How to Become a Whitewater Raft Guide with OAR

Spend Your summer on the Ocoee river

If you love the outdoors, want real adventure, and are looking for a crew that feels like family — guiding with OAR is the job. Our training gets you certified, confident, and running your own trips on the Ocoee, no experience required. It’s hard work and the best summer you’ll ever have.

OAR River Guide Training

The training program covers all technical whitewater skills and river rescue skills needed to guide professionally on any commercially rafted river in the world. The program also includes: how to work as a team, how to run all our other activities including kayaking, alpine tower, low ropes course, paintball, adventure races, tubing trips, rock climbing, and rappelling. Training is self-paced, so progress will vary depending on the individual. Training is divided into several stages. You must pass knowledge and skills tests to progress to the next stage.

Self-paced Training Schedule

Because the training is self paced, you can miss training days if you need to. This means that if you can’t begin training on the set date, you can begin any subsequent weekend (please let us know your schedule ahead of time). Keep in mind, trainees who train consistently and consecutively tend to require fewer training days to master guiding and begin running their own trips.

Certifications & Costs

Training at OAR is free. However, OAR requires all guides to hold current Wilderness First Responder, Advanced Swiftwater Rescue, and CPR for the Professional Rescuer certifications. OAR provides these certifications to trainees for a total cost of $350. Scholarships and financing is available. If you already have current certifications (equivalent or higher), fees are waived. Your first training weekend is free. If you decide to continue, you must pay your certification fees in full or make arrangements for financing or a scholarship. The fee is non refundable if you decide to quit. You do not have to get your certifications through OAR. If you find the courses cheaper somewhere else, or another course fits your schedule better, don’t hesitate to take the course outside of OAR.

Housing

Guide housing is available during training. Full time guides will get individual rooms. Part time guides will share rooms in guide housing. Permanent, first year guide housing is allotted at the time you check out as a guide. The best housing options usually go to the trainees who check out first.

Dates & Times

Weekend guide training sessions begins at the end of March at 9:00am. Every training day after March begins at 7:00 AM. We train only on weekends in April and the first 2 weeks of May. During weekend training sessions, we will train until approximately 5:00. Beginning Memorial Day we will train full time according to the river schedule.

Get Started

You can find our application here: 2026 OAR Guide Application

If you are interested in becoming a guide at OAR or have any questions, please call Sarah Beth at (423) 338-5746. You can also email Sarah at SarahBeth@ocoee.com.

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