Skip to main content

Orion River Rafting's Guide's Backeddy

END-OF-GUIDE-TRAINING PARTY
Chumstick Country Club the evening of May 15th. Group Dinner planned. Slideshow from stand-in photographers --- hopefully. Keg. Non-Guidelings (aka Orion Guides) please contact the office if you are planning on attending.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...
Many launch times will be later this season in order to cater to the Seattle metropolitan crowd that party's hardy on Friday night and wants to dodge the traffic headed east out of town.

What does that mean to you --- our fearful guides? Well, our Noon and 1pm Meeting Times on the Wenatchee do NOT include a meal which means you will need to eat a humongous breakfast or come prepared with a carbohydrate rich snack to get you through to 6pm.

FEAST OR FAMINE
You might have heard that I gave away the farm to this Groupon thing. Maybe so, but the Good News to you is that we are bursting at the seams with guide days on the Wenatchee and some of it is spilling over onto other rivers. Starting after the Memorial Weekend, we are busy, busy, busy --- especially on weekends and especially on Sundays.

OTHER GOOD NEWS
If you want to bring Friends/Family, believe it or not, there are plenty of opportunities on Fridays and Saturdays in June (because I 'blacked out' those dates to coupon users).

FIRST AID/CPR
It is never-ending. Y'all are supposed to be currently certified in Basic First Aid and CPR. I am supposed to have copies of your certification. Please send them in. I am woefully short of proof of first aid for many of you. I am tired of asking and I know y'all are tired of reading about it. Just do it.

COMMUNITY ZERO CALENDAR
Keep an eye on the Calendar. I am updating it because I have already scheduled about 500 of the 2500 coupon holders who will be rafting with us this season. I will not be updating the Orion Guides FB calendar because I only have 24 hours in each day.

GET YOUR GROUPON
Okay, I gave Groupon users an offer they could not possibly refuse. Now, it is up to all of you --- and me --- to turn these casual rafters into diehard Orion rafters. We are not going to wow them with our healthy lunches, so we need to double-down on our customer service and promotion of the other river trips we offer.

SLOW RIVER EXPEDITIONS
One other thing, we will need a 'merchandiser' for the take-out. Someone who can get down their an hour early to set up our pop-up shade shelter and put out Release Forms, Chums, Belly Timber Bars and whatever else we attempt to sell. This person can also be incredibly helpful by checking off customers, collecting coupons, in advance BECAUSE we will need to be as efficient as we can possibly be to avoid working long into the evening.

SNAKE RIVER TRIP
May 24th to May 27th. Anyone interested?

CHEERS!
Poobah

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

River Rafting Rescue 101

Rivers are cold in the state of Washington. Gushing down the slopes of the North Cascade mountain range, westbound toward the Salish Sea and eastbound toward the Columbia, Washington rivers are the result of melting snowfields, diminishing glaciers, brisk Pacific Northwest rainfall and subterranean cold water springs. Meanwhile the Skagit River has all of those factors plus it is water spilled through turbines released from the depths of a very deep and very cold Ross Lake. For those specific reasons, it is not unusual to be wearing neoprene throughout the white water season in the grey and mossy Pacific Northwest. Even on the Skagit in August. And when the river is running high in the spring from snow melt, not only is the temperature of the water frigid (prolonged exposure to 70 degree water induces hypothermia - as I can attest to on a pleasant afternoon without a splash jacket on the Pucon River in Chile) it is moving rather fast. 'Swimmers', as we call persons over...

Jim Fielder - Washington River Rafting Pioneer

Jim Fielder was, as they say, larger than life. The former middle school teacher, beloved by many, and former white water rafting outfitter , envied by even more, lost his life recently due to poor electrical wiring and a flash fire.  He lived on Queen Anne hill in a house handed down to him by his mother. The Queen Anne News reported that he was also a former screenwriter and novelist of true crime stories.  I know he had published a book or two, and I know he wrote an insightful article about Mary Kay Letourneau for a women's magazine, but I don't know if I would characterize anyone who has been published as being 'former'.  Once a writer, always a writer. Jim Fielder owned Zig Zag River Runners from the late 70s through the early 90s, and that is how I know him.  But the last time I saw him, he was haunting a Queen Anne coffeehouse, absorbing information and scheming about subject matter you could sink your teeth into.  He was long past his white wa...

Not the Sharpest Tool in the Raft Shed

The first time I rowed a raft was on the Rogue River.  Come to think of it, the very first time I rowed - anything - was on the Rogue River. Thirteen kayakers led by a WWU professor hired me to haul their cargo on a week long trip.  But there was one glitch - I was a paddle guide.  I had no idea how to row.  What I knew about rowing you could put on the back of a matchbook cover. But it was an offer I couldn’t refuse for two reasons.  It was the Rogue River made famous by Zane Grey, the pulp fiction western writer, and by guide books claiming the Rogue harbored one of the country’s ten biggest rapids. More importantly, the kayakers were paying me five hundred dollars for the week.  I saw no reason to dissuade them of their offer, or mention my deficiency.  I set about building an oar frame out of knotty pine purchased at the local lumber yard. I found a blueprint for a rudimentary frame in a river running handbook.  I wi...