Pushing Rubber
Working the river—love, money and all the paddling you can han- dle? Well, sort of.
by Tris Winfield “Left back, right forward …STOP… forward paddle… FORWARD PAD-
DLE!” Initially slow, the crew responded as I cranked on the oars, and after a heart-stopping second the raft picked up momentum in the direction I wanted. Whew. I’ve seen other guides tossed right into the forward section of the raft after a lapse of attention near a big hole while the kayakers carving waves nearby smirked and nodded to one another. As a first-year guide, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake. Nope. Summers as a raft guide were going to be about spending time on the water, meeting lots of cool people, making some cash and pad- dling every night. Well, maybe.
On the river Every day, eight to twelve new people put their lives in your hands. It’s a big responsibility, and although guests often say they want to go big, their enthusiasm diminishes when they find themselves underneath an upside-down raft. A guide is paid to read not only the river but also the guests, to pick the line that best suits all
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members of the crew. The introductory safety talk is your time to size up your people, and as with everything, first impressions count for a lot. “It’s the first two minutes and the first rapid. In the first two minutes they like you as a per- son, and in the first rapid they respect you as a guide,” said Stacey Pepplar, 23, an Ottawa River guide with Esprit Rafting for the last four years. “If you can get a good relationship with them
then, it’s going to be more like going with friends.”
The human factor is important for more than just attitude because the crew is the motor, and it can be tough to get the big hits guests are looking for without a prompt and effective response to commands. On a technical level a raft filled with people might weigh as much as a ton, and they just don’t stop or turn on a dime. “I had trouble the first two weeks, I was just blowing it, “ said six-year guide Clyde Bersky, 32, a whitewater paddler and racer since 18. “The raft’s so big and heavy—there’s so much momentum. But then a senior guy took me aside and said, ‘All you need to do is exaggerate your ferry angles and set up a couple of seconds ear- lier.’”
Essentially, raft guiding boils down to reading the river and a six-second rule—two seconds to decide what you need to do; one second to call the command; another for the crew to react; and finally, two tense seconds for the raft to respond.
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