In the Spring of 2019, I pitched a writing project partnering with both NRS and DownRiver Equipment. It would be a series of six stories meant to offer some more insight into what it’s like to raft with young kids.
The series was an absolute blast to write, and, honestly, gave me another reason to fight back against that voice which whispers to all parents- “Wouldn’t it be easier to just stay home?”
Here are direct links to the content, which is available on both NRS’s and DRE’s blogs, hope you enjoy!
Family Rafting 101: The First Float
Up until a week before our trip this March, we were sure that this might definitely, maybe be a terrible idea. We felt tired, the weather was shit, and all of our summer gear was still buried under ski boots and crippling seasonal depression. In fact, until I threw the boys’ underwear in a drybag, I wasn’t sure we’d actually go.
Family Rafting 101: Risk Management
We want our kids to be safe, but we also want them to grow up loving the rivers and experiencing challenges. So, even though we could talk ourselves out of even leaving the house because of risks like bad drivers, ticks, lightning, bears, strangers, and E. coli, we bravely venture forth every day. Life and rivers will always be full of risks, but fear is a garbage emotion. Unless we want to live in a bubble-wrapped house. We have to face risk, whether on the river or off.
Family Rafting 101: Packing with Kids
7. On the Subject of Pants
Never put off packing your own gear until the last minute, or you will forget your own pants. It’s true, it happened to a very close friend of mine. Twice.
Family Rafting 101: The Daily Float
So my husband and I have decided to prioritize the people we love in the places we love above all else. The world will always be there, with a million distractions, expenses and stress. Our children will only be bouncing up and down in the boat screaming ‘RAPIDS’ in a toddler voice for a few more years.
Family Rafting 101: Mom’s Day Out- the WestwaTaTas
As a mom, rafter, and writer, I was also in a very different place a year after that inaugural float, and so was the river.
Last summer had been brutally hot and dry, the rivers gasping for water and the mountains on fire. This year, the river still clung to high water at the end of July, and rain pelted the desert. Last year, Westwater had been running at 2,100 cubic feet per second, and this year it was just below 12,000.
Family Rafting 101: His and Hers
My first rafting trip with Casey launched just two days after we met during a guide training course for the summer camp for which we both worked. It was a beautiful early May day in 2005, full of wind and rain and a high of forty degrees. Ice began to form on the rubber as we hand-pumped the boats in Rainbow Park by the Green River.
Lindsay DeFrates 
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