Otter Rafting has been in operation for more than 31 years. What a wonderful life it has been to work outdoors and live a life that is shaped by excitement and adventure activities.
Today's throw back is a picture that was taken in the mid 90's.
We had just purchased the land for the future location of what is now the Otter Rafting building in Sundre so we were temporarily setting up a camp out on the river's edge every weekend. It was a lot of work to pack everything up on Friday - all the rafting gear, camping gear, lunch gear and do the grocery shop for the weekend meals for everyone and be out at the river's edge and hope there was an available campsite. Everything fit on the bus and trailer and it was usually after 9pm that I pulled into the camping area. Then it was a couple hours getting everything ready and set up for Saturday morning's guests out for their special rafting trip for the day.
Eventually a routine got setup to layout the camp, getting prepared and slowly everything began to go like clock work. Everyone new what to do and when they had to have everything done by. I knew we could get through the season with this temporary working situation and could overcome the hurdles along the way.
June is an unpredictable month in Central Alberta and even more so in the foothills. The weather forecast was for rain over the weekend and we were prepared to be slogging about through a wet campsite all weekend.
So eventually everything was done to set up camp and finally everyone got off to their tents for the night. That night I didn't have time to set up a tent so I slept on the bus - which eventually became a habit.
As I was snoozing off in the bus after another rushed day the rain slowly stopped and it became a very quiet night in spite of the forecast. That was a relief, it would make things easier in the morning.
Well morning came and we woke up to a beautiful carpet of several inches of snow. There was a layer of excellent sound proofing on everything including the bus. This wasn't in the plan for getting ready for the paddlers in a few hours. Breakfast was slow since we had to clear away the snow from the campsite, fire pit, fire wood and coolers before we could get down to bacon and eggs - and of course porridge. Finally getting the breakfast done we got the necessary gear unpacked and loaded onto the trailer.
To gain access to our camping area we had to drive off the main road through the ditch down to a side road that was no more than a cart trail through the bush. This ditch was deep and always had mud and water in it. There were several large rocks strewn about with some deep ruts that you slid in and out of on the trail. These rocks were mainly congregated at the bottom of the ditch. You had to maneuver the bus and trailer at just the correct angle to be able to climb the ditch without bottoming out the bus or the trailer.
Could we get out of the side road through the snow, up and down through the ditch all the while hauling snow filled rafts mounted on top of the trailer with this long bus? Could we see the contours of the path amongst the rocks, ruts and mud to drive through with it being under all this snow?
We had one chance to make it up out of the ditch unto the road. We made a run for it. There was gear and guides flying everywhere inside that bus as we bounced down the cart track hitting every rock and rut at the necessary high speed to increase our chances of getting up out of there. A don't know if we stayed on the usual track. I doubt it. Somehow we made it! There was gear and astonished faced guides littering the inside of the bus.
Everything was going smoothly. With a sigh of relief we drove through the snow down to meet our eager rafters for the day.
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