River trip organizing tips, including applying for permits, assembling your crew, planning meals, and trip leading.
Washing dishes on a river trip can bring you great joy, if not life-changing magic. With good friends at your side and a terrific canyon view in your sights, the time passes quickly. Here are time-tested tips for how to set up your dishwashing operation in river camp, a list of essential camp dishwashing gear, … Read more
Packing food for camping on river trips poses some unique challenges: It’s a little like packing food for car camping, but you need to think about what will happen if your food is in a boat that flips at some point. Also, if you’re on a multi-day river trip—for three weeks if you’re on Grand … Read more
Accumulating river camp kitchen gear that you love to use is a long process of trial and error over the course of many river trips. Just when you think you have exactly the right system for corralling the kitchen trash, for example, somebody comes along with a fancy collapsible mesh container. To help accelerate the … Read more
Running a multi-day river trip in the early spring or late fall seems obvious if you want to extend the paddling season or experience a permitted river without winning a lottery slot. But those shoulder-season trips can be frigid, especially in the Rocky Mountain West. After running a couple of notably cold river trips—the whitewater-rich … Read more
NOTE: This post has been updated for the 2024 river trip application season. It’s nearly past time to apply for 2024 river permits (most of the lotteries closed on January 31). But if you blew it, don’t fret. You might be able to score a cancellation. Here’s a complete guide to applying for river trips—including … Read more