A Guide Trainee’s Point of View

Hello Bewet Blog Readers! My name’s Melissa, and I’m a new guide trainee with Bewet. Given that, I’m going to share a different perspective; perhaps using wrong terminology, commenting on things that more experienced guides would say “Duh!” to, or otherwise relaying exciting or embarrassing stories as they come up. But that’s the danger of them giving me posting rights!

Here’s a recap of the 70 or so river miles that I’ve logged so far this season:

Pool Session (WA): 0 miles, Class I, 0 CFS
My first official club event was the Pool Training session. (Okay, so it's not a river.) This is for both guide hopefuls such as me and those that just want to be “informed passengers”. We learned the basics of paddling, self-rescue (where you haul yourself in the raft from the water), how to right an upside-down raft using a “flip line”, and just a smidgen of kayak paddling. It was a fun way to spend an afternoon in March, and I’d highly recommend going to next year’s session. I also met a few dozen people whose names and faces quickly blurred together.

Now, on to the rivers:

Clackamas (OR): 13 miles, Class IV, 2090 CFS
My first club trip was a Sunday on the Clackamas river. I got to the put-in about ten minutes before everyone else (which made me nervous I was at the wrong spot, and it’s not like I could call anyone because we were about 15 miles out of cell phone range). Most of the crew went straight to inflating and rigging the boats, and I tried to watch, help occasionally when I could without getting in the way, and just learn all I can. Although this was about a month ago now, I remember feeling like I would never remember all the details – what way to loop the straps, which knots to use when, what equipment is required for which type of craft – so complicated it all seemed!

At the start, one of the more experienced guides was behind the stick, but eventually he gave me and Vijay (another new trainee) chances. We didn’t do any crazy rapids, but it was good to just feel what it was like to guide. Vijay and I also purposely swam down a rapid just to feel what it was like. Given that I pretty much grew up in a swimming pool, and voluntarily swam the “Roadside” section of the Tieton a couple times last year, this was no big deal to me, but it was fun seeing it through Vijay’s eyes. Let’s just say his eyes were a little… bigger.

Fortunately, for this trip, one of the fellow guides was able to borrow a dry suit on my behalf from another unknown-to-me guide, so I stayed dry and toasty warm. Given that these suits can cost upwards of a grand, I’m very appreciative of the unknown benefactor.

Cispus (WA), 8 miles, Class IV, 1400 CFS
The Cispus river was my first time camping. (Okay, I had been twice before in recent years, but this was the first time where I was really responsible for my gear, packing, food, etc.) I didn’t own any camping gear, so I harnessed the power of Facebook to humbly ask to borrow some, and immediately had several offers from friends. (I’m a big fan of borrowing/loaning where possible – there’s so much gear sitting in people’s closets on any given weekend, and as long as you treat it gently, it’s not like it necessarily incurs any significant wear, plus it saves money and reduces eventual landfill J.) I was really surprised: between a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, extra blanket, food stuff, water and beverages, rafting clothing, etc., I pretty much filled my little Corolla’s entire trunk. And that was just me!

Upon arriving at the Bewet camping site, which wasn’t much more than a pull-off from the road (very primitive, no running water or any other services), I was greeted by Bewet President Mike Berlin. I may have met him at the pool session, but like I mentioned before, there were so many new faces there that they all blurred together. I got my choice of camping sites and made myself busy getting the tent and everything set up. It was a fairly wet and cold weekend. If nothing else, it made every camping experience since then seem like a Hilton! Folks trickled in over the course of the Friday night, and by the end of the weekend, I felt like I was camping with about seven older brothers. Good times. If you get a chance, I highly recommend trying Kevin’s pork roast on the BBQ. It was absolutely delish (and given that I’m from Iowa, I have high standards!).

Here are some of the fun stories from the Cispus river:

