Questions? Call Your Local River Rafting Outfitter

Posted on May 16, 2012 by James Moore

Leavenworth, Washington

Convenience is over-rated.  For instance, do people really need the convenience of drive-through liquor stores, and what subliminal message does that send?

I understand the attraction of doing everything online.  I know I don’t always want to have a long, drawn-out conversation with a stranger.  For instance, when I am shopping in a brick-and-mortar store, I want to be left to my own devices until I determine I have a question to ask.  In my opinion, most salespeople tend to ‘badger’ their customers.  I’d rather wander around aimlessly until I am ready to be assisted (which may not ever happen).

But some purchases, like a river rafting journey, more often than not, require further information.  Users of our service need details and particulars.  They need to know what the river classifications mean or indicate.  They need to know what they are getting for the price they are paying.  They need to know if granny can participate.

River Rafting at 80

Granny Goes for Big White Water

They need to know what they should bring to make their day on the water as pleasant as possible.

Of course, the information is ‘out there’.  But, when you are engaging in an activity like white water rafting, where there are many variables, it is easy to overlook or gloss over details that can be incredibly useful or important.  And, I have found, no matter how thorough an explanatory e-mail might be, or a brochure, or a web site – sometimes a crucial detail gets missed.

Not to mention that when you are buying a service where your safety is at stake, you should be very interested in the attitude and demeanor of the person doing the selling.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, customers ought to query the outfitter and their sales staff as much as possible to get an accurate reading of how they run their trips, not just when and where.

Online Reservations are a boon to those of us looking for quieter days with less jangling phone lines to deal with, but, if you are even the least bit unfamiliar with a river or going on river trips, don’t hesitate to get your outfitter on the line and getting your questions addressed.

Posted in Leavenworth River Rafting, Seattle Raft Trips, Wenatchee River Rafting, Whitewater River Rafting | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

History of Orion River Rafting- Part 5

Posted on May 11, 2012 by James Moore

Leavenworth, Washington

In order to achieve terminal velocity and escape Western Washington’s Recreation program with diploma in hand, you needed to devise a suitable, verifiable internship plan.

Late in the winter of 1978, several of us started seriously thinking about our Phase III Recreation internship. (A ‘phase’ is a college quarter dedicated solely to classes in the field of Recreation. A ‘phaser’ is one who participates in a Recreation phase. Most parents probably believed, and hoped, we were just going through a ‘phase’ when we declared Recreation to be our major.) Initially, our plan was to resurrect the defunct Outdoor Program at Whatcom County Parks. We talked extensively with the head honcho at Whatcom County about the vision we had for a renewed outdoor program. As far as we could tell, all systems were ‘Go’ for our ambitious project which seemingly included everything from square dancing to mountain climbing to underwater Anasazi basket weaving classes.

In the meantime, the deadline for submitting our internship details to our inscrutably patient Recreation professors loomed.

At the eleventh hour, the administrator of Whatcom County Parks pulled the rug out from under our ambitions and hired a recreation professional out of the Bay Area. In hindsight, I am positive he did us a favor. The Outdoor Program we envisioned would have taxed our organizational and logistical capabilities. In addition, working for the county government might have soured us on the idea of recreation-as-therapy forever.

With our plan shattered, we pieced together an alternative. Why not start our own business? Why not outfit horse trips (Deb Poulter’s strength), bicycle tours (Michael liked to bike) and river trips (my — dubious — forte)? Of course, we couldn’t divulge this harebrained scheme to our professors. They were likely to burst our balloon and send each of us individually out to seek an internship we didn’t have the heart to do. I imagined working for some sort of governmental bureaucracy doing menial chores, like smoothing the infield dirt at a city ball field, and I just couldn’t get excited.

So, we planned a business covertly. One of the progenitors of the Whatcom County Park idea bailed out in fear of riding a project doomed to be rejected. Another was uncomfortable with the potential money and liability exposure. So, after those two partners bowed out and after the three remaining budding entrepreneurs ‘penciled’ out a few vague numbers, we decided we could use a couple of additional partners for financial reasons, if nothing else. Consequently, Deb, Michael and I were joined late one school night at the Samish Way Denny’s by Linda, Michael’s effervescent girlfriend, and Paul, who was a self-described ‘artiste’ and who looked like he and Chewbacca had been separated at birth. Paul was also Michael’s childhood friend from Chicago.

Deb Poulter’s parents owned a Summer Camp called Bear Pole Ranch in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She played the guitar and had a musical quiver full of John Denver songs. Deb’s time outdoors and working with kids outnumbered the rest of us combined.
Michael had a head on his shoulders for numbers and business terminology and ‘keeping books’. Linda already had several years of experience working as a corporate receptionist — managing filing cabinets, fielding phone calls and customer service.

That left Paul and I.

I was happy being the equipment and logistics guy and Paul was, essentially, a fifth wheel. In Paul’s case, he was a squeaky fifth wheel. He was meant to be a ‘silent partner’. Meaning, the money he borrowed from his grandmother was used to help launch the business, while we expected him to stand clear and not make our lives unnecessarily complicated.

