What is White Water Rafting All About?
White water rafting is a wonderful sport that allows you to experience remote wilderness environments, high adventure, and a rare level of self-sufficiency. If you're lucky enough to live near a white water river, it's a great way to spend a day in the outdoors. When you take an overnight river rafting trip you camp out in comfort, in a deluxe spare-no-frills style, because rafts can carry so much gear, fresh food, and your favorite beverages. No freeze-dried food for the whitewater crowd! By carefully selecting the river and flow level or season of the year, you can bite off as much or as little physical challenge and adrenalin-pumping thrill as you can handle.
White water rafting is very much a thinking sport. When you're in a big rapid, it's like a chess match against a force of nature. If you let down your concentration you get your butt kicked, sometimes figuratively, sometime literally. Your angle to the current and position relative to obstacles and your optimal 'line' through the rapids are critical. Each maneuver sets up the next. And when the current slows, you can just sit back and enjoy some of the best scenery on the planet as it drifts quietly by.
River rafting is also a social sport. Where else can you live and travel with a group of friends and/or family for days or even weeks at a time and together tackle the challenges thrown at you by the natural environment and the adventure of wilderness isolation? And each afternoon, when you beach the rafts at your campsite, you've arrived at your own little Margaritaville!
Off the water, white water rafting becomes an eating and drinking sport (at least to the degree that this is a good thing!). The best wines I drink all year are consumed in my polycarbonate wine glass while sitting in a beach chair beside a river, in the middle of nowhere. I get to gaze at outstanding scenery and share the company of good friends. And then we cook up a feast, do a little fishing, or play games, and then relax around the campfire. When we wake up tomorrow, we'll spend the day running rapids, seeing the sights, and exploring the secrets of the river corridor. The sport of white water rafting has it all!
The amazing mix of excitement, comfortable camping, and natural beauty that is white water rafting is very addicting. If you've read this far, you've probably already fallen under its spell.
Commercial White Water Rafting Services
If you've never tried white water rafting, contact a few commercial river guide services. Pick a river that interests you and the level of adventure you're looking for and a guide that runs trips on that river. The general rule is that trips in May and June, during high water, offer more excitement and thrills. Trips in late June and July tend to be gentler, and the weather will probably be much better. Of course some rivers can be run in early spring and in the fall. Check around. In any case, the guide services are mostly all very good. They don't stay in business very long if they don't provide a great time for their clients!
Getting started in white water rafting
If you're thinking about 'do it yourself' whitewater rafting, here's the approach I used. Early in our marriage, my wife and I had camped beside the Salmon River near Riggins, Idaho and watched the commercial rafting trips float by. There was just something special about those beautiful beaches and the sights and sounds of that emerald water flowing past and that thing found a place in our souls.
Later, we purchased a canoe and paddled the local lakes and slow-moving streams near our home while our kids were young. Our first actual rafting trip was with a commercial whitewater outfitter. Such trips are pretty much the typical beginning, the point where the spark is lit for most people who go on to own their own rafts. Shop around, the variety of whitewater guide services and the day trips and extended rafting vacations you can take with them is almost limitless. Being a paying passenger on a commercial white water rafting trip is enough for many people and gets them their rafting 'fix' each year. But if you're an independent type, you'll eventually want to do it yourself. When you decide to take the big step, get help.
I joined my local whitewater rafting club and then promptly purchased my first raft, a 14 foot cataraft. "Cats", as they're referred to, are a pair of pontoons joined by a metal frame. They're inherently more maneuverable and therefore more forgiving than a more traditional-style self-bailing raft. My fellow club members were very helpful in providing advice and accompanying me as I learned to control my boat, read the water, and learn safe practices, and river rescue techniques. As my skills and confidence grew, I started taking overnight trips with friends. My old backpacking gear from college found a new life on lightweight weekend rafting trips with the guys. My wife and I then rented self-bailers for extended trips each summer until we eventually purchased our own 16 foot self-bailer. Wonderful river rafting vacations each summer are now a family tradition.
