Navigating New Currents: Whitewater Rescue Institute in India In November 2024, WRI Instructors Ben Schmidt and Sam Johnston travelled to Northwestern India to teach swiftwater rescue and instructor practices to river guides for Aquaterra Adventures. They were excited to share our swift water rescue curriculum with Aquaterra's  talented guides on the picturesque banks of the Ganga.  Aquaterra A...

In Between A Rock and a Wet Place: Is Your Pin Kit Adequate? Accidents happen. How we prepare for and resolve those situations affects how the tale is told.  Getting a boat unpinned is a fundamental skill for river runners. The equipment used is also critical to your safety and success.  Folks often just buy a commercially available pin kit and hope that it will suffice- it rarely does.    ...

Inland Spill Response: Cold Weather Fastwater Spill Response in Winter Inland spill response in cold weather is difficult and risky.  Responding to oil spills along rivers in winter requires additional risk management and emphasis on standard operating procedures for all responders on site. Obviously we try to work off ice whenever possible. Several spills in the past two years have required us...

Fastwater Spill Response Inland Oil Spill Response Notes Personnel Decontamination Inland Oil Spill Response responders must be proactive and assertive about decon. This is one area of response that is often overlooked or incomplete in the early phases of a spill. Establish work zones and clearly communicate them to all responders. Create a site map, with enough detail included to adequately...

New Technologies for Inland Spill Response At WRI we specialize in fastwater spill response and inland oil spill response. Our goals are always to respond safely and effectively. We want to contain the spill as quickly as possible and then take steps to minimize its impact. Over the past few years we have been experimenting with a variety of techniques and spill response technologies to incr...

WRI Instructors recently led an Oil Under Ice Spill Response Training on Lake Pend O'Reille near Sandpoint, Idaho. Winter conditions present unique challenges for Inland Oil Spill Response. WRI teamed up with local first responders, Sam Owen Fire Department, Selkirk Fire Department and BNSF staff and contractors to practice with specialized equipment for winter spill response conditions.  Respect...

  On January 26, WRI instructors Paul Heffernan, Matt O’Reilly, Frank Preston and Cody Harris launched from Lees Ferry, Arizona for a 10-day kayak self-support down the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.  Below are a series of letters and photos discovered in the bottom of a drybag after the trip.  One of our crew wrote these, but choose to remain anonymous.   After reading them, we felt ...

The River Ganga: A trip to India Mike & Cody recently returned from India where they trained with instructors from the Hannibal Outdoor Center and ran the Ganges river in northern India. They stayed with some guides on the Ganges to learn about rafting standards in India and got a brief immersion in this amazing culture. The Ganges is the most sacred river in India, people pilgrimage from...

Whitewater Rescue Institute Instructor Paul Heffernan and I recently returned from Costa Rica Swiftwater rescue training where we led five days of classes with 50 Costa Rican whitewater rafting guides. We gained an appreciation for the knowledge, skill and dedication of the Costa Rican guides and some of the challenges they face for emergency response in terms of logistics and communications.  Af...

Preplanning and training are critical steps towards any successful fast water boom deployment.  Learning how to read water will help evaluate conditions and determine what boom strategies are possible. Putting out boom in rivers is difficult at best. Boom is heavy and moving water is deceptively powerful, especially when exerting its force on a section of boom placed in the current. Here are a fe...