Paul viewed the world abstractly. He could be funny and amusing in conversation, but exasperating when trying to explain shuttle arrangements or how to efficiently slice a cucumber. You could never be certain he fully grasped the gist of what you were saying, or reality. More likely than not, he would look at you quizzically as if he were attempting to solve a Rubik’s Cube or you were speaking interplanetary gobbledygook.

He wore his hair long, shaggy and unkempt, and the same could be said for his clothes. But he liked the idea of being an entrepreneur. It was a concept that grew on him as the process moved along. He would announce to anyone and everyone with a handmade business card and a doofy grin that he was the owner of a rafting company. It amused him and, even though he seemed lost in space, he took the business seriously.

At the Samish Way Denny’s, at the corner of Samish Way and I-5 in Bellingham, we hashed out business details, to-do lists and what would be the business’ name over coffee, tea and frozen hash browns. We kicked around names for hours before I finally suggested ‘Orion’ from one of the boats on my original Prescott journey. Almost every name we mused over before ‘Orion’ sounded like an herbal essence shampoo.

As for business details, we quickly learned that horse rental was impossibly expensive and that insurance companies were not interested in insuring bike tours. Rafting was our only option.
Rafting insurance was more straightforward than it sounds because I knew companies in Utah had to be insured. Byron L. Turner Agency out of Salt Lake City covered us for less than a thousand bucks. Hardly a question asked.

Next, we needed a brochure. A ‘How-To’ river running book by Verne Huser sported tons of action-oriented rafting photos and, since we were thousands of miles away from the East coast where most of the photos were taken, and thousands of miles away from where Huser, the native Texan, lived, we thought — What were the odds? We were in Bellingham, at the farthest reaches of christendom, doing a direct mail to youth pastors in the state of Washington — who would find out?

We worked twenty-four consecutive hours pain-stakingly assembling the brochure using press-on type lettering. Paul created our logo (the one we have resurrected for this season) which we joked about having a phallic semblance with the jagged peaks and globular waves positioned directly below the ‘forest of marching penises’. We folded, stamped and labeled one hundred over-sized brochures and sent them on their way.

We had the name, we had the business concept, we had insurance, and we had just completed our first marketing campaign. Now it was time to talk to our professors.

Posted in History of Orion River Rafting, Leavenworth River Rafting, Seattle Raft Trips, Uncategorized, Wenatchee River Rafting, Whitewater River Rafting | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Outlook for Washington River Rafting

Posted on May 9, 2012 by James Moore

Leavenworth, Washington

What should we expect for Washington rivers and river rafting?

Sunny on the east side of the Cascades, soggy on the west.  That is what is always expected out of rivers located within an easy drive of Seattle.

White Water Bliss

Wenatchee River - Drunkard's Drop

Sunshine on the eastern slopes, and moist marine air backed up from the passes to the sound on the west side.  Spring is in full bloom on both sides of the mountain divide and our healthy snow pack continues to settle amidst the vales and forests deep in the heart of the North Cascades.

In other words, the spring melt off is still to come.

Temperatures will be rising over the next few days, touching the 80s in Leavenworth and, it is possible, the white water game will be on.  Last season, turbulent and cold spring conditions persisted right into and throughout June, and the snow melt never built to a crescendo.  River water levels – on both sides of the mountains – were sustained well into August.

There is no way of knowing just how this season is going to unfold.  But it is typical for summer to come on strong east of the Pacific Crest Trail and rivers to rise on a bell curve with the peak falling in late May or early June.  On the Puget Sound side of the mountains, warm spring rains usually accomplish the same or a similar pattern with rivers like the Sauk River and the Skykomish.

High water levels on Washington’s western rivers certainly should be avoided by novice, inexperienced and first-time river runners.  On the other hand, less technical rivers like the Wenatchee River and the Methow Rivers are more manageable at high water, but even they can reach levels that are not suitable for beginners.

So, if weather patterns and snow melt unfold true to form, you can expect lots of white water, and cold water conditions, in all of Washington’s rivers from mid- to late-May through mid- to late-June.  The levels should taper off throughout the remainder of the season – with the exception of the Sauk River which is sustained by glacial melt – with July being mild white water but much better air temperatures.

Speaking of the Sauk River, July is actually the ideal time period to raft the Sauk.  The Puget Sound environs are beginning to show signs of summer and this Wild and Scenic river gains water as the glaciers on surrounding mountains begin to melt.

Remember the One Hundred Degree rule:  If air temperature plus water temperature is 100 degrees or less, wetsuits or drysuits are required.

Posted in Leavenworth River Rafting, Sauk River Rafting, Seattle Raft Trips, Wenatchee River Rafting, Whitewater River Rafting | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

So, You Want to be a River Rafting Guide?