• Fellow new guide trainee Erik fell out of the raft in relatively calm waters and lost a shoe. I’m pretty sure he’s gotten a lot better at locking his legs and feet in, and if not, hopefully he at least ties his shoelaces tighter!
• Mike, Erik, and I were in one of the bigger boats and managed to get it stuck in a hole. This means that the raft was rotating 90 degrees sideways on the river, and water was flowing over the upstream side such that it was pinned there. Here’s where my newbieness will show through. At first, I remember being quite scared (or was it scarred?) that the raft was going to flip, and quite frankly, although I can swim, I prefer not to unless it’s at a time of my choosing. The force of the water pushing down the raft on one side is kinda intimidating. But after a few minutes, Erik and I could see that the raft was relatively stable in that position. Oh, and for the record, there were three other Bewet guys on the cat rafts just milling around in the eddy below us, so even if we flipped, they’d be there to scoop us out. As Mike, Erik, and I started trying to unstick the boat, they got to laugh at us and take pictures. I’m sure the pictures show Erik and I being really wide-eyed about the whole experience, but I later found out that Mike and the other guides quickly assessed that the consequences of this were rather low, and they actually left us in the hole to gain the experience. Eventually, Mike, Erik and I were all piled on the downstream “high” tube, trying to lean over, bounce up and down, even hung off of it with our feet in the water hoping the current would help yank us free. This is where I ended up going for an unwanted (but somewhat anticipated?) swim, as I didn’t have the upper body strength to hold on for long. I need to work on that.
• The other somewhat adrenaline-producing moment was when Erik was guiding (although it may not have been his fault – this was a fairly large raft to have only two paddlers in, and Mike and I had to work our butts off to move it… and remember my comment above about needing to work on upper body strength?). There was a tree going at an angle in to the water and we didn’t get the raft backed away from it in time. We hit it sideways, and I first I just thought we were going to be pinned, but then the current dipped us down just enough to pull underneath with the trunk grazing the top of the raft. Mike’s side was the first to go under, and he was able to drop in on to the floor of the boat. I left my legs anchored in the raft but did a complete limbo down in to the water with my upper half (yay for Vinny’s dry top that I had borrowed!). Erik did mostly the same thing, but since he was in the back, he was a little higher and got tapped on the helmet by it. That was enough to make me try extra hard to steer clear of the logs – we lucked out that there was a clear passage under it, but it just as easily could have been a bunch of branches under like a strainer.

This trip, I tried to piece together my own rafting clothing. I wore neoprene shorts, fleece pants, splash pants, neoprene socks over wool socks, sandals, and borrowed a splash jacket from Vinny. Result: really, really cold feet. And it was a pain trying to dry the socks and fleece by the fire to wear for Sunday (although it was cool to watch the steam coming off them!). This is when I resolved to myself that I would have two days of base layers, and the future dry suit would definitely have Gore-Tex or latex socks and not just latex seals with separate footwear.. but learning this stuff is part of the process, right?

Klickitat, 18 miles, Class III, 1840 CFS
This weekend was supposed to be one day on the Klickitat and one on the White Salmon, but due to low river level, we did both days on the Klickitat. After the previous rivers, this one seemed fairly tame, but it was a good one to practice guiding techniques like “parking” in an eddy and keeping your passengers “entertained” by singing “Don’t Stop Believing” to them until they cry for mercy.

Commercial outfitters have an advantage that they run the same river or just a few rivers over and over, which means they know them well. And by know them well, we mean they can memorize them. Bewet runs a huge variety of rivers, so our guides actually learn how to look ahead, read the river, scout when needed, etc. I think that’s darn cool.

So with that in mind... a couple Bewet guides had ran in to a few commercial guides at breakfast, and although we were worried about all the logs we had heard about, they said that the logs had been mostly cleaned out. They did offer the advice to “just stay to the right and you’ll be fine” which by the end of the weekend, we decided was completely bunk. There were times when the left or center channels of the river were just as good or better.

As far as the camping goes, this time just seemed like a dream. It was DRY, and a little bit warmer. (At least for me – fellow trainee Josh had managed to forget his sleeping bag, but thankfully we had El Tigre blanket there as a spare for the first night, and another guide Evan joining the group on Saturday brought him a spare sleeping bag.) It felt really luxurious having bathroom facilities (although I totally have the peeing in the woods thing down… for me, leaning way back with an arm bracing against a tree is an improvement over just squatting, and I highly recommend tucking the T.P. roll down inside your fleece. It stays drier and cleaner than if you put it on the ground or a log. But I digress.) We also went in to town to the restaurant at a little B&B, because after 18 miles on the river, we were hungry and tired. In theory, this was supposed to be faster than grilling ourselves… but we forgot it was a small town restaurant, and they don’t exactly move super-fast. However, they did have a Beatles cover band to entertain us while we waited, so really, what more could you want in life?

Meeting new peeps has been the best part of my Bewet experience so far! I had tons of fun riding down with another trainee on a sunny day in his awesome Jeep with the top panels removed. We gabbed the whole way. I learned quite a bit about the diamond business, for instance... and just where would I have gotten that experience if it weren't for Bewet? Then I rode back with another guide who I had gone through MBA school with, so again great conversation!

Next Post: Really kicking off the rafting season on the Methow, with passengers!

Want to learn more about rafting with Bewet? Check out our site at www.bewet.org. The schedule of upcoming trips is here - the Wenatchee in June will be good fun!