The un-perk of being a student at the University of Utah is that your friends live all around the valley. It’s hard to plan things when you live half an hour away from each other and everyone is busy with school and work. We were excited when we were finally able to get together this weekend with Natalie and Tyler for a quick paddleboarding trip at Jordanelle Reservoir. We literally had to put it in our phone calendars a month in advance. We met them at Jordanelle, blew up the inflatable paddleboards, then started cruising.
Tyler’s family owns an awesome pontoon boat. The four of us were able to sprawl across the deck and enjoy the ride across the reservoir. We basically had the entire reservoir to ourselves. It might have had to do with the fact that it was 50 degrees that morning from a rainstorm and it was supposed to storm some more. We’ve been getting huge rainstorms for Utah’s monsoon season this year.
Natalie was really cold.
We found a little cove with some cool dead trees. Tyler anchored the boat and we went to paddle around the cove. We beached a few times and walked around the sand. I didn’t get very good pictures of the whole trip. We were afraid to capsize on our SUPs and ruin the camera. We shouldn’t have worried, though. The boards we rented were for beginners and they were extremely stable. It was hard to flip someone or even yourself off the board. 
We spent a good few hours on the boards and also ate lunch on the boat. Then we thought it would be a good idea to try and fit all four of us on one paddle board. It’s a credit to how stable the paddleboards were that we were able to get the four of us sitting on one board. Colton and I have tried that on other boards and we can barely get the two of us on there. Then we tried to stand up on them. Every single time it would send all of us falling into the water. We kept trying and ended up laughing so hard we were half drowning ourselves (because we’re smart and left our life jackets on the boat). We were never able to get the four of us standing on one board, but it definitely wasn’t from lack of trying.
Eventually the rain and lightning started up again so we packed up and headed back to the docks, with the paddleboards catching a little wind and whistling the whole way back.
Colton holding the boards down on the top deck.
I love paddleboarding. It’s a very tranquil activity. Unless, of course, you’re trying to fit four adults on one board…
