Rafting trip shows Airmen beauty of high desert

  • Published
  • By Lee Ross
  • Nucleus editor
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  Outdoor Recreation rafting trips offer Airmen a well-deserved dose of adventure, complete with sunshine, a bracing dash of cold river water and the rugged beauty of northern New Mexico.

Cliff Loucks, a volunteer rafting guide, it's a great chance to tour the state.

"We get the young Airmen off the base and show them there is a life outside. We can show off northern New Mexico."

For a trip on June 21, Outdoor Recreation took about two-dozen people to the Race Course, just outside of Pilar, N.M. With relatively easy rapids, the ride took only a few hours and left participants with smiles on their faces as they ate a late lunch.

Leslie Martinez, who lives in Texas and was visiting her father, said she was a little nervous before getting in the water. She made sure everyone on the trip learned her name on the bus ride from Kirtland.

"If I'm putting my life in their hands, I wanted them to know who I am," she said.

She said her father wanted her to do something fun while she was in New Mexico, and this trip didn't disappoint.

"I do a lot of outdoors activities, but not whitewater," she said. "I haven't gone rafting since I was 7, but this is by far the coolest thing I've done since I've been here."

Senior Airman Jonathan Zubin, who shared a boat with Martinez and a few others, said he had a great time. Zubin is part of the 377th Maintenance Group.

There is a tricky spot in the river called Big Rock where, as one might guess, rafters have to paddle hard to get past a big rock.

Zubin, who recently transferred to New Mexico from a base in Germany, said his group made it without a problem.

"We had a good team," he said. Although it is encouraging to see Airmen like Zubin on the trip, Loucks said Outdoor Recreation's offerings could and should be better utilized.

Each month there are excursions that are exclusively for active duty Airmen that are free and lots of fun, he said.

"Far too many Airmen don't know about it or make use of it," Loucks said. "Outdoor Recreation is evolving and it is offering a variety of trips and doing them more frequently."

For more information about trips, or equipment rental, call 846-1499.