Posted on May 4, 2012 by James Moore

Leavenworth, Washington

Question:  “How many river rafting guides does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Answer:  One to screw in the bulb and four to stand around and talk about how gnarly the hole is. . . “

This is just one of many variations on a joke theme that river rafting guides tell amongst themselves.  The others are too bawdy to repeat here or refer to guides as penniless slackers.

Raft

In my mind, for the most part, those are the river rafting guides of days long past.  Some might call them the glory days, but really, that sort of behavior and attitude represents the ‘infancy stage’ of a sport.  In 2012, a river rafting guide is as likely to be a female as a male.  Testosterone and white water, especially when combined with youth, is not necessarily a healthy alchemy.  Today’s river guides are inching towards being regarded as professionals – not ‘dirtbags’ who are more likely to couch-surf than maintain any standards.

If guides are honest with themselves, and their guests, they realize the river trip is not about fulfilling their personal needs but making sure their clients are having a safe, fun and, perhaps, educational experience.  Sometimes this requires guides needing to understand that their guests may not thoroughly appreciate the gravity of any particular white water situation.  This is one of the toughest skills a good guide needs to acquire – assessing a crew’s ability and adjusting for the present circumstances.

When we hire river rafting guides we are looking for guides with this sort of judgement ‘built-in’.  It is not enough to be able to read water and skillfully handle the boat in difficult situations.  It is not enough to tell a good joke and do a back-flip off the back of the raft.  A professional guide needs to have empathy and a comprehension for what their guests – who are all novices – are experiencing.  Being attentive to their guests experience and needs.

At the same time, a professional river guide needs to know when to dial a guest’s expectations back.  River guides need to remind themselves that even the most experienced guests will most likely have far less of an understanding of white water than the guide.  One of my senior guides tells the story of the guest who came up to him on an overnight river trip where the river was running high and told him, “Tomorrow I want you to take me to the edge of death, and pull me back.”

If those were not the explicit words, they fully reflect the gist of what the guest was stating.  In other words, the guest was oblivious to the fact that that was what his guides had been doing all along, and equally oblivious that a responsible guide would never purposely tempt the hands of fate and expose guests to any more danger than necessary.

In the words of William McGinnis, author of one of the original white water rafting compendiums, “Rafting is a relatively safe thing to do provided you don’t make any number of terrible mistakes.”

Posted in Deschutes Oregon Rafting, Leavenworth River Rafting, Sauk River Rafting, Seattle Raft Trips, Uncategorized, Wenatchee River Rafting, Whitewater River Rafting | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The History of Orion River Rafting – Part 4

Posted on April 30, 2012 by James Moore 

Leavenworth, Washington

Change.
I am uncomfortable with change.
I wear the same clothes day after day, haunt the same haunts, perform the same routine over and over. Amongst the instructors, during guide training, the common refrain goes, “. . . but, we always do it that way!” And yet, between 1974 and 1976, I careened from one of the smallest colleges in the universe, to one of the largest universities ever built, to a state college in the farthest reaches of the continental United States.
In suburban north Dallas, my life was so free of change I attended elementary through high school without ever leaving one street! Arapaho was the name of the residential street where Arapaho Elementary, West Junior High and Richardson High School were located one after the other like some sort of meat processing facility or car manufacturing assembly line.
Arapahos were nomadic Plains Indians who never set foot in north Texas. I was a sedentary suburbanite who had hardly set foot outside of Texas. I love to observe the irony in these things.

A nomadic tribe.

Arapahos were nomads. I was not.

In any case. . . change.
I landed in Bellingham and enrolled at Western Washington State University for my third institution of higher learning in the same number of years. I expected my friend from Prescott, Bob Ratcliffe, to also be enrolled, but I learned belatedly from his girlfriend, Marcy, that he had taken one of life’s little detours. She had no clear idea what his plans were but he hadn’t enrolled at Evergreen State either, which had been his first option. It must have caught her by surprise, as much as it had thrown me for a loop, because, within a quarter, she repacked her backpack and returned to Colorado.
I remained at Western on my own. I imagined Western, being a state college, would be filled to overflowing with local yokels. Hundreds of in-state students who hadn’t been accepted at the larger universities. Students whose grade points were not worth getting worked up over. Community college graduates climbing the academic ladder.
Imagine my surprise when the first dozen people I met were from out-of-state. And then the next two dozen people I met were from out-of-state. There were so many of us we formed our own little clique. I encountered Washingtonians who reinforced my stereotypical image and many who shattered it, but the cadre of folks I hung with were predominantly transplants.
I clearly remember the day I remarked to a table of my new friends at a Fairhaven District teahouse that “I wouldn’t be surprised to look up one day and it will be six years later and I will still be in Washington.” It seemed incredible to be imagining such a long span of time in such a strange land. My comment was spoken after my first quarter of homesickness because I also remember stuffing my baby blue Ford Pinto to the gills for Christmas break fully intending to return forever to the Lone Star State.

Cupcake-eating contest in Fairhaven District - Bellingham.

