Whitewater Rafting tips/stories/suggestions

[Josh W]

I haven't seen this discussed here, and am not sure if there is interest at all, so maybe this will fall on deaf ears.

I have a group of friends who go whitewater rafting every year. It's mostly a group of us from college, with some significant others thrown in. So far, we've basically only done california rivers (plus the lower klamath in southern oregon).

We just got back from a trip with Mountain and River Adventures in Kernville, CA ( website ) We took a 2 day trip on the lower kern river. There were only 5 in our party this year (sometimes we have as many as 20), but there were also two other people we hadn't previously met doing the two day trip.

In short, it was an awesome trip. I would highly recommend this company if anybody is interested in doing a trip on the Kern river (this includes the "Forks of the Kern" run, which is on National Geographics "10 things to do before you die" list), upper Kern, Lower Kern, and Thunder run. The food was great, the leadership was great...the accomodations were complete.

Other trips I've done have been the Tuolome River near Yosemite, Lower Klamath, Forks of the Kern, Middle fork of the American River. Next year we are toying with the idea of doing Cherry Creek up near Yosemite (a class V river, that recently was a class VI (impossible to raft) until rafting technology improved).

Does anybody else have stories they'd like to share? Companies they'd reccommend (or reccommend to avoid)? Rivers that they particularly loved or were disappointed in?

For me, the Tuolome has uncomparable beauty, Forks is the most intense/difficult, Klamath was the coldest!

Thanks,

Josh

[emon87]

I've done the Deschutes river between the dam and the falls (so south of maupin, OR to just a little north of it) about 5 times. I can't remember the name of the falls.

It is pretty awesome. The water is cold and the gorge windy, but in the summer it is basically a desert and regularly 100 degrees, so the water feels great. It is a long trip - we usually did it over memorial day weekend, rafting on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. This was a little too early for the best weather, but it wasn't crowded.

There are a number of good rapids - Whitehorse, Roller coaster, Boxcar and Oak Falls (might be wrong on that name) are all awesome. I definitely recommend.

[spyderracing]

-Waiting for Adsman to chime in on this.-

[4drugmoney]

I did the river Deliverance was filmed on in NC. It was sweet

[Slow Play Ray]

Only place I've ever been was the Rouge River up in Canada about 1 hour North of Montreal. It is so short that you go down once, take a bus back to the top, and go down again, but the rapids were good and there were quite a few good ones. There was even one they said was technically a class 5 but they call a class 4 to be able to use it. This may be a touristy gimmick, I don't know, but I know I had a blast. The tour group was good too, they flipped us intentionally multiple times (if you're into that sort of thing) and let us go back upriver and surf the rapids at every opportunity.

[ChipWrecked]

[ QUOTE ]
I did the river Deliverance was filmed on in NC. It was sweet

[/ QUOTE ]

Second this, a blast.

<nit>

The river is on the border of Georgia and SC, the Chatooga.

</nit>

[EmpireMaker2]

For some reason I can't post in this forum, but this is along the same topic, sorry if this is a total hijack.

I want to plan a mountain bike trip the summer in august for me and my dad, Im a novice rider and really out of shape, and hes in really good shape and a pretty good rider. I dont want to do anything to hard, and want some nice scenery along the way. We are open to anything in the U.S. or Canada.

Thanks

[Entity]

Empiremaker,

http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail...lid=BGR041-050
http://www.westernspirit.com/trips/m...e_to_moab.html

Telluride to Moab -- ~200 miles, spanned over 7 days, and while there are certainly moments where it will be difficult I've heard that it's really not a super challenging ride, overall. Look into it at least.

As for OP, I've only done two rivers, one of which was more or less a casual float with a few decent rapids thrown in (the Methow near Winthrop, WA), and the other was the White Salmon river -- http://www.riverdrifters.net/whitesalmonriver.htm -- with Class 3 and 4 rapids. Great for a guided one-day trip; I'd love to do a longer trip at some point.

Rob

[Fishfood4you]

Josh-
If you ever get to the east coast without a doubt the best whitewater for commercial rafting is the gauley river in West Virginia. It has 6 class V and hundreds of rapids if you run the upper and lower river. If you just want the BIG ONES take the upper. Not even close this was the greatest rafting trip i have ever been on and also the scariest. I went with the North AMerican River Runners and from people i spoke with they are defintly the best. I would defintly recommend them highly as the gauley is a dangerous river and you need experienced guides. Cheers

[Nicholasp27]

I've done the SE ones located in Georgia/Tennessee/South Carolina area

Chatooga - guided raft: where deliverance was filmed; Class III-IV (maybe 1 V?)
Nolichuky - inflateable kyak; class III-V
Nantahala - unguided raft; class I-II (maybe a III?)
Ocoee - Where Olympic kayaking was held; Multiple times in guided raft; class III-IV; fun

So if anyone is down in the SE, I recommend Ocoee/Chatooga/Nolichuky; Nantahala isn't much more than tubing down a river like the Chattahoochee