{"id":27522,"date":"2022-08-01T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T17:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=27522"},"modified":"2022-07-29T13:45:05","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T20:45:05","slug":"mini-boats-and-mastering-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2022\/08\/01\/mini-boats-and-mastering-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Boats and Mastering Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poking out from the shore of the Class IV Numbers section on the Arkansas River in Colorado was a sizeable strainer, and we were headed right for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo, go, go, go, go!\u201d my friend Som shouted. He was technically in charge of our green nine-foot raft. I was supposed to be following his paddle commands, but we were having trust issues.<\/p>\n

I back paddled when he forward paddled; I straightened the boat out when he tried to make moves across the river. Me, a cocky third-year raft guide, and he a photographer and avid private boater; we both thought we knew the section better than the other.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I dug my paddle into the water hard, our paddle strokes finally synchronized, narrowly dodging the sharp, woody end of the ponderosa pine that had fallen a quarter of the way across the river.<\/p>\n

We both sat gasping in an eddy, peeved at one another. I was sure it was Som\u2019s fault that we\u2019d almost beached ourselves on the strainer. He was sure it was mine.<\/p>\n