River Rafting Guide Training
In less than a month, Orion River Rafting‘s one-of-a-kind guide training will commence along the banks of the Deschutes River in north central Oregon. This season marks Orion’s 33rd season of teaching complete novices the wonders of being on the river. Kenneth Grahame said it best in a much-loved quote from Wind in the Willows, “There is nothing–absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
Our seven day spring river trip serves multiple purposes. Newcomers to river rafting are immersed in the trappings of what it means to be ‘messing about in boats.’ Instead of merely getting repetitions on one stretch of river, they are getting exposed to a new stretch of water every day. They are introduced to the whole wide realm of river rafting: rigging, camp craft, a diverse set of knots, rowing an oar boat, environmental stewardship, expedition travel, gear management, cooking for groups and cooking with Dutch Ovens and wilderness ethics.
At the same time, since the nature of our company’s culture is so intrinsic to our ultimate success, and the creation of a fostering community is paramount, a week long river rafting trip provides the student with a chance to evaluate who we are and gives our instructors ample opportunity to assess the students strengths and weaknesses. On Orion’s River Rafting Guide Training course, besides the students and the instructors, there are a dozen or so returning guides who are there to lend support, add encouragement and reinforce the training of the veteran staff. In fact, most of Orion’s guide training students are referrals from veteran staff — family, friends, guests, significant others.
Our instructors bring not only dozens and dozens of years of white water experience to the program, they bring a depth and breadth of river running experience having plied their trade the world over — New Zealand, Peru, Bali, Costa Rica, Turkey, Chile and Belize to name a few — guiding rafts and even managing and building foreign rafting companies. Orion River Rafting’s trainers not only contribute their vast white water knowledge to the careful instruction of new guides, they bring decades of experience of this particular week of skill-building.
In short, Orion’s students get to take part in a program dripping with tradition while being spontaneous and fun. They get to learn the ‘big picture’ of river rafting and decide for themselves if their romantic notions of guiding coincide with the reality.
Or, are maybe even better than they imagined.
River Rafting Safety — No Guarantees
The President of the Kashmir Rafting Operators Association oversteps his bounds by pronouncing — in the press no less — that tourists can enjoy a river trip in Kashmir “without any fear of injury”. Basically, he is guaranteeing tourists who visit Kashmir and choose to go rafting with one of the KROA outfitters that there is no chance they will come to harm.
Even if they were only rafting Class I rivers, he would be misrepresenting the industry he is working to promote. I can appreciate that he is working hard to assure readers of the Daily Kashmir that the imported Nepalese guides are well-trained and safety precautions are being emphasized, but he would be better advised to refrain from making public promises he has no way of keeping.
in reference to:
““We provide life jacket and helmet to the tourists and they enjoy it without any fear of any injury.”
- Rising Kashmir, Daily Newspaper, Srinagar Jammu and Kashmir – Kashmir’s rafting industry prepares for big leap (view on Google Sidewiki)
Cheat River Rafting Fatality
“Regular rafter” Charlie Walbridge does not come close to describing who Charlie Walbridge is. Charlie Walbridge is the author of River Safety Anthology, a compendium of nationwide river running (kayaking, rafting and canoeing) incidents and fatalities and a recitation of choices boaters make that ultimately leads to their difficulties on the river.
Mr. Walbridge has been recreating on rivers for decades and is one of the river industry’s preeminent experts on river safety. You would think that he would deserve, at the very least, a descriptive term like “professional safety expert” preceding his name in this new story.
http://orionexp.com
in reference to:
“Regular rafter Charles Walbridge”
- Pa. man drowns on Cheat River rafting trip – 21 News Now, More Local News for Youngstown, Ohio - (view on Google Sidewiki)
River Rafting Inventor
Mr. Dvorak may have been the first commercially permitted river rafter in the state of Colorado, but I am confident he is not the inventor of river rafting, since Georgie White http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgie_White was running ‘triple-rigs’ (inflatable bridge pontoons strapped together) down the Grand Canyon in the ’50s. And there were other Grand Canyon permittees that pre-dated her offering river raft trips.
It is equally ludicrous to attribute Mr. Dvorak with the being the one to first conceive of the idea of having guides lead raft trips. Bill Dvorak has been rafting for a very long time but 1969 still makes him a ‘pup’ among some river rafting outfitters. http://orionexp.com
in reference to:
“The person generally credited with inventing river rafting is Bill Dvorak”
- River Rafting An Overview (view on Google Sidewiki)
Leavenworth Washington River Rafting
The blog post about “Ten outdoor destinations with everything” did not include “Leavenworth, Washington” — which is now accessible by rail and Amtrak right out of Seattle! In fact, Leavenworth is a mere 113 miles from metropolitan Seattle, so you can easily visit for the day, plan for an extended stay and contact one of the dozens of lodges, rentals, inns or retreats.
Leavenworth has the ideal weather conditions throughout the year for all kinds of outdoor adventures — river rafting on the Wenatchee River, hiking, rock climbing, mountain biking, cross-country skiing, road-biking, innertubing, paragliding, kayaking and trail running. You are able to be outdoor active all year long in Leavenworth. http://orionexp.com
in reference to:
“Ten outdoor destinations with everything!”
