Meet Zack – Wilderness Aware Rafting Guide
My name is Zack Wright, but most people call me Cookie. This is my 5th year guiding for Wilderness Aware Rafting, in Buena Vista. My favorite section of river on the Arkansas is the Numbers because it is continuous, exciting hot action. I think that it is the perfect half day trip.
I actually grew up on the Arkansas…a thousand miles downstream in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. It’s much different down there and about a half mile wide. I first went fishing in a little john boat on the Ark when I was about 10 years old.
I came to the upper Arkansas Valley in 2009, just a few days after I got out of the Marine Corps. I was in the Marines as an infantryman from 2005 to 2009 and deployed twice to Iraq (16 months) and once to India (2 months). I was looking for a job that could hold me over for the summer before I started classes in Oklahoma and after a long and less than fruitful search, I found my dream job! I was going to become a white water rafting guide in Colorado. Did it matter that I had never even been rafting before? Not in my mind. I packed up and moved to Buena Vista!
Working for Wilderness Aware has been a great experience. It has helped to fund my way through College and was an important step in my life as it gave me employment as I transitioned out of the Marine Corps. The opportunity to receive excellent and continuous training at WA has been a key reason for coming back year after year. WA also takes us on several staff trips a year to different rivers around Colorado and even into Wyoming and Utah. I look forward to working for WA in the future and my goal is to finally work a season for WA on the Salt River in Arizona this year.
Position and Company:
Trip Leader, Class V Guide, Multi-Day Guide, Inn to Inn Guide
Wilderness Aware Rafting
Number of years working on the Arkansas River:
Four (2009-2012) and more to come!
What do you do the rest of the year?
I came to the Ark straight out of my 4 years in the US Marine Corps. The summer before the Ark I was on my 2nd deployment to Iraq. I conducted my interviews with WA while deployed to India at the beginning of 2009. I am a student at Oklahoma State University, where I also guide kayaking, climbing, and backpacking trips for the school. I’ve also worked for a commercial lighting company, UPS, and the Tulsa Zoo between seasons on the Arkansas.
If I wasn’t a raft guide, then I would be (doing what)?
I am a Secondary Education Major. This year I finished my student teaching at Department of Defense Schools at a US Air Force base in the United Kingdom teaching 8th Grade US History. I plan on working one or two wet years and then settling into a teaching job in Oklahoma!
What does a typical day look like?
A perfect day on the Ark would be to wake up in Cottonwood Camp (River Left above Pinnacle Rock) on the fifth day of a five day trip. I would rustle up a delicious breakfast of Eggs, Bacon, and Coffee, and serve it to my crew to start the day. We would pull into Pinnacle Rock put-in to meet with our safety boater, de-rig the gear boat, and get ready for a solid day in the Parkdale-Gorge section.
Parkdale would serve as our final warm-up before the mean Class IV-V Royal Gorge rapids yet to come. We would eat lunch on the sunny River Left Brown’s Landing put in. Day 5 lunch of a Five Day Trip has the added bonus of all the eatable leftovers from the entire trip being added to the meal in addition to the planned menu. We need all the nourishment we can get before descending into the canyon.
No matter how many times I guide Sunshine and Sledgehammer, I still get nervous and excited. There is always an enormous thrill of crushing through Sunshine Hole or Bird Drop with a bomber crew. A day in the Royal Gorge, rain or shine, is a good day to me. The Gorge also serves as a perfect capstone for the last section of our Five Day Expedition. By now, the crew and guides know each other well and work together as a finely practiced team.
After returning to BV, de-rigging all the boats, wetsuits, paddles, helmets, PFDs, stoves, ice chests, trailers, vans, rocket boxes, tables, fire-pans, tents, sleeping bags, commissary boxes, and groovers, its finally time to head home. There are always a couple of guys trying to recruit a raft or kayak mission up to the Numbers or Pine Creek, and I have a bad habit of never being able to resist. At this point I re-dawn my river gear and join the crew to kayak a Clear Creek to #Five run.
Back at home, there’s always time to celebrate a great day on the river with a couple of beers with guides from all the different companies at the Eddyline or the Rope. The best part about going to bed at night though, is that I get to wake up the next day and tackle another section of river!
Where do you sleep?
Wilderness Aware provides housing in a mobile home park. Everyone in our company lives there, so something is always going on with good friends. I love it!
Most Unusual Request Ever Made of You or another guide?
I once had a 350 pound man named “Tiny” as a guest on a multi-day trip. He was badly sunburned and asked me to rub aloe on his enormous back. It was so hairy that you could’ve combed it or shaved it into a Mohawk. This incident still haunts me.
What do you enjoy the most about being a raft guide (or other position) on the Arkansas River?
I get paid to raft or kayak every day! I get paid to camp! I work for a great company that lets us borrow their gear, gives us excellent training, and even lets us borrow equipment to travel to new rivers to see some gnarly white water.
I really love being a River Guide. It’s hard to find a better group of nicer, more personable, exciting people in the world (cleaner, better looking, and less stinky is not so hard).
What do you try to make sure each guest leaves your boat having learned or experienced?
I enjoy interacting with all my different guests. I think that regardless of the water level or difficulty of the rapids, a guide can make or break a trip. Most of the time the guests don’t comprehend if the rapids are big or not, so if the guide is intense and excited, they are too. If they guide is bored and lame, then the guests are also bored and lame. I try to build a relationship with my crew, even if it is only a half day trip; I want to learn all of their names. On longer trips I endeavor to build a “Nest of Trust,” where I am the mama bird, and they are the baby birds. It is my goal to give each trip an epic adventure. Whether that adventure is Girl Scouts in Seidel’s Suckhole, a bachelor party in the Numbers, or a family in the Milk Run, I want to make sure that the guests leave wet, tired, excited, having heard plenty of corny jokes, many good stories, and most importantly having had such an intense, exciting time that they want to come back and raft something bigger and harder next summer! (And of course that they request me next time they’re in town) I take pride in being a guide and delivering a quality product: a great adventure experience on every trip.
