Why Choose Triad for your rafting trip?

Experience | Professionalism | Minimalism | Preparation

Go to the river and see for yourself that Triad River Tours is the most organized, well put together whitewater outfitter in the area. Our safety record and guest satisfaction is the highest in the industry. We are deeply for your safety, and the quality of your experience, and have the guides, equipment, and system to get the job done.

Washington State has no Whitewater River Rafting Guides or Outfitter Licensing Board, so commercial rafting companies are on their own to decide when to cut costs on safety and environmentalism. Some companies work diligently at this, while others do not. This is why you must choose carefully what rafting company you will entrust on your next whitewater adventures. At Triad, all of our river rafting trips are operated by highly-trained, fairly-compensated career professionals who utilize meticulously crafted, researched, and refined safety systems.

Here are some aspects of our operation that set us apart:

• Triad has the best safety record of any outfitter in the area.

• Triad River Tours replaces rafts at an average of every 3 years, which means that 1. Our rafts aren’t patched up or have liability concerns -and- 2. Local recreational rafters get good deals on rafts in August.

• Our guides are trained to a much higher standard, and are compensated with wages up to 50% higher than our competitors (see Triad’s wage structure by clicking here). As a result, we have the most well trained guide staff possible.

• Triad’s river manager is a renowned Swiftwater Rescue Instructor with 25 years of professional guiding experience.

• Triad River Tours staff has assisted in numerous search and rescue operations, and with this level of experience carries on each trip the equipment necessary to handle nearly any foreseeable rescue, and trained professionals capable of high level, strenuous rescues.

• All of our guides are required to pass online, on river, and swiftwater rescue trainings before guiding commercial whitewater trips, far exceeding legal standards.

• All guides pass a personal fitness test that measures physical, mental, and emotional stress levels and ability levels every single day of work, and has specific protocols in place to ensure that the staff is ready to work each day.

• Triad River Tours is a drug free work place, where no guides are allowed to bring alcohol or drugs on company property at any time. Because of this, we tend to hire guides who would prefer to work at a place that has clear boundaries with such things; not everyone does.

• Triad River Tours takes great pride as a diverse workplace. Several non-male guides, both past and present, have successfully guided at Triad and have developed into renowned professional guides in their own right. Triad avoids archaic gender roles and stereotypes that loom over the guiding industry, and operates a team based structure that encourages meritocracy and equality. Leadership, at Triad, is about empowering team members, not obeying dictators. This company culture creates dynamism and synergy, and cultivates a free thinking, collaborate approach that lends itself to a safer environment, where everyone has a chance to voice their concerns.

• Any Triad River Tours guide, on any trip, can call off a trip if they believe the trip is unsafe. In order for every single trip to take place, all guides must first get together at a paid meeting, investigate river conditions, and collaboratively agree unanimously that the trip is within safety protocols, and is reasonably safe that day.

• All Triad guides try to attempt to pronounce all of our guests names before every trip. This sometimes leads to discussions and light hearted arguments about how to pronounce names such as Węgrzynkiewicz (no offense).

• Triad River Tours allows its guides to choose their days off, and advocates for a 4 day work week (this is why we run 3 trips per day; so our staff can get full time work in only 4 days).

• Unlike many other outfitting companies, Triad River Tours pays their employees by the hour (they clock off and on). This may sound strange, but many rafting outfitters pay their guides like they work at a summer camp, by paying them per day, or per trip, regardless of time. Some raft outfitters also refuse to pay overtime; Triad happily pays overtime, and abides by all labor laws at the state and federal level.

• Triad River Tours offers a complimentary place for our guides to stay, and we have a shower.

• Triad River Tours’ pay scale is based in a revenue share model, where a specific percentage of booking revenues (usually around 50%) is allocated to the guides regardless of company profits. This sustainable business model resembles a co-operative, and ensures that the guides and the company are rewarded equally.

• Triad River Tours often sponsors spaghetti night for its guides, because who doesn’t like spaghetti! (vegan option available by request).

• Triad continually invests in safety boaters where our competitors do not, to ensure that in the case of an emergency we have adequate resources, and additional boats on the water to handle any potential rescue situation.

• Triad River Tours voluntarily scouts river conditions and reports to recreational boaters, any hazards on the river, and openly invites all recreational boaters to follow our guides down the river as a matter of policy.

• Triad River Tours utilizes satellite technology when applicable, as a communication tool to decrease response time in case of an emergency.

• Triad River Tours does not charge its first year guides for training (even though our training is the most extensive and likely the most expensive), in order to ensure that the most talented and committed guides get an opportunity to enter the guiding profession, not simply those with the most money. Furthermore, Triad keeps an ongoing guide evaluation sheet with each trainee, and if a trainee fails to meet our standard, we respectfully do not hire them (when a rafting company charges money to first year guides, it creates a perverse incentive to not remove them).

• Triad offers financial aid to its guides to attend swiftwater rescue training, and has the highest ratio of guides with swiftwater training in the area.

• We believe in transparency. Our entire company employee manual, including our policies and safety protocols are available to the public in the footer of the website, or by clicking here.

• Our company encourages all guides to participate in Swiftwater Rescue Training.

• All of our medical procedures are researched and refined by our staff EMTs.

• Our business ethics, environmental sustainability, social justice, and equal opportunity policies represent a deep commitment to being a leader on the river and in business.

• Triad's safety record is unparalleled due to our commitment to investing sustainably into continued research into refinement of our safety protocols, hiring of industry professionals, investments into continual training for our staff, and in the finest equipment available in our industry.

• Triad guides perform paid pre-trip and post-trip meetings to ensure that feedback gets to upper management to ensure that our trips are constantly updated to the highest standard.

• We run the same rivers more than anyone else, and are the only outfitter that is headquartered on the Sauk and Skagit Rivers, so we are more familiar with the conditions of those rivers.

• Our guides work year round, so they are familiar with river conditions throughout the offseason, while our competitors have their guides show up the day of the trip, often having not seen the river since the year before.

• Triad River Tours invests heavily into R&D, and hires several consulting agencies to critique and improve its operational and safety systems.

• If river conditions change substantially, we will pay our staff to do a scouting run prior to running any commercial river trip with paying guests.

• Our safety talk (click here) is thorough and extensive, and provides our guests with adequate knowledge so they are empowered to care for each other in case of a rescue.

• Triad River Tours is the recipient of the Commanders Certificate of Appreciation from Lewis-McChord Joint Military Base.

• Triad River Tours has a 5 Star Rating on TripAdvisor, and Google, from hundreds of satisfied customers.