I had a pleasant, rejuvenating respite on the river over the past five days. If you are unfamiliar with the joys of boating a river, let me recreate it a bit for you. After some angst over the food menu and laborious packing of everything, as well as the kitchen sink, you arrive at the place on the river where you launch your craft eager to put, attach or strategically place - so that gravity does the work for you - all those things you brought. Like the lawn chair. The bocce ball set. The portable blender. A keg of beer. This is rafting. Not backpacking. Not sea kayaking. Not bicycle touring ..read more

According to numerous surveys, more and more Americans are searching for experiences, looking to disconnect from our increasingly digital world, wanting to commune with nature and are desirous of sumptuous, healthy meals. River running has been offering those very things for decades upon decades. What drew me to river running in the 70s - besides the machismo of Burt Reynolds in Deliverance - was the ability to drift lazily into the wilderness and leave the constant clarion calls of civilization behind. Experiences will last a lifetime. Some thing, or device, will only last as long as its in ..read more

It’s that time of the year. Snow still blankets the mountains. Snow removal trucks continue to lumber up and down wintry roads. Birds have not yet started migrating back. Even so, in Washington, white water rafting is beginning to rise to the surface of outdoor lovers’ minds like a steelhead to a well-cast fly. If you are an outdoor professional, or want to be an outdoor professional, there is no simpler means of putting your toes in the water - so to speak - than to sign up for a River Guide Training course. As it happens, here at Orion we have been operating, modifying and enhancing a com ..read more

My very first river trip was a full month spent in the canyon lands of southeastern Utah. Back then, “getting away from it all” meant escaping the daily humdrum cadence of commuting, cubicles, calls via land lines and the cacophony of an urban environment. It also meant leaving behind amenities and luxuries like running water, flush toilets, refrigeration and The Tonight Show. My first river trip was on a legendary river in a landscape rife with history - John Wesley Powell, Butch Cassidy, Brigham Young and the Seven Cities of Cibola. I’ve rafted rivers on every corner of the planet but, mo ..read more

“How can you tell when your river guide is lying?”“If their lips are moving….”***We are river guides. We tell stories. Sometimes we tell outrageous stories. Sometimes we embroider those stories.That is what we do. It is how we pass along hard-won knowledge from generation to generation. Stories illuminate, ingratiate, lend clarification and - even on rare occasions - enlighten. And, of course, we tell stories to entertain. We tell them to fill the hours. We tell them around campfires. We tell them over cocktails and beers. We tell them in eddies below big rapids as we await our comrades. We te ..read more

This is NOT a eulogy. Just my remembrances of one of our more notable river guides from yesteryear.Year One of Orion we might have rafted 100 people between July 4th and whenever we mothballed our boats at the end of the season.In Year Two we took ten times that many guests on the Skagit, Suiattle and Wenatchee Rivers and there were a couple of trips we were forced to ‘dig deep’ for guides beyond the five original partners. I mean, when you resort to a mountain climber, a park ranger, the wife of one of the partners and the Dean of Leisure Studies at WWU to fill out your guide roster, it was ..read more

The call came in the dead of winter. It was a Seattle winter; therefore, instead of layers of snow blanketing the ground, or biting Arctic air knifing through your thickest down jacket, there was a dismal grey light coming through the window and the streets glistened with rain. Any phone call was a welcome distraction. His voice sounded young, his questions were many and he spoke in the laconic parlance of surfers. Or, in his case, a snowboarder. He wanted to know about rafting and, specifically, guide training. He hailed from Baltimore and was working his way westward. That winter, he was a ..read more

The season on the Deschutes River in north central Oregon is year-round due to dams that lie upstream from the prime overnight stretch that Orion River Rafting utilizes for its multi-day river trips.  Unlike free-flowing and more notorious rivers around the West, the dam-managed Deschutes rarely fluctuates more than a foot or so in height throughout the year.  Consequently, while many rivers in the western United States may be overflowing their banks in May, the Deschutes River is, more likely than not, flowing higher from the spring melt, but in no danger of flooding. May and June are prime ..read more

I am going to toot Orion’s horn. When it comes to training guides, teaching people the intricacies of rafting or team building, Orion’s seven-day course on the Deschutes River in north central Oregon may very well be one of the best in the industry worldwide.For starters, we have been doing it for four decades. We’ve trained hundreds and hundreds of people. Most of whom started the course with no river experience whatsoever. Secondly, we have an instructor from every decade. The depth and breadth of river running and outdoor experience is unique.During the week long format you will be int ..read more

I did not set out to be a river guide.Nor a river outfitter.Or, for that matter, a small businessman.I am not going to go into my background story because it is described in other posts and on other pages on our site. But I do want to talk about our upcoming river guide school which kicks off Orion’s 41st Season on March 23rd!Not only did I not set out to be any of those ‘labels’ I held some antipathy toward commercial guiding as well as business. I came of age in the 70s but I was a product of the 60s. I took my cues from singer/songwriters, poets and wordsmiths who raged against The Man ..read more