Safety and guides are synonymous
“Swift Water Rescue,” “Wilderness First Responder,” and whitewater skills are a given for any professional river guide. Character and judgment are critically important as well. Earth River guides understand that their most important role on a trip is ensuring the safety and well-being of our guests, both on and off the river. They must also be mature enough to handle unforeseen obstacles that can arise on exploratory trips, as well as the added challenges of guiding novice rafters—including members of the media, policymakers, and indigenous community representatives—on conservation expeditions.
Safety innovation has been the ethos of Earth River for 36 years—from inventing foot cups in rafts to developing the safety cataraft for large-volume rivers like the Futaleufú. We were among the first to double-guide paddle boats on difficult, expeditionary rivers and to instruct our guests to swim on their stomachs toward safety, rather than float on their backs with their feet up. Earth River installed the first water gauges on the Futaleufú, was the first to develop routes through the rapids, and set high-water safety cutoffs that are still followed today.
“I’ve rafted with Eric Hertz down some tough rivers—the Futaleufu in Chile, the Colca in Peru. He’s one of the best in the business—obsessed with safety.”
—National Geographic Magazine