However, a sudden relationship with an erudite, environmentally sensitive blond sprite from Ohio brought me back to Bellingham. I say ‘sudden’ because it unfolded and sprung to life only a week before I packed to head home. We had been ‘study hall’ friends throughout my first fall in the Northwest, but intimacy had not surfaced until the eleventh hour. Our relationship didn’t survive the summer of 1977, but it served as the bridge between Texas and Washington that helped me to leave behind the past and begin to concentrate on my very own future.
Talk about a simple twist of fate. I have no idea what path I would be traveling if I had returned to Texas. Odds are, however, I would not know anyone in the Northwest that I know today. Once I arrived back in Bellingham I committed myself to the half-baked idea of pursuing a degree combining recreation and counseling.
But first I had to figure out how to survive monetarily. I enrolled in the work-study program and landed a job with Bellingham Parks and Recreation. What I loved most about my job with park maintenance was the carte blanche to drive a city vehicle with impunity — across park grounds, double parking in the roadway, driving the wrong way on a one-way street. In the fall of 1977, I scored a coveted position as a Resident Aide for the Fairhaven complex on the south end of the campus.
The Fairhaven R.A.s convened in early August and determined that the twelve ‘stacks’, or apartment buildings, at Fairhaven would each be given a theme and we would try and match the incoming students to the ‘theme’ of that dorm. I opted for the ‘Outdoor Recreation’ and ‘Environmental’ stacks.
Meanwhile, from the moment I drove back to WWU, I immersed myself in outdoor activities by proposing and leading river trips on the Skagit River through the college’s Outdoor Program. I was amazed at the ease with which I could check rafts out from the Outdoor Program on my flimsy credentials. It would not be inaccurate to say, after my brief apprenticeship on the Colorado River with Prescott, that I ‘cut my teeth’ refining my rafting skills on the mighty, ‘Magic Skagit’.
A spring trip in 1977 was an eye-opener for me. Michael Bellert and Linda Zimmerman, two new friends who recently moved from Chicago, and my high school sweetheart, Jill Jeanes, who had flown to the Northwest for a visit, suffered an icy dunking in the S-Turn when the hysterically historic raft we were paddling, known as a “World Famous”, stood on its hindquarters (if rafts had hindquarters to stand on) and the four of us unceremoniously slid into the frigid, emerald waters. No neoprene in miles, of course. Lots of New Zealand wool, however.
The “World Famous”, of unknown vintage and origin, was equipped with wooden slats for seats, instead of thwarts. To compound the hilarity of its design, the seats were varnished and the front end bulged like a snake in half-swallow. Additionally, the “World Famous” was as substantial as a gas station vending machine condom.
As we dropped into the entry of the S-Turn, and the bow bucked high toward the sky, Linda, Michael, Jill and I all slipped off of the seats like pats of butter on a hot roll. To be fair, the “World Famous” wasn’t meant to be a whitewater raft. But, also to be fair, we were, generally, clueless. When we returned our bedraggled selves to Goodell Creek Campground, we met an outfitter from Alaska who showed us what a real raft was supposed to look like and taught us our first drinking game. He and his wife also introduced us to a blended whiskey we were unfamiliar with. . . the drink of choice on hoary winter nights by gold-addled prospectors and wild-eyed river runners. . .Yukon Jack.

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More Frequently Asked River Rafting Questions

Posted on April 10, 2012 by James Moore

Question:  Do I need to be physically fit to go white water rafting?

There are many ways to answer this question.  The more fit you are, the more fun you will have river rafting.  But you do not have to be fit like Charles Atlas or Rocky Balboa or Fabio.  (That should cover most generations.)

Teen group goes rafting on the Deschutes

Group photo after a successful river trip on the Deschutes.

On the other hand, you need to be able to take care of yourself if you find yourself unexpectedly swimming in the river.  You need to have sufficient stamina to hold your position in the raft in the midst of crashing waves and short bursts of enthusiastic paddling.  Or to hold your breath if dunked in to the river.

For this reason, if you are suffering from physical ailments that require regular medication, paddling on a white water river may not be an ideal outdoor activity.  Especially not a river that is running high on spring snow melt.  Or a river that is technically challenging and is rated above Class III.

Asthma attacks, epilepsy, vertigo, heart issues, diabetes and pregnancy do not mix well with towering, crashing waves, frigid water and vigorous paddling.  A lesser, calmer river trip might be more suitable, like the Skagit River, if rafting is suitable for you at all.  Getting advice from your doctor is always wise.

Many people with the aforementioned ailments do still go rafting, but, most of them, have maintained their fitness in spite of their ailment, bring whatever devices or medications they need and keep it handy and make sure they divulge that information – prior to the trip’s launch – to their guide.

Question:  Why does Orion have age restrictions?

Admittedly, our age policy is somewhat arbitrary.  Some kids mature faster than others.  Sometimes bigger kids are not necessarily better equipped from an agility standpoint than a smaller, lighter kid.

