One of our top Guides Karl rowed our safety raft and did a great job looking after the paddle rafts.  We did have to laugh, however, a couple of times, when he got stuck at the bottom of Ned's and surfed for a few seconds, and we laughed really hard (listen to Karl's Surf Video Below) when he ran the hole at Bikini Rock Rapid and surfed there for a minute.

All in all, our first trip done this year was a total blast.  Check out the video of the trip below.  We hope to offer trips on the Merced this year well into June.  If you would like to run this awesome river, please try to do so in the next 3-4 weeks when the river is running at it's best.  Give us a call at 1-800-750-2386.

Karl Surfing on the Merced

Merced River Rafting Video

Our first trip of the year with Whitewater Excitement was Saturday, April 12 on the Gorge Run on the South Fork with a couple of different groups.  Pat and his brother Larry (visiting from Florida) along with two friends Nick and Dylan were guided by our 14 year old guide wonder "Phil" (you can view Pat guest testimonial on the home page of our web site), the other rafts were from a group that organizes large events in the Monterey area.  Larry S. and his two rafts were guided by WWE Guides, Aaron and Karl.  Weather has almost summer like with temps in the high 80's.  Everyone had a great time and they all said they want to come back later this spring and try the Merced.

Our second run of the year was the next day on the class 4 North Fork of the American.  The group signed up for a Double Run, where we raft the 9.5 miles section, then have our riverside buffet lunch, then head out and raft the same stretch again.  A great way to get the maximum whitewater in a day.  With the hot weather, the river was rising and we had flows of about 1600 cfs, which is a really exciting and challenging flow.  Being the first trip of the year on the North Fork, our guides, Norm, Ann, Mike, and Aaron, and Nate were in fine form with not too many difficulties (well a small swim at Bogus Thunder for Nate and crew).  We even had some WWE Guides that were not working take a raft on the North Fork for fun.  See photo of Megan after running the class 4 Staircase rapid.

With Springtime here and if you a desire to do some big, challenging whitewater, give us a call at 1-800-750-2386 and we would be happy to reserve a trip for you.  Check out some of our spring specials at

Lots of folks ask guides “What do you do in the off season?” For some of us, there really is no off season. Those who don’t travel to the southern hemisphere to run rivers in their spring and summer just put on a dry suit and raft anyway.

I’m just back from the Grand Canyon, running the Colorado from Lee's Ferry to Mead Reservoir, just under 300 miles, 21 days.  A private trip with Debra, a lady I'd met at Sacramento State's guide school (I’d been asked to instruct potential oarsmen) who had won the lottery for a launch date THE FIRST TIME SHE TRIED!!!!!!  She and her friend Dave were in the school to learn to handle a boat in whitewater so they could do the trip.  Naturally, when I found out she had a permit, I asked if she could use another boatman.  "Yes, we could definitely use someone with some Canyon experience".  I had the idea of taking some WWE guides with me (Josh, Greg and Cait in particular), but if they had the time they didn't have the money and if they had the money, they didn't have the time. Debra eventually found somebody on the 'net who sounded like he had the experience to lead the trip (I didn't want to be the leader of a group of novices with only a grand total of one and a half trips to my credit).  We ended up with a group of 7 in 4 boats to Phantom Ranch, picking up an 8th there. 

We picked up one last member of the group (making us a total of at Phantom Ranch who told us he had hiked the 10 miles down from the South Rim on iced over trails in weather that ranged from high winds and blowing snow at the top to steady rain starting about that 1000 feet above us (it had been raining on us for 2 days and kept up another 3 days – not the only rain we had either). He said he was glad he’d brought little fold-up crampons for the upper parts of the trail.

Also, with it being an "above normal" rain year (we hope it will continue) the Hydro-Electric companies will be releasing summer flows into the South Fork of the American  river at flows of 1500cfs on the weekdays and 1750 cfs on the weekend, and for extended hours.  This is part of the agreement they signed during their relicencing of the hydro dams upstream of the South Fork.  This will ensure super exciting summer time rafting this summer.

With the snow we will be getting out more on the North Fork of the American river.  The last couple of seasons, the river has not run much due to low snowpack. However, this spring (and winter for some of us guides) we will be getting out on the NF regularly.

We will post another update soon.  ****Watch for Flash's Winter Grand Canyon Colorado River Adventure - he will finish the update as soon as he gets back from the Doc to see how bad his frostbite was****

The trip included Whitewater Excitement Guides(from left to Right),  Karl, Phillip, Brando, Aaron(with his new shorrrrrt haricut), Michelle, Greg, Josh, Ann and Tess sitting, Mike, Casey, and Dean. Norm was behind the camera.

The day was a very fun day.  We took out 2 paddle rafts, 1 cataraft, 1 river board, and 3 oar rafts so everyone had a chance to ride in almost any type of craft we own.   Aaron was the only one to brave the cold waters with his river board, and only a few of the rapids on the Gorge.

The flow of the river this time of year (barring any hugh rain storm or snow melt) was a nice 1450 cfs which is about the flow give or take a few cfs we usually have in the summertime. We made a quick stop above the rapid Fowlers Rock to scout (not really just to give the river a chance to catch up - we got ahead of the flow a little).  We hung out their for about 15 minutes eating cookies and pbj sands that Michelle and Ann made up.  It would have been nice to have some Hot Choc as we stood in the river for the entire time.

The Gorge was the Gorge with our floating armada of crafts, even the first day out on the new Cat was fun.  Everyone had great time in the rapids as usual and we floated out to the take out.

