In Hindsight, California’s “Rafting Gone Wild” Still a Pretty Good Idea

Captain Jack Sperry12 years ago

California has managed to fuck a lot of societal things up which, in my opinion, somewhat tarnishes its ‘dream state’ aura. It’s just kind of hard to enjoy a gorgeous sunset on the beach when thousands of filthy hippies are rolling around on longboards whilst simultaneously having the most smug and least intellectual verbal circle jerk ever recorded. But I know it’s not always fair to generalize an entire population based on a minority (majority?) of backwards fuck ups, and apparently a group of Californians are aiming to alter their misconstrued image.

I don’t care how bonkers your Saturday was, there is no way it topped the Saturday of the 3,500 people who attended the 2nd annual Rafting Gone Wild event on the American River near Sacramento. There really is no complicated way of breaking down this scene, literally over three thousand hormone charged individuals got plastered drunk, whipped out their tubes, and raged like there was no tomorrow.

However, to the complete surprise of everyone, the party scene didn’t last long as tempers started to flare. What had started out as the perfect booze-induced Saturday afternoon blackout turned into a massive anything goes free-for-all brawl. The scene was pure chaos, the eloquent beyond her years 20-year-old Marisa Taylor describes the action the best:

“There was so many intoxicated people, it’s like ridiculous.”

There you have it. Not just ridiculous, LIKE ridiculous. An observing Park Ranger adds a little more detail:

“It started out fairly reasonable, but as they day went on, the drunkenness and the fights increased with them,” Randy Lewis, a Sacramento County park ranger, added.

Wait, wait, wait, hold the fucking phone, is this meathead implying that ALCOHOL played a part in this??

I wasn’t there to witness the action, and have yet to see any video footage of the brawl, but from what I’ve read, things went down about like the News Team battle royale from Anchorman. At first there was as an argument here and a rogue punch there but that soon turned into the crowd hurling rocks like an angry Afghan mob chasing a woman with an exposed ankle. Then everyone realized they were holding a pretty effective weapon in their own hands and started to knock the fuck out of each other with raft paddles. I have to admit, I’ve always wanted to wield a double-sided paddle Darth Maul style, and can only imagine the satisfaction felt at cracking a drunken rafter over the head.

I sort of doubt that this event will be held next year, as apparently the same thing happened last year in even grander fashion:

Law enforcement officials had been bracing for rafting to go wild for a while. About 100 people were injured during last year’s “Rafting Gone Wild” event, held on the same river in August, and 10 people were arrested.

It really would be a shame if Rafting Gone Wild is banned, as drinking dangerous amounts of alcohol while floating on the river is a great American pastime. But I guess when paddles are wielded like 15th Century war maces, things escalate quickly.

I mean things really get out of hand.

• [via Yahoo!]