guy named Salty) gave us.  But once we were on the water, which was a bone chilling 38 degrees, and the adrenalin was pumping through my veins, the fear abated and my caveman instincts to conquer the unknown took over. Boulder Drop was a baaaaad rapid and after we ran it, the remainder of the Class IV and Class III rapids seemed like child’s play. A few of us even bravely jumped in the icy waters toward the end of the journey and floated down a Class III rapid on our backs.

Alpine Adventures did a fantastic job with the trip. Our river guide Pat was incredible, with excellent knowledge of the river and the animals and birds that use it as their lifeline and more jokes (mostly dirty and very funny — right up my alley) than the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland.

Here are a couple pictures of us hitting Boulder Drop (I’m in the far back left of the boat).  Somehow my paddle managed to whack both my boss Spencer Rascoff and our Ad Ops specialist Jeff Pickering upside the head at the same time — hehe.  You can see Jeff almost get tossed as he losses footing and falls back into the boat.

Who says accountants are boring?  We’re the craziest bunch I’ve had the pleasure to work with yet.  Go team!

Stumble it!

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