We went rafting on the Salzach. This is the river that flows through Salzburg, but we went about 50 kilometers north. Our guides for the day were typical college age guys that enjoy extreme sports. Dreads and looking like they had been out all night. When we made it into the river they were amazing and really knew the river. It was a class 3, which means there were some rapids, but all were managable. It made it fun and a little more challenging than rafting down the Illinious. The atmosphere of the group was about the same though. We had splash wars and nicknamed one of the other rafts the pirates, because everytime they got close they tried to knock one of us off of the raft. At one point in time the guide on our raft had all of us rush to the front of the raft and lay out like we were looking out, so we did. At that exact moment we went down and this giant "wave" came crashing over the raft and all we can hear is him laughing. The whole purpose of us doing that was to get us completely and utterly soaked. It was hilarious!
There were ten of us from Salzburg College, we had two rafts and a group of Austrians that had another raft. The three rafts stayed together for the 2 hr trip. The outside air temperature was less than 20 celcius, so roughly 70 f. We wore wetsuits which definetly helped, but the water was still like ice when you got in. And get in we did, willingly and sometimes not : ) There was one place in the river that had a giant rock sticking out and we all took turns jumping off into the water. Cannonball!!!
The most unusual part of the day was when we got out of the water. They had us take all of our gear off, helmets, lifejackets, outerjacket and actual wetsuit and put them in an organized fashion in the rafts to be taken back to their storage area. It was a good thing we had swimsuits on, because that was all we had left on... We felt very European as we changed into dry clothes in the parking lot behind towels. Girls on one side and guys on the other. We somehow managed.
The view was spectacular. The river was in a valley with mountains all around. At times there was a fog over the river and it felt like we were in Lord of the Rings. So not only was the river fun to raft we had the most amazing view as well.
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