The final week of training is broken up into specialties. Some of our summer staff will spend the week becoming Level II Back country guides. The rest of us will be spending our week on the river working towards being certified as white water rafting guides.
Rafting certification is not normally something that happens in one training week. I participated in spring raft training and then followed it up with summer raft training.
Raft flip practice. Nice, cold and wet.
Shane teaching on hydrology.
Ashley rocking flip practice.
As guides we need to be able to flip the raft in case it were to flip over while we were guiding. We all carry flip lines which is a carabiner with webbing. You have to pull your body on top of the upside down raft then you connect your flip line to a D ring and use your body as a pivot point. When the raft has reached tipping point you jump off so that it doesn't hit you. Then you are back in the water and you have to get yourself back in the raft, then go about collecting your passengers.
A funny story about raft flip day was that I brought an extra set of dry clothes to change into after flip practice. So I get all nice and warm and then a few rapids later I was using the draw stroke which Shane is displaying (Above Right) and I accidentally drew myself out of the boat... embarrassing yes but still funny. Aaron the trainer was talking to me and I just was gone. It was just a quick dip but I was sufficiently wet. So much for those dry layers.
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