We ask that kids on the Skagit River – our easiest float trip – be, at least, 8 years of age.  But, even on the Skagit, a boatload of nothing but 8 year-olds would not be a good idea.  The Skagit is the coldest river we raft and the standing waves at the S-Bend require some maneuvering, so we request an adult to accompany a group of youngsters.  (Two would be even better – the guide would make 2 or 3.)

On the Wenatchee River, we want kids to be 12 years of age and – approximately – 100 pounds.  Part of the deal with the age restrictions is that younger kids have no idea whatsoever what sort of risks they are undertaking.  This is even the case, in our opinion, if they have had previous experience on other comparable river trips.

Occasionally, we will make exceptions, but not without a thorough conversation with the child’s parent or guardian to be certain they understand the circumstances.

As a river gets more challenging, the minimum age rises.  On the Sauk and Tieton it is 14 years of age and up, and on the Skykomish it is 18 years of age and up.

As river levels drop, in many cases, they become easier to navigate and rescue becomes simpler, and, as a result, we are more likely to bend our rules.

Think of the age restrictions as a signpost we erect in order to get your attention that the stretch of river we are rafting of such a difficulty that we are comfortable taking 8 year olds or 12 year olds or etcetera.  If you are still intent to sign them up, please give us a call and we can talk about it.

Posted in Deschutes Oregon Rafting, Seattle Raft Trips, Uncategorized, Wenatchee River Rafting, Whitewater River Rafting | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The History of Orion River Rafting – Part 3

Posted on April 4, 2012 by James Moore 

Leavenworth, Washington

Sometime during my first collegiate year, Prescott College, mired in financial hot water, lost its academic accreditation. Significantly, the staff of twenty-four professors, despite being booted off their remote, wilderness-like campus, and in spite of a loss of accreditation, chose to conduct their seminars and classes right out of their homes.
I returned to Prescott after Christmas break, and though I admired the professors’ temerity, I did not return to take classes. I couldn’t see spending perfectly good money on an education that wouldn’t transfer to any other university program. I spent the winter and spring of 1975 umpiring volleyball games, trying to commit suicide by instructing myself in skiing techniques like negotiating moguls (the knee-pounding humps, not the rich fat cats), and hiking in the Grand Canyon with my Prescott College friends.

The good old days of white water river rafting

The early days of rafting in a non-self-bailer

I researched alternative colleges throughout the Midwest and West — Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio(!), Colorado College, Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri(!!), Jordan College in Minnesota(!!?) and the University of Santa Cruz in California. But, in a sudden schizophrenic direction change, I opted to enroll at the University of Texas’ Honors College — theoretically, a college within a college — 200 undergraduate students selected out of an enrollment of 50,000. But the main attraction for me to attend the University of Texas was the reunion with my high school friends and the proximity of three siblings — my two brothers and a sister.
Though I was enrolled in the Honors College for Liberal Arts, all that I remember from the entirety of those two semesters, was playing intramural sports. My brothers and I, along with my high school buddies, organized teams for everything — football, coed football, basketball, coed basketball, soccer, softball, volleyball, badminton and racquetball. Looking back, I have no idea how I found time to study. Perhaps I didn’t. I mean, we played sports and organized pickup games, even when we were not involved in our intramural games.
But the ‘outdoor bug’ had bit me. The trouble was that Texas didn’t feel like it had an ‘outdoors’.  There was, however, one notable exception.
It was during my University of Texas stint when my brother-in-law, Ed, hired a kayaking instructor who guided Ed, my brother, Mike, my father and I on a three-day whitewater kayaking trip on the Guadalupe River outside of Austin, Texas. He tried futilely to teach us to kayak from scratch. Teaching a mule to bake cornbread from scratch would have been easier. At least, the mule would have been less stubborn and would surely have bellyached less.
I think you can describe our experience as ‘fun’, but we spent most of our time swimming to shore with kayak in tow, or refusing to make any maneuver that might jeopardize our upright, above water, natural air-breathing position. I distinctly remember being exhausted from doing the one-armed crawl-stroke in my stone-washed denims.
None of us reminisce about our kayaking adventure, without recalling our physical exhaustion, Mike’s ability to avoid turning over (which either stemmed from his low center of gravity or a well-honed sense of survival) and our incredulity that Dad managed to clamber out of his sleeping bag on that first morning following a day of ingesting water and dragging his ass back to shore. But, clamber he did. And he kayaked with us two out of the three days. On the third morning he wised up and ran the shuttle.
Afterwards, I invested a fair amount of time perfecting my roll in a swimming pool, but it was a few years before I ventured onto moving water in a kayak again. Of course, for a Texas boy, the ice baths of the rivers in the Northwest were never as enticing as the bath tub water of the Southwest.

Kayak roll class

Learning to roll a white water kayak circa 1976.