After loading up the gear and heading back to camp to unload, everyone' s mind was where Norm was taking us all to dinner.  After trying the new Ale House in Auburn we soon found out that it would be about an hour wait or so, we then tried our old standby of Chevy's and again found the wait to be over an hour, we settled on Chineese Food at Chang Brothers.  The Tea was hot and the food was great.  Of course too much was ordered and consumed, but it sure tasted good!  After dinner, we all said our good-byes as we will not see each other again until the spring (unless of course the rain and snow comes and the river comes up high).

Check out the Video below for a cold, wet ride.  Our youngest guide Phillip posing at Satan's Cesspool.

For the second year in a row, we have helped our friends Michael and Sean, from the East Coast, with their passion of Suiseki.  Suiseki is black rock formations found only in certain parts of the world.  It happens that they can be found on the North Fork of the American river, right in our own backyard!!  Michael and Sean borrow some of our Whitewater Excitement inflatable kayaks and ventured down the North Fork with flows of about 120 cfs( the lowest we raft is about 900 - 1000 cfs ) and the lower Middle Fork of the American at about 200 cfs (again the lowest we raft the Middle Fork is 900 cfs).  They bumped and grinded down the river and searched high and low for these stones. 

About 3 years ago, Michael called my out of the blue in the spring and wanted us to take them down the North Fork in November.  I told them that there would not be any water in the river in November and that they were a little crazy.  We told them that we could not take them down on a commerical WWE trip but they could use some of our IKs and we would help shuttle them if they were set on coming all the way out to California to hunt for rocks???

Well 3 years later, we have become friends of sort and come November, they will travel out here again looking for the perfect black stone for their art.  You can see Sean's work at http://bonsai-suiseki.com/Suiseki.html.

 Watch Video of the HUNT!!

Rachel is studing nursing at Chico, and is in her second year.  She was a guest favorite this year and put this guiding thing all together for us at Whitewater Excitement.  She guided the South Fork of the American and love our 2 day trips.  She is a great camp cook and loves to hang out with our guests.  She also likes to challenge herself and raft and kayak other rivers also.

A native of the SF Bay Area, I’ve been a guide for Whitewater Excitement for 21 years on the South and Middle forks of the American River.  I’ve run rivers in Nepal (the Tamur and Kali Gandaki), Costa Rica and Turkey as well as rivers all over the Western US (the Middle Fork Salmon in Idaho, the Green in Utah, the Rogue and Des Chutes in Oregon, the Colorado in the Grand Canyon and the California Salmon,Merced, , Main Stem Tuolumne and Cherry Creek in California). I’m also a certified WFR (Wilderness First Responder), Whitewater Rescue Technician, advanced, a PADI divemaster and a pretty good river camp cook.  My Spanish is pretty good, my French fair, my German usable if rusty and I’m slowly learning Turkish and Swahili.

 Since retiring from my first career (32 years as a middle school science teacher in San Francisco) in 2001, I spend the off seasons fishing and traveling (usually both at the same time) and playing with my two grandsons.  Talk to me about fishing the South Fork!

 Life is good, enjoy it on a river.  As the Water Rat said: “There is nothing, absolutely nothing, quite so worthwhile as messing about in boats.”

Mark came to Whitewater Excitement way back when self-bailing rafting were only a thought on our minds.  He was a young man with a mission, to be super stud river guide.  After his first day of guide school, however, he realized that this stud status would have to wait for awhile at least.  Mark stayed with us guiding in the summer and finishing his high school for a couple of years.  He then began college and working a couple more summers with us, when he got the "need for speed" bug and headed to North Dakota of all places to begin his airline pilot training program.  He stayed away for 4 years or so and out of the blue, Mark called and said he was an airline pilot and had some days off between flights and wanted to guide again.  I asked him where he flew out of and he said "North Carolina"!!  This past summer Mark hopped planes and worked 3 days a week on the Middle Fork of the American as well as the South Fork.  He one of our Trip Leaders that we welcome back this upcoming summer of 2008.

With our commerical river rafting season  over for us at  Whitewater Excitement, we all have taken a little break.  However we have all been itching to get back out on the river again.  So we dusted off our dry suits and all met at our South Fork American River Base Camp last Saturday and headed down the Gorge run on the South Fork of the American River. 

The weather was perfect for our trip, the sun was shining (although we all secretly wanted rain and snow) it was warm considering the date, and not a cloud in the sky. 

With the new relicencing agreement with the power companies gauranteeing good water releases from the dam at Chili Bar, we had very nice flow for our trip.  With Karl, Michelle, Brando, and Greg in one raft, and Norm, Phillip, Mark, and Aaron in the other raft we ran the rapids of the Gorge.  Satan's Cesspool was it's exciting self with lots of splash.  Karl actually jumped out and swam it.  With dry suits on, the water temp did not seem to be that cold. Because it was a great sunny day, not as hot as the summer, though, we stopped after Hospital Bar rapid and took in some sun on the rocks.  Norm talked his son into walking up and swimming Hospital Bar.  They walked up and just jumped in and after a couple of strokes, they went right through the middle of the rapid, both came up smiling as they swam toward shore. 

** Please note: everyone on the trip is a very experienced professional river guide that is comforatable in the river and swimming rapids , we do this to continue trainning to make ourselves comforatable in the river in case of emergencies while on our commerical trips.

After the trip we all had our fix for the river for the time being.  Winter rafting is fun and exciting and with the right river gear, namely DRY SUITS, can be a very exciting and rewarding experience.

Upcoming Winter Trips:  WWE Guides Annual New Year's Day Trip - 20th Annual

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