A day on the water is a great way to spend the summer
Working in an office this summer? Perhaps at a restaurant or clothing retail? Have a cool internship? That’s great, but as for Haley Andersen, junior in public relations and speech communications, she will be working as a river guide in Moab for Western River Expeditions for the third summer in a row.
Andersen said she works as a river guide for one-day, four-day or 10-day rafting trips in the Colorado and Green rivers.
“We got out every morning and rig the boats – get all the boats and food and everything we need for trips,” she said.
Andersen then guides the trips, a lot of them.
“I’ve done a lot,” she said. “Basically they’re four-day trips and when the water lowers they change to five-day trips … it’s pretty consistent.”
Although she didn’t spend a lot of time outdoors as a kid, Andersen said when she was in Moab for a river trip a few years ago she decided being a river guide was something she’d love to do.
“I was with a young single adult group with my church and we wet to Moab for just a daily run and camped out,” she said. “I loved it, I applied, got the job and I just can’t get enough.”
Andersen said the application and training process for river guides is quite rigorous.
“You have to apply early because Western is a pretty well-known company for rafting,” she said. “It’s a small company in general but big in the rafting world.”
She said the river rafting season usually goes from April to October, but most river guides are students and work from May to August. Before the season starts, each guide has to go through a three-week training process.
“You have to get your wilderness first aid, CPR, white water rescue and then you practice run each of the trips,” she said.
Andersen said the most intense part of the training is running West Water, a one-day river trip ranked as the best one-day rafting trip by National Geographic, six times in one day.
“It’s really scary, but it’s fun,” she said. “You run it and then you go back and run it again. It’s intense but it teaches you how to row and what to do in scary situations.”
After three weeks of rigorous training, Andersen said guides pay to take a written test about the water and boating. Depending on how they do, she said guides either receive a Guide 1 license or Guide 3 license. Those who receive a Guide 1, the captain license, have the ability to run any trip. Guide 3 license can run any trip as long as there is a guide with a Guide 1 license aboard.
Andersen said one of her scariest experiences as a river guide was during her training on West Water when she accidentally hit a rapid called Skull Hole.
“If you hit Skull Hole, it’s so big that at the right water level it could kill you because it will take you straight into a rock wall,” she said. “It will flip your boat and suck you underneath.”
Andersen said when she hit the rapid it dumped her and one other girl out of the boat. Luckily, she said her trainer jumped on the oars and pulled the boat away from the rock and pulled her and the other river guide out of the water.
Andersen said her experiences as a river guide have been some of the best in her life.
“It’s been some of the best experiences I’ve had being down there because I get to be out in the middle of nowhere with a group of people, and you kind of learn to see what life is really about when not surrounded with all the technology and distractions at home and school,” she said.
Andersen said becoming good friends with the passengers is also one of the best parts of the job.
“You meet some of the most incredible people that are your passengers,” she said. “I’ll stay in contact with some of my passengers for years, if not the rest of my life.”
–karlie.brand@aggiemail.usu.edu