By Kevin McSwiggen, ’11, Contributor.

During the weekend of Oct. 3-5, the junior class traveled down to West Virginia for the annual rafting trip. Here’s what really happened during that weekend.

On Saturday we spent an enormously long time driving up to the rafting place in a bus.  When we got there, we chose our bunks and headed off to a different bus, this time to go rappelling.  Once we got to the top of the rock face, suited up into helmets and uncomfortably-designed harnesses, we let ourselves over the edge, slowly feeding rope through our ATCs (Air Traffic Controllers).

The thing is that the rock face gave way to open air about halfway down.  Hiking up, I didn’t realize we would be coming down that way.  But once people reached the bottom, they quickly realized that it was very entertaining watching other people coming down as evinced by the frequent shrieks of “There’s no more rock!”  Looking back on it, I think that’s exactly why the guides didn’t warn us about it.  Must be a fun job…

There was one item of curiosity that day—at dinner, when everybody was in line to get the food, Mr. E*** C*** (who asked that his name not be used on the internet) called all of the girls to go first.  But beyond being a bit confused, guess I was fine with it.

Then came Sunday—the day we actually rafted.  The water, surprisingly, was not that cold, and my main issue was with the wetsuits that we had to wear to keep warm—namely that they didn’t feel necessary and felt gross on bare skin. But in that strange way in which things that go off without a hitch don’t seem to stick well in one’s memory, the actual rafting (though quite a good time) was not what I remember most clearly about the trip.  At breakfast, Mr. C*** let all of the ladies eat first again, which was not, in and of itself, all that surprising. But then, when we stopped for lunch in the middle of the rafting trip, the rafting people insisted that ladies go first once again!  This was, again, a little odd.  Then, upon returning from the rafting trip, our raft guide insisted that the guys should carry the raft up to the truck.  Once we got back up to the buses, we were then encouraged to let the girls use the porta-potties first.  Finally, at dinner that night, the guys were the ones who let the girls go first.  I thought it was a little bit silly, but of course I didn’t say anything because that wouldn’t—er—have been the manly thing to do.  Apparently chauvinism chivalry still lives in West Virginia.  Who would have guessed it?

On Monday we drove back to school, and at lunch, for the first time that weekend, I got to enjoy fast food once again.  Overall, I enjoyed the trip.

Photo courtesy of Alexis Victor.