Why you should always/never ride with a rookie guide
It is said that the most important members of a company are the new ones. The newcomers have a fresh perspective, new ideas, several questions, and the will to work hard and to commit themselves into the never-ending process of learning. Constantly seeking knowledge and ways to improve, committing to perform at their very best at all times and synchronizing their pace of work to the company’s logistic machinery. Rookies always have the beginner’s adventures.
We all remember stories from our rookie year, from the very first day of training to the first trips ever down the river. Some of my costumers ask me how my very first trip was, and I honestly replied, I peed myself for the first few times. Even though I had spent over 160 hours on the Ocoee river during over a month of intense training, had swam most of the river and knew how to handle any case scenario that might happen, the river changes every day, and every hour. We have to learn its pulse, its rhythm, the river is an entity to be respected, and learning all of its secrets takes time.
The rookie’s adventures on water are stories worth living. For the wild crews, riding with a rookie can be a fun, rowdy ride. There is something very unique and authentic about a guide’s first trips that is worth experiencing as a costumer, every trip is a brand new adventure. It is beautiful to see the thrive of guiding, the pursue of making the team work together, of analyzing the river’s ongoing process of existence: rocks that move due to the water flux, trees that fall, the different ways the wind blows every day, the currents that change.
Senior guides are more familiar with the river and have better knowledge of how the water changes in different conditions. Therefore, the senior guide experience is a different kind of adventure, it can still be rowdy, but it’s more strategized. The progression of a guide’s trips is usually: wild, mild, wild/mild. The rookie experience is something you can only have during a specific time, wild eventually becomes mild and then technically wild, but mild, in the sense that the adventure lies in refining specific technical skills of a well-known river. All experiences are unique and every adventure is a new adventure, newcomers are welcomed, experienced guides are admired. All of us, rookie or senior guides or costumers, are just like the river, constantly changing and learning, while living great stories.
By: Laura de Leers
Popular Posts
Need more outdoor adventure rafting in your life?
check out our social!
Five Star Rated on 
contact us
Outdoor Adventure Rafting
629 Welcome Valley Road
Benton, TN 37307
0 Comments