The whole time in Texas I dreamed and schemed of returning to the West. I imagined a program and a degree entitled ‘Wilderness Education and Counseling Psychology’. I had visions of a life of therapeutic outdoor recreation. In fact, Boston College offered a program along those lines, but Massachusetts was a long way from my ideal setting.
My Dad rode to the rescue again. An old friend of his was the Dean of Recreation at San Francisco State. Dad suggested I pick his brain in regards to wilderness recreation programs in the West. I phoned him and got his list of recommendations.
San Francisco State topped his list, of course, but he also plugged the University of Oregon and Western Washington State College. My best friend from Prescott, Bob Ratcliffe, tried steering me toward Evergreen State College in Olympia where we could create our own program and wouldn’t have to deal with grades and a traditional education.
I met Bob during my wilderness orientation and admired his outdoor savvy which was light-years beyond mine, but I was impatient to be finished with public schooling. The small taste of freedom that accompanied the unexpected turn-of-events at Prescott primed me to get on with joining the ‘workforce’. The thought of attending a school, which required critical thinking in order to emerge with a degree, seemed overwhelming and daunting. I wanted a ticket out of school.
In the end, I selected Western because the Recreation program included an emphasis on outdoor recreation, their classes were bunched together in what they called ‘phases’ — similar to Prescott’s intensive one or two subjects at a time in month-long ‘blocks’ — the campus was lovely with red brick paths and towering evergreens and, as a bonus, the wilderness reaches of western Canada were a mere hop, skip and a jump away.
I toiled through the scalding hot and blistering dry Dallas summer laboring as a nursery worker unloading semi-truck loads of fresh, chlorophyll-laden plants imported from British Columbia. Each time I climbed on board to start the unloading process, I would take a deep breath and the lure of the verdant Northwest grew more and more irresistible.
It was September of 1976. With just a week to go before classes were in session, I packed every possession possible into my 1972 pastel-blue Ford Pinto, the interior crammed full except for the driver’s seat, and set out on the interstate for one of the farthest corners of the lower 48 states — a sleepy little burg at the end of the interstate called Bellingham.

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The History of Orion River Rafting – Part 2

Posted on March 29, 2012 by James Moore 

Leavenworth, Washington

Thirty days in the red rock country of Utah did not make me an outdoorsman. (Thirty some odd years hasn’t molded me into one either, for that matter.) In all honesty, I don’t recall learning very many ‘outdoor skills’. No survival skills, no map and compass skills, no river rescue skills. Since a majority of the river trip was a float trip, we barely learned how to steer the rafts. It was a thirty day wilderness orientation trip with minimal structure.

Inflatables from the '60s with silver paint

The olden days of white water rafting.

I remember a fair amount of hiking, as well as backpacking. We ate an enormous amount of peanut butter and jam on round crackers called ‘Bolton biscuits’ which was just one of the indestructible foods that we hauled down river in used military black bags referred to as ‘blags’. We also ate an enormous amount of tasteless granola and freeze dried dinners. We brought 5 pound bricks of cheese that we kept unrefrigerated for the entire time. The cheese blocks grew sweaty and greasy in the unremitting heat of the desert, but, remarkably, none of them grew moldy or had to be discarded.

We had three rafts and they were all paddled. The rafts were stuffed with thirteen people’s worth of gear. Two people shared one blag for their sleeping bags, ensolite foam pads, extra clothes and a second set of shoes which were, typically, boots for hiking. We carried no coolers. We had no tents. Our aluminum-framed backpacks were strapped to the rafts separately in one large awkward bundle. As we paddled the silver-painted glorified military assault rafts, we sat amongst our gear which was spread throughout the raft from the bow to the stern.

You may imagine that I learned knots from rigging gear every day, but until we reached the seventeen miles of whitewater below the confluence of the Green and the Colorado, we relied on gravity. The only knot I could tie in 1974, before the wilderness orientation and after the wilderness orientation, was the one I used to tie my shoelaces. (And, everyone who watches me tie my shoes laughs because I do something back-asswards, but I can’t tell you today what it is. My mother taught me that bow-tie and I have no intention of relearning a more efficient method five decades later.)

Two of the rafts we paddled were 15 feet long with large diameter tubes. The 15 foot model with the upturned snout was called a ‘Yampa’ after the Yampa River in northwestern Colorado. The smaller 13 footer was named for the Selway River in Idaho. Ironically, I have never paddled either of those rivers.

The joys of cooking on a river trip

Not OSHA-approved technique on a river trip

The rafts had been christened with names as well. The Selway was named ‘Guacamole’, perhaps because it was the craft most likely to be turned to mush in the whitewater of Cataract Canyon. The two Yampas were named ‘Merlin’ (I always presumed for the magician, but it might also have referred to the town near the Rogue River) and ‘Orion’, the company’s namesake raft and constellation.

