Whitewater leading way with attitude

Alcoholic beverages have a place on a recreational boat — stored in the cooler until everyone aboard is safely on shore.

I’m no prude, but national boating statistics make the issue as clear as gin.

At least half of all boating accidents and nearly all boat-related drowning deaths could be eliminated overnight if boaters would remain sober and wear lifejackets.

Of course, that’s a big “if.”

But if the whitewater rafting industry is any indication, there’s considerable reason for hope that all boaters could someday be sensible about booze and lifejackets.

Lifejackets are standard equipment on whitewater trips even among the cool and hip. No exceptions. Yay!

And the whitewater culture seems to have refined the way it mixes water and alcohol.

“First, let me say that on one-day trips around the country, when the focus was on whitewater, I don’t think alcohol was ever a big part of the culture of outfitted river trips,” said Peter Grubb, who founded the Coeur d’Alene-based River Odysseys West in 1979.

“But 10 or 15 years ago, on multi-day trips on rivers like the Snake and Salmon, when there was 500 yards of flatwater, you can bet that everybody was popping open a beer, even the guide. It was normal.”

The change was evident about 10 years ago, he said, when a few companies prohibited their guides from drinking until they got to camp. Even then, guides were expected to keep clear heads so they could deal with any emergency.

Then something more significant evolved.

“The guests started changing their attitude about alcohol,” Grubb said. “In the ‘80s, we used to get a lot more groups who came with drinking being a big part of the trip. But that’s become rare.

“I’d say that most adults on our trips enjoy beer or a glass of wine at the end of the day, but drunkenness is less common, even on private trips. I think it speaks to our whole culture and things like the Mothers Against Drunk Driving movement that brought awareness of how horrible, risky and irresponsible it is to hurt somebody because you’re intoxicated.”

That said, I was surprised at the attitude last year of a veteran outfitter based in Salmon, Idaho.

He recalls the incident a bit differently than the 19 clients he guided for five days through the River of No Return Wilderness, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and leave him unnamed.

The outfitter has 20 years of experience and I’d heard that, like most river outfitters who have remained in business that long, he runs safe trips with experienced help, good equipment and delicious food.

This excursion was no exception, even though it was designed as a budget trip secured by one member of our group at a fund-raiser. The group was a collection of seasoned outdoor families with seven teenage girls and a boy.

I’ve often touted river rafting as a premier Northwest family activity. Everyone chips in to paddle through rapids and adults squeal as loudly as the kids. Story telling brings everyone together again on the beach at the end of the day.

This trip was all of that, marred only by a minor incident that has taught me a lesson or two about choosing an adventure travel company.

On the last night of the trip, the outfitter and his guides had set up their kitchen by the river out of sight from our camp and eating area. This was their last night after two rugged back-to-back trips and they decided to unwind.

The young female cook and river guide got drunk.

The outfitter himself came up to our eating area and told some sexist jokes that might have worked in a hunting camp, but didn’t really sit well with the parents among their daughters.

But we didn’t want to rock the boat, so we smiled and went on.

Then the 18 year-old girl in the group — whose parents stayed home but sent her with us as her high school graduation gift — staggered up from the cooking area. She’d been encouraged to do a little drinking, too.

She got sick, threw up and, well, this isn’t what we expect on any kind of family trip.

The outfitter was unrepentant and said it was all her fault, even though other girls on the trip were offered alcohol, and in one instance, the outfitter handed booze bottles to the two youngest girls on the trip as I was trying to take their photos when they were helping in the camp kitchen.

So I called him last week, nearly a year later, to get his take on river trips and drinking.

“We’re not out there to be policemen,” he said. “We turn a blind eye to some stuff. People want to enjoy themselves, and as long as they’re not on the river, that’s fine.”

He said there was nothing wrong with the female staffer getting drunk. “It was her last trip of the year; I though it was funny that she got drunk because she never does that.”

He said that “river camps are a pretty safe place to let loose a little bit.”

Probably the most sensible thing he said during the interview was his analysis of why people seem to be drinking less on wilderness river trips nowadays:

“It costs a lot of money and you’re spending a lot of time and effort to get to a really neat part of the country, so people don’t want to waste it all by being drunk all week long.”