By coincidence, I actually began guide training in British Columbia a few days after this article was published. I flew over from Australia to pursue this line of work, and it was absolutely worth it. I’m currently typing up my travel journal at http://papertrailtramp.wordpress.com/, in which I’m describing the training process, the work, and the lifestyle in some detail. Feel free to have a read.

Tom

My life is actually quite similar. Weekdays I work for an online broker and weekends – during the season – I am to be found rafting the Vorderrhein in Switzerland for the local kayak school / raft company.

I wouldn’t miss it for anything and I’m actually working on extending my time on the river and/or decreasing my time in the office.

Good stuff!

yes i do remember that time. it was when hurricane ivan made its way up to east tennessee and rained for days. water flow on the river is expressed in cubic feet per second (cfs) referencing how much water is passed over the dam at the top. on a normal day, the river runs anywhere between 1200 and 1500 cfs. when Ivan came through, the river actually got up to 7000 cfs. now when it’s that high, we can’t take customers down by law, the cutoff is at 3000 cfs, and i’m sure there were trips going out while the water was still legal. we had a group of guides (myself not included) that went down the river while it was 7000cfs. the 5-mile middle section usually takes about 1.5-2 hours to run. they made it down in 40 minutes. craaaaaaazy.

Do you recall a few years ago (3 or 4 maybe?) when the river got right up to the limit where you could still put people on the water, most of the rapids washed out, and Powerhouse turned into basically a 15-foot vertical wall of water? You almost had to duck as you passed under the bridge. I was told it was the highest/fastest the Ocoee had been in like 20 years or something.

Don’t know why I’m mentioning it…just a fond memory.

Will