Other than hiking and backpacking and eating ‘cardboard-flavored’ meals, the only other organized activity I remember — not including the three-day solo and fast at journey’s end — was a rappell from a one hundred foot sandstone cliff somewhere in the bowels of The Maze. Somehow I was selected to go first. As I nervously hung over the cliff’s edge, my mind waging a battle between fear and humiliation, I remember Len Barron, the sociology professor who had accompanied our trip, leaning over the precipice and saying in his East Coast accent through his brushy gray mustache, “You know, James, it’s perfectly permissible to smile.”

Len would later say during the campfire evaluations that I should consider breaking the mold, dare to go out on a limb, commit to doing something out of the ordinary. I was not a risk-taker, and it was obvious. If I played my cards at all, I always played them close to the vest. Len challenged me to think outside of the box I created for myself. (Of course, he also told one of the slightly uptight female students that she should get herself laid. Len’s candor and generalizing repelled most Prescott students. Indeed, only a couple of us selected him as our educational advisor.)

I ramble about the Prescott wilderness orientation because it was during that period I realized there was something about being outdoors with a group of people that energized and inspired me. I sat down in the mouth of Dark Canyon at the beginning of my 3-day solo knowing I valued family and community, but I don’t think I understood or fully appreciated the extent I valued them because I had never been forced to confront my values and to mull them over endlessly.

My time in slickrock country during the fall of 1974 did not seal my career path. I did not receive an epiphany that said, “Go forth and found an white water river rafting company and you will be forever satisfied with your existence”.

The whitewater of Cataract Canyon was sufficiently exhilarating but it did not convert me into a whitewater junkie. I did not pursue rafting or kayaking or hiking or rock-climbing immediately after my wilderness immersion. What I learned during my wilderness sojourn with Prescott College was the value of community and a method by which communities can be formed, strengthened, reinvigorated and grown.

Up until that time I had blithely wandered through my life cherishing my friendships, my family and viewing from afar my father and mother growing church communities throughout Texas, but not fully appreciating that I needed to maintain contact with the process of community-building or I would wither away. This wasn’t fully clear at the end of my wilderness orientation either, but it was beginning to be a niggling irritant in the back of my mind.

The sort of irritant that just might become a pearl if given enough time.

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The History of Orion River Rafting – Part 1

Posted on March 27, 2012 by James Moore

Leavenworth, Washington

Allow me to begin at the beginning.  More than 35 years ago.

At a time when Orion River Rafting was not even a gleam in anyone’s eye. A time when I had no idea I would spend the majority of my life in ‘The Great North Woods’, as my high school sweetheart’s stodgy father liked to call it, or ‘The Great North Wet’, as one of our veteran guides who grew up in Washington likes to call it. A time when Outdoor Recreation meant pop-up trailers and campground was spelled with a capital ‘K’. as in Kampgrounds of America (KOA), as far as my family was concerned.

It was the early ‘70’s. I was in love with iconoclasm, progressive country music and environmentalism. I was out-of-step with everyone I knew in north Texas. I was reminded the other day by a former high school classmate that I would reuse my paper lunch sack until it was as limp as toilet tissue. During my teens, I had begun questioning the twin Texas sacred cows of competition and football.

The Vietnam War was winding down. Watergate was heating up. And disco, thanks to the BeeGees and John Travolta, was catching on.

I did not have a single clue where I would go to college or what I would study when I got there. I wasn’t even certain college appealed to me. Even though I was a member of the National Honor Society and a successful public school student, I sensed an ‘emptiness’ to my education. ‘Garbage in, garbage out’ was a popular expression of the time.

For some unknown reason, since I harbored a thinly veiled phobia of mathematics, I applied and was accepted to the University of Santa Clara’s engineering program. In fact, I was offered an academic scholarship to study environmental engineering. I wanted to work on the reclamation of strip mined lands. I distinctly remember the program stretching through five years with practically every single class predetermined — all the electives were clustered toward the fifth and final year.

Despite my antipathy toward math and science, I felt I needed the scholarship in order to attend a college, so I awaited my enrollment like a prisoner on Death Row. I have no idea what I was thinking. I was passionate about the nascent environmental movement, but I had my doubts that an engineering degree would set me on the path appropriate for me.

Out of the blue, my father, a Presbyterian minister with a nationwide audience through his weekly column in the Presbytery’s national magazine, came to me with an alternative proposal. Perhaps he had noticed my lack of excitement. Perhaps he saw something in me that I hadn’t plumbed. Perhaps he played a hunch. Maybe he hoped to live through me vicariously.

In any case, he told me about a small liberal arts college in northern Arizona called Prescott College. A reader of his from Arkansas had mailed a letter and a National Geographic article featuring Prescott and its unusual curriculum, educational style and freshman orientation. This reader told my dad that she thought his youngest son, whom she had read so much about in his weekly essays, might enjoy this unorthodox education.

When my father suggested I consider Prescott College, and that he would foot the bill, at least for the first year, I felt I had received a reprieve. If nothing else, I could postpone deciding my future for another couple of years while I explored alternatives at Prescott. Those of you who know me well, know I am far from an excitable boy. So it won’t surprise you that my father was more excited about Prescott than I was, and what excited him the most was the orientation program for all freshmen and transfer students.

