What Makes a Good Private River Trip Leader?

Getting all your river friends together for a private river trip is pretty much the best way to spend a few of our precious days on earth. But even in the most beautiful settings, discord can arise. River trips typically throw a bunch of different personalities together, and everybody has to figure out how to get along and what rules to live by for some number of days.

*Late afternoon at Tiger Wall on the Yampa River, thinking about camp*

Unlike a commercial trip, where there are established protocols and a designated trip leader and a hierarchy of guides carrying out prescribed procedures, private trips can spin out of control because everybody wants that peaceful, easy feeling. No one wants to be the boss, because that’s a huge drag.

If you’re organizing a river trip (let’s say you pulled the permit, or you were the instigator), do the entire river party a favor and designate a trip leader. The TL doesn’t have to be the person who pulled the permit or organized the logistics. But from the time you gather at the put-in until the time you’re loaded up at the take-out, somebody in the group should be designated to make key decisions. You’ll have a smoother, safer trip, which is ultimately more fun. Note: This post is not about being a commercial river trip guide. But many great guide schools are available that teach these skills even if you’re planning to apply them only to private trips and don’t ever plan to be a guide. A good one to check out is Northwest Rafting Co.’s guide school program.)

What a Good River Trip Leader Does

Good trip leaders aren’t necessarily former guides or organizational geniuses. Some former or current commercial river guides aren’t great trip leaders because they (understandably) just don’t want to shoulder that yoke again or be perceived as being on a power trip. And someone who is a fantastic planner (usually has meal plans tracked in a spreadsheet with allergies and diet preferences noted) isn’t necessarily assertive enough to call the shots or attentive enough to all the under-currents of the group.

River trip leader on scouting mission — *Good trip leaders accommodate requests for scouts when possible*

With a good TL, and a group that accepts the role of the TL, differences of opinion about where to camp, or whether to run a particular rapid, can get diffused quickly. Desired outcome: Everybody safe, everybody having a good time. The ideal TL is perceptive, attuned to the needs of everyone in the group (especially kids and their parents), and able to enforce some basic safety measures without igniting confrontation.

So what are the river trip leader duties?

Watch out for people who have had too much or not enough. Notice when someone has too much sun, not enough water, or too much to drink, and can make some subtle suggestions without invoking defensiveness on the part of the person who needs help.

Yampa River inflatable kayaking — *Some paddlers just need a break*

Pay attention to kids and their parents. Make an assertive call about when to stop for lunch, for a hiking break, for a pee break, or for a less-than-perfect camp. Understand that children need plenty of sleep, food at regular intervals, and either more space or more cuddling at any point in time. Sometimes getting to a camp at a decent hour for supper is more important than paddling on to that perfect beach that will have you fixing dinner in the dark.

Kids rafting on Green River — *Kids happy on the river now, but soon they’ll be hungry and wanting to camp*

Make it easy for uneasy paddlers to opt out of rapids, if possible. Running a multi-day river trip is different from getting a group of like-minded paddlers together to do a challenging day run. On a multi-day trip, the goal is to spend time together on the river, run some fun rapids, soak up the scenery and the hot springs, and enjoy the camp scene. No need for daredevil rapid running, unless you’ve purposefully assembled a group of daredevil boaters. But in my experience, a typical multi-day trip includes a few former guides, a few people who picked it up with passion along the way, and some stone beginners. So if anyone on the trip hesitates at a rapid, the TL should make it easy to say no to running it, if possible. I’ve been in situations where we’ve rolled up the paddle raft and sent paddlers hiking on the trail along the river (and had some folks paddle-assist the oar boats). We’ve sent kids hiking down the trail alongside a rapid while the adults got the boats through. And countless times we’ve taken the pause that annoys in order to deflate an IK or strap a kayak to a raft for a paddler who just wasn’t feeling it. Sometimes it’s not possible to change up the configuration and people just have to run stuff. But if you can switch things up to give people a break, do it. All that caution is absolutely worth it. TL should exude an attitude that makes caution cool.

Enforce good boat separation. This quality comes most naturally to former guides, in my observation (I’m not one). Proper spacing of boats on the water exponentially increases safety. Over the years, I’ve noticed most commercial outfits running boats much more closely together than they used to on Class III-IV water like Brown’s Canyon on the Arkansas. Part of that is because the river is so crammed with boats that it’s hard to keep your outfit’s party together if you don’t run closely. The other reason is that it’s much easier to collect swimmers if you have another raft close behind, and a short swim is always better than a long swim. But on private trips, keeping the group generally together can be difficult. Especially on trips where you have people fishing, people with kids, and people paddling kayaks, the boats are making their way down the river on completely different timelines. The TL can help rein in chaos by setting the boat order and specifying specific stops before launch in the morning. (Obvious stops are scouting spots.) The boat order doesn’t have to be strict, but generally paddlers who are comfortable reading the water or have run the stretch before should go first. A raft rowed by someone who is comfortable picking up swimmers (“running sweep”) should go last. If at all possible, even on easy Class II water, avoid having your boats spread apart across a couple of miles. Many unfortunate things can happen when boats are separated, including not having a first-aid kit handy, silly time spent trying to figure out where everyone is, and difficulty rescuing swimmers when boats flip in “easy” water. Keeping boats together is hard to do with people pulling in trout at a leisurely pace, I know.

Rafting on Green River through Desolation Canyon — *Keeping boats in sight on Deso*

Set general timelines. When to launch in the morning (the early risers versus the crack-of-nooners is another topic entirely). When to stop for lunch. When to stop and camp (if you don’t have designated campsites). How many miles to run each day. These considerations can be debated for hours on end, cutting into the joy of the experience. The TL should make a call, and the rest of the crew should abide by it. In the end, every day you’ll get on the water, you’ll get off the water, and you’ll almost always make it to the take-out on the designated day.

Cartwheels on Lower Salmon River — *With plenty of time in camp, you can bust out some cartwheels*

All Hail the Good River Trip Leader

So who in your group will be the best TL? Maybe it’s you. If you’re organizing the trip, in one of your first emails to the prospective river runners, you can pave the way for a most harmonious trip by designating the TL. Set out expectations that this person is going to make a few key calls on the trip. With that out of the way, everyone can relax and have a great time.