Rafting Water Levels Costa Rica

Dealing with adventure sports the first priority should always be safety. When it comes to whitewater rafting there are a list of things that a guide must take into consideration before a trip. Not only do the clients have to be physically fit to take on the challenge.

Maybe one of the most important consideration is how Mother Nature is behaving during the day of your river trip. Costa Rica is a place that is filled with mountains and rain which means the rafting is great. During the rainy season Costa Rica can get a lot of rain and fill up the rivers very fast. Unfortunately due to deforistation the rain enters the rivers faster and this also means the rivers drain faster. This can be dangerous to a river trip because what we call a head of water can fill up a river very quickly. The guide and company must take into consideration not only the weather conditions where the river trip begins but also the weather conditions farther up stream which could be a heavy rain miles away but still filling the river.

When the river becomes high the water runs faster, waves are bigger, and hydrolic holes are stronger. All of this can make the river at a point where a company has to cancel the trip or take their clients to a different river. For all companies dealing with adventure tourism these are basic issues that should be looked at before every trip from rafting to canyoneering and waterfall rappeling. Be sure your company is putting saftey first as in our case it is always the number one concern of our clients. Dealing with student travel trips and family vacations to Costa Rica safety first is a no-brainer for our company.

An Amazing Rescue from a Raft

I have been rafting for almost 7 years now and last night at 7pm on the local news I saw some rafting that I have never seen in Costa Rica. Anybody that has been to Costa Rica knows that it can start raining at anytime. We are in Feb. which usually is a dry month but this week the rain really started coming down. There is a particular area called the Chirripo River which is not a commercially rafted river but is filled with class V's from start to finish. The Chirripo river yesterday with all the rain that came down was filled to the max. The river was a dark chocolate color and just fast flowing, large amounts of water from bank to bank.

The problem with this immediate flooding of the river is that there was a man taking river rock in a back-hoe in the middle of the river because before the rains came you could walk across the river. It turns out after the river flooded the man did not have time to drive his bould-doser and was stuck in the middle of the river. Anybody that knows anything about rivers knows that they can have the force to move just about anything from large trees to bould-dosers. Fortunately a group of 4 rafters went into the river up-stream and made there way to the man among large rapids and fast moving water that put their lives in extreme danger. The day ended with the rafters making an amazing rescue and the man from the bould-doser getting out in time before becoming a victim of the river. To all my fellow rafters out there I think we owe a great applause to the four men who made the rescue yesterday as they took their skills to a whole new level. Just for the record rafting in the Chirripo river is not commercially rafted and other rivers of Costa Rica are considered much more safe for taking part in the sport of rafting.

Rafting in Costa Rica

If there is one adventure we like to take pride in it is Costa Rica rafting. Most of our tours and adventures take part in the sport of white-water rafting during their stay in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is made up of mountains, rain, and no snow which make it a year long rafting paradise. When rafting is mentioned one of the first rivers that has to come into mind is the Pacuare River. This is an amazing river rated by National Geographic as one of the top 5 rivers in the world. The word "Pacuare" is an Indian name given by the nearby Cabecar tribe which live on the river banks. If a group is able and physically fit we always try and gear their trip around a Pacuare adventure. The commercially rafted part of Pacuare is spectacular but if you make the right contacts with some guides you might be able to run the upper section of Pacuare in the dry season which is usually operated only by experts and guides. There are many different rivers to raft in Costa Rica but Pacuare I must say is the best by a long shot. Some of the other popular rafting rivers are Savegre on the Pacific Coast, Rio Toro in the northern part of the country, and Sarapiqui River which unfortunately has taken a hit due to the earthquake a year ago.

The types of rivers you will see in Costa Rica are considered technical rivers. A technical river means that you can see many rocks on the surface and that the river is usually narrow (an example of a non-technical river would be the Nile in Africa. You can take the raft through the rapids straight down the middle and you will never feel a rock). The technical river is good and bad for a guide. It is excellent training for the guide because they are always making decisions of lines to take in a rapid and comand after comand of which way the group needs to paddle. On the other hand it can become difficult for a guide and it takes more time to train on such rivers than on non-technical rivers. Just for the record I have heard that Costa Rican river guides are some of the best you will find for two reasons. The first being that you can raft Costa Rican rivers 12 months a year and a lot of these guides are no the river 6 days a week all year. The second reason is that they are trained on these very technical rivers.

Family Vacation Costa Rica

If you happen to travel through Costa Rica looking to raft you might want to check out the Pacuare river. Do keep in mind that in Costa Rica there are many non-commercial rafting rivers that are absolutely amazing but just take knowing the right contacts to get to run them.

Family Vacation Specialist

Costa Rican Resource

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