Prescott’s wilderness orientation program, following a week’s worth of matriculation, was a thirty-day sojourn somewhere in the wilds of the Southwest. The incoming students were divided into several groups of ten and then trucked to Baja to sea-kayak, the Manti La Sals to trudge about in the snow, the Grand Canyon to hike or to the Green River in Utah to raft. Each group was joined by several other students with outdoor recreation experience and one faculty member.

As it turns out, and quite by accident, I was shipped off to Moab, Utah, for my very first experience whitewater rafting.

I was eighteen years old. I had never camped without running water. I had certainly never camped without a physical structure over my head. I had never been on a river with whitewater and, the concept of controlling a boat in cataracts (for we were rafting down the Green River to and through the Colorado River’s Cataract Canyon), was incomprehensible, as well as frightening, to me.

I don’t remember ever having reservations about my decision to eschew my “free ride” from Santa Clara. But I do remember being infinitely relieved I wasn’t in a lecture hall with a couple of hundred other students listening to a professor drone on about trigonometry equations and the significance of slide rules.

And, after spending 30 days rafting through the Utah back country, I discovered my passion for environmental issues coincided with my passion for wilderness and community building. Thirty eight years later, I am still amazed how close I came to being somewhere else.

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Esoteric River Rafting Terminology

Posted on March 24, 2012 by James Moore 

Leavenworth, Washington

Like most activities, occupations and hobbies, white water river rafting has a language all its own.  What looks to the untrained eye like a wave, but a wave that has the propensity to recirculate boats, people and logs, are called “holes“.  River guides look for the “tongue” as they approach a rapid because the tongue signifies the deepest and – typically – clearest channel.

But there are more esoteric terms guides bandy about that I’d like to introduce to the interested boating public.  (Let me preface this list by stating that in the event of injury or tragedy some of these terms may be considered insensitive and are not bandied about.)

On the tongue at Lava Falls in the Grand Canyon

Lava Falls 1982 - On the 'hateful' left side of the tongue

“Yard sale” or “carnage“, for instance.  Each of these reference the same sort of incident.  A raft has had a mishap and now the boat, gear, people and, depending on the sort of trip, miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam, like coolers and their contents, are strewn upriver and downriver.  In other words, in the aftermath of a white water ‘uh-oh’ moment the river is littered with colorful floating items.

If a rafts “tacos“, this means the bow and stern of the inflatable have been introduced to one another, due to encountering a steep drop, perhaps a ‘hole’, and it is very likely you have a yard sale on your hands.  A rapid on the Umpqua River in Oregon is named Taco, and I have seen its namesake up close and personal, but my most memorable and humbling ‘taco’ experience happened in the Grand Canyon’s grandaddy of all rapids, Lava Falls.  As you might imagine, the aftermath of that encounter was definitely referred to as ‘carnage’.

They are NOT going to make it through this white water

Taco-ing on the right side of the infamous Ledge Hole

On the Methow River, on an innocuous left hand bend miles above the storied white water of Black Canyon and Another Roadside Attraction and all the others, there is, at times when the river is cold and high and full of snow melt, a powerful breaking wave called “Dumptruck”.  It received that moniker the day I watched one of our paddle rafts, full to the gills with hearty paddlers, challenge the wave only to have the boat stand on its tail as every member of the crew was perfunctorily dumped into the silt-tinged current.  That is known as a “dumptruck“, because the raft ended right side up and free of its cumbersome weight.

If you have ever been on a white water river and separated from your raft and found your downstream progress put on hold due to nothing but turbulent water, you will instantly know what I mean when I say you were being “maytagged”.  Maytag is a brand of washing machine.  If you have NOT experienced being at the mercy of recirculating currents, try envisioning yourself as a scrap of cloth stuck in a modern day washing machine.  (And – no – the term “whirlpool” did not come from THAT other appliance brand.)

The last one for this posting is a personal descriptive reference I like to use to colorfully describe to my crew the kind of paddlers I do not want to see.  After explaining how I would like for them to hold their paddles and move their bodies and perform their roles, I like to make it clear that the best crews not only paddle together, they are dynamic.  And what I don’t want them to be are “sacks of potatoes“.  Because, if a sack of potatoes is anything, it is not dynamic.  It is static and at the mercy of every crashing wave.

In the photos accompanying this post of my fateful comeuppance at Lava Falls Rapids in 1982, that crew was more a bag of tigers than a sack of potatoes.  But when we taco-ed in that hellacious hole, we damn near punched on through.  Even so, the boat reared up, dumptrucked us into the maelstrom and landed upright.   A few got maytagged, the rest of us jetted on downstream.

The good news is – we can look back now and laugh about the ‘yard sale’.

Posted in Leavenworth River Rafting, River Rafting Guide Training, Uncategorized, Wenatchee River Rafting, Whitewater River Rafting | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment