Adventure Collection

A great guide can transform a journey. Jeffe Aronson navigates travelers through the Grand Canyon for OARS. A river guide for 34 years, Jeffe describes the role of guides as being “musicians, storytellers, jesters, professors, great cooks, best companions, and, of course, excellent boatmen.” In our conversation, Jeffe shares some of his most hair-raising rafting adventures, and reflects poignantly on the rewards of river journeys.

DG: How long have you been a guide?

JA: This year, 2009, will be my 34th season.

How long have you been a guide for OARS?

This will be my 4th season in a row, plus one back in ‘92, when I met my wife in the Grand Canyon.

As a guide, what do you do?

Hah! Everything from cleaning up “La Pooparia” to cooking soul-satisfying meals, from putting band-aids on owies to splinting up for the chopper, from sharing a scotch while watching the stars wheel in over the rim to offering a hand to get hikers over the next boulder, from rowing flat-water against the wind while trying to keep up a conversation to high-siding my dory rails while catapulting through the V-Wave in Lava.

What area/trip is your specialty?

I’ve worked all over the world, but have settled back into the Grand Canyon rowing dories (as long as I can keep them bamboozled into thinking I can actually do this).

What is it about the Grand Canyon that most appeals to you and that you love most to share with your travelers?

I have been, as I said, all over the world. I’ve boated some of the hardest, wildest, most remote rivers during my career. The Grand Canyon is, well, more than a river trip. Of the thousands of people I’ve taken down the mighty Colorado, many of whom are experienced world adventure travelers, most all end up leaning on the coffee table some glorious morning near the end of the trip, waxing lyrical, to tell me that this was the most amazing experience they’ve ever had in their lives. That they can never, will never, forget it. As for sharing, I love to scan the faces of folks while I play my beat-up guitar and sing around the campfire, or as they come around the last corner before seeing The Patio at Deer Creek, or Elves Chasm, or as we float awe-struck (every one of us) through Marble Canyon downstream of Redwall Cavern, or watch them watch the guides as we scout Crystal or Lava or…

Can you give an example of any special experience or connection you have that you have been able to pass on to your travellers?

I have met a boat-load of incredible characters in my own incredible life. I am told I am an okay storyteller. Sometimes, when I am inspired, which isn’t hard to do along some riverbank, I launch into a tale of my friend Joe Biner, a boatman with cerebral palsy who has rowed the Canyon a dozen times, or of huge, funny Dave Edwards diving in to save a client from drowning in the Havasu flash flood, or legendary Suzanne, or the ‘83 flood, or… I love my job, and this place, so much. I have also lost a few things over the years to be down there. They can tell. That’s all they need.

Can you give me an example where you think you made an important difference for the travellers on one of your trips?

I instituted Grand Canyon river trips for people with disabilities, against great political odds. These trips are now done by the outfitters themselves, and are no longer considered too risky or too much of a hassle. I will always remember some of these first pioneers, bogged in deep sand in their wheelchairs fishing, or gazing at a waterfall after believing they would never be able to do that again, or being held by their helpers in a rapid, terrified and joyous. The effort was painful and I took a hiding, but I am very proud of it, nonetheless. I think of the ones that have followed.

What are a rafting guide’s most important skills?

Keeping the folks calm and safe as they are taken way beyond their comfort levels. Getting them through while making sure they don’t miss the magic.

What does a good guide add to a journey?

The best guides stay out of the way. They share of themselves and their knowledge, and remember that it’s all about the river, not them. They’re patient with the same question they’ve heard a million times, helpful to the biggest klutz on the trip, and keep an eye out, not only for trouble, but for that singular, fleeting moment. They may be musicians, storytellers, jesters, professors, great cooks, best companions, or, of course, excellent boatmen. Either way, they must have a keen sense for each of their pards and their clients, and watch for the hole that needs filling, or the rainbow that needs an “Ah!” to keep it going.

What are the main challenges of travel in the Canyon, and how do you overcome them?

The heat and the constant moving camp. As to the heat, you gotta teach the folks. As I write in my short story, “Sinyala Fault”: “You have to push through and beyond the sweat, the heat dragging at your heels, feeling like you’re baking in a convection oven. Somehow, you have to twist your mind and spirit into sucking in the heat, inhaling the burning rock, shrinking your presence into your sombrero and sunglasses and worn running shoes. Going beyond insane into primal, focused intensity.” As for moving every day, you just have to keep them psyched for what’s around the next bend, and help them figure out how to pack.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

The simplicity. The natural, sunburnt, gently flowing camaraderie. Watching people get it. Listening to the creak and dip of my oars.

What has been your one most memorable experience as a guide?

I cannot, do not, have just one. Comes with the territory after so many years. I’ve written a book, and am now shopping around for agents. There are a dozen stories in it, many of them river guiding adventures — and I’ve taken a number of others out! Perhaps it was when Glen Canyon Dam nearly burst in 1983, and we rowed the Canyon at 100,000 cfs. Perhaps it was when I lost my motor in high water Cataract Canyon and had to row the two-ton boat and five clients thru the Big Drops. Perhaps it was when a client going through chemo on one of our disabled trips asked the group’s permission to die right there and then, at Grapevine Beach, because she was so happy. Perhaps it was watching the eighteen-foot crocs leaping into the river, our river, right next to the boat on the Zambezi in Zimbabwe. Or diving into Havasu Creek in front of a twelve-foot flood wave to save two clients. Or rowing non-stop read-and-run Class 4 for hours on the Bio-Bio in Chile, now buried under a reservoir. Or the insane portages and must-catch micro-eddies on the Franklin in Tasmania, or having a grizzly charge me to within ten feet in Alaska, or…

How can travellers get the most out of a whitewater rafting adventure?

Be ready for the magic. Appreciate how rare the experience. Soak up the camaraderie. Test your boundaries. Oversome your fears. Leave the preconceptions behind, in the brochure. Accept. Take some of it home with you.