Marcus Stevens: What to Love About River Rafting

I’m Marcus Stevens, and I’m a river guide for dinosaur river expeditions on the Yampa river and the green river in the gates of the door, as well as other rivers. Whenever I get the chance. I want to talk about what I love about river rafting trips. It starts for me when I am packing and planning the excitement and anticipation for the adventure and the unknowns ahead when guiding part of that anticipation is knowing I’m going to be making a bunch of new friends and sharing my love for the river with them.

When we get to the Puddin, there may be some anxiety about gear. We may have forgotten or thoughts of the rapids ahead and what they may look like at our given waterline. But as soon as we launch off that beach, nothing else seems to matter. Life becomes so simple on the river. You can unplug from society and build a community in the moment your primary concerns are staying safe as a group and eating and eat well.

We do floating the river as an opportunity to tell stories, as I’ve done this longer, I have more stories, my own, and those that have been shared with me, stories for every band in the. Stories about being stuck on that rock or the time I saw a river otters in that Eddie or narrowly avoiding a flip in that rapid every trip is an opportunity to create new stories and share them with our little community river trips can be an opportunity to grow and feel emotional, happy, scared, exhilarated I’ve woken in the dark to make coffee.

And after starting the water to boil, I walked to the water. Overwhelmed by the beauty and quiet, but it was that quiet temple in the canyon that allowed the opportunity for me to hear my emotions and the freedom of the river that allowed me to let it gush out. That is freedom. Indeed. I feel like the word I keep repeating is opportunity.

River trips are an opportunity to disconnect and reconnect a chance to test your limits and question your values. An opportunity to grow and learn. To be humbled and elevated all at once. The connections I’ve made through the river have been some of my most impactful and some I believe will be lifelong.

My connection to the river most certainly is. Even as I record these thoughts, I can’t wait for that next float down the river to see the river in different ways and to share it with all my new.