- Ten outdoor destinations with everything! | Gadling.com (view on Google Sidewiki)
Wise River Rafters
Virginia Outdoor Center should be applauded for their patience, common sense and white water safety first attitude. They should be rewarded for their attention to public safety and their willingness to “Just Say No” to those who are hankering to get out on the high water and are no doubt needling them to break their own good sense.
High, cold, flooding rivers are not to be taken lightly. Only the best-equipped professionals or professional paddlers should contemplate heading out in those types of conditions. News reports are coming in from various parts of the country where novice boaters are risking their lives — and the lives of rescuers — by venturing out onto swollen rivers that are beyond their capabilities.
VOC’s reward should be an even more loyal customer base. http://orionexp.com
in reference to: Fredericksburg.com – Eyeing river ride? Not yet (view on Google Sidewiki)
White Water River Rafting
Another article patching together what appear to be complete sentences about “The Top Ten Places to Go White Water Rafting” but — in reality — its just promoting some company in Maine and a home-based water filter company.
And white water rafting, contrary to the first sentence of this article’s second paragraph, has absolutely nothing to do with ‘navigating a lake’. But I suspect most people know that already.
I would add the rivers of Maine — Penobscot, Kennebec and the Dead — as well as the historic stretches of the Green and Colorado Rivers in Utah to this list of the top ten rivers.
And, the Skykomish River in Washington is one of Washington’s white water gems, but the Wild & Scenic Sauk River should certainly not be overlooked. http://orionexp.com/sauk_river_rafting.html
For other rivers in Washington, check out Orion River Rafting’s website. http://orionexp.com
in reference to: The Top 10 Places To Enjoy Whitewater Rafting In The Usa (view on Google Sidewiki)
River Rafting in Washington? Really?
If you want to raft with Outward Bound (hover the mouse over every link), or an outfitter in Maine, or be directed toward two of the least commercially rafted rivers in Washington, and one, the Skagit, that is more mild than wild, than this is the article you are looking for.
If you want a Washington outfitter, go here: http://orionexp.com
If you want to actually read something useful about river rafting in Washington, go here: http://www.onlinesports.com/1/1/30437-a-guide-the-whitewater-rivers-of-washington-book-by-jeff-tonya-bennett.html
Visit here for an honest blog about river rafting in Washington. That IS the title of the blog after all: http://orionexp.blogspot.com/2010/03/river-rafting-on-methow-river.html
in reference to:
“River Rafting In Washington State”
- River Rafting In Washington State (view on Google Sidewiki)
One Small Step for River Rafting
Commercial river rafting is at the forefront of a Colorado Senator’s bill to guarantee rights of river users; however, what is at the core of this engagement is the centuries old dilemma of who should hold the rights to ephemeral, transitory resources and access to those resources?
Water, it would seem to me, is one of the most ‘public’ of all resources. If a body of water is navigable, land owners should have no rights to restrict the public — the ultimate ‘owners’ — the use of that water. It appears the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee wisely amended the bill to read that “all’ users were protected and not just commercial rafters.
This is a small, but critical step to ensure that the trend is toward more openness and more access and away from exclusivity and privatization of a public resource.
in reference to:
“rafters over property owners”
- River Rafting bill floats forward at Capitol – KDVR (view on Google Sidewiki)
River Rafting Nightmare – Humor
I did not wake in a cold sweat. I woke incomprehensibly relieved to discover I was in bed. In my own house, next to my blissfully sleeping wife, dry and warm, and not where I had just dreamed I was.
Which, for a river rafting guide, was the equivalent of Dante’s ninth circle of hell.
I was on the bank of a river deep in the bowels of the earth. Upstream and downstream of me were imposing swaths of white water. The white water upstream threatened like it was going to spill over the banks and wash me and all the gear and my boat partner downstream into the hungry turbulence below.
It was formidable white water and I had no recollection as to how I had made it as far as I had.
My raft was old and listless with no kick in the bow or the stern. In my nightmare, it was empty, tethered to something on shore, bobbing slightly in the only calm water that could be seen.
The rapid surging below us reminded me of Ram’s Horn on the Wind River, but the terrain — dark, foreboding, precipitous cliffs blocking out the sunlight — conjured images of Skull Rapid in Westwater Canyon.
My boat buddy, Steve Laboff, seemed unperturbed by our predicament which I was just beginning to grasp.
“That sofa is going to make for a sweet ride,” he said. He plopped down on it and bounced up and down a little.
I looked about the beach and realized that everyone had launched and left us with not just the sofa, but the entire living room set. Loveseat, Ottoman, coffee table. . .
And the bedroom set.
And the dining room table and chairs.
“How in the hell am I going to get all of this on that boat?”
And, in my dream, THAT was my biggest concern. NOT — “How are we going to make it through those rapids with all this stuff?”
Or, “Why do I have a household of furniture on a river trip?”
And then it got worse.
I realized we didn’t have any means to rig any of it onto the flaccid, old boat. We had no webbing, no straps, not even any bungie cords.
As I stood on the bank taking it all in, the pounding of the water on the rocks gnawing at the back of my mind, the thought of balancing sofas and mattresses on each end of the raft and then negotiating boat-dwarfing waves, I could feel my anxiety rising.
That was when my dog, Daisy, jumped up onto the bow of the raft as if announcing that she was ready to go.
And I awoke incomprehensibly relieved I was not where I had dreamed I was. And there was Daisy at the foot of the bed, giving me the stinkeye, making a couple of turns before curling up into a ball of snoring fur.
