Rafting at Tahoe City

Beware of rocks

While the new Truckee River Whitewater Park in downtown Reno has garnered considerable attention in the past year, there’s another spot on the Truckee that long has been popular for a more leisurely kind of rafting.

The stretch of the Truckee River between Tahoe City and River Ranch has offered quality, river floating for many years. In fact, two companies, Truckee River Rafting/Mountain Air Sports and Truckee River Raft Company, lease all the stuff needed for a trip on the river.

Both operate from Tahoe City and offer self-guided floating excursions that include a large, commercial raft, paddles, lifejackets and a shuttle ride back to the launch point.

So, we recently decided to try to get in one last rafting trip before the season is over. We packed some water and soda, slathered on the sunscreen, slipped on the water shoes and headed to Tahoe City.

We launched just below the dam at Lake Tahoe and began a meandering path through the tall pines. It was marvelous as we passed beautiful meadows filled with colorful wildflowers. Lying on the raft, enjoying the bright sun overhead, the rich, blue sky, the gentle rocking of the water-it was pure heaven.

Not that it was all sunshine and flowers. Since the river frequently rushes around large rocks and boulders, we had to be prepared to use our paddles to maneuver around these obstacles and keep from getting dumped into the river.

Highlight of the journey was probably the rapids near the end of the trip. We rocked and rolled over the boulders and even slammed into one large rock before bouncing sidewards into another boat and correcting our course.

After the rapids, we reached River Ranch–and the end of our journey, which had gone by too fast. As we climbed out of the water at the restaurant and resort, located near the Alpine Meadows Ski Resort, we decided to have some lunch before returning to our car. Good thing we wore our shoes.

For reservations (highly recommended for weekends and holidays) or more information on using the services of one of the commercial rafting businesses check out: Truckee River Rafting/Mountain Air Sports, 888-584-RAFT, or Truckee River Raft Company, 530-583-0123.—Richard Moreno

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 at 10:34 am and is filed under Water Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.