We are grateful for the wonderful people we meet on river trips. Words cannot express the appreciation and gratitude we have for our clients who have become family... Kind words from Shelly Russon...

"We booked a trip with Donny to raft the Salmon River with our four girls, ages 19, 17, 15 and 10. We also took my nephew Jake who was 21. We drove to Northern Idaho out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t a soul in sight for hours. We drove to our camp spot on the river where we would meet up with Donny and his crew. About an hour later after we set up camp, we heard cars coming. We all stopped to stare at about 6 cars that drove up the dirt trail past our campsite. To my girls' delight, the cars were filled with teenage boys! It turned out a scout troop from Seattle would be rafting with us. We all agreed the more the merrier and we really enjoyed our time with them.

This trip was one of our best vacations ever. We loved the quiet time on the river where you just float along having great discussions with each other and reveling in the natural beauty all around. These float times were not always quiet, as it was also a great time to let loose and jump in the water or join in to the ongoing water fights. We still quote some of the things that were said (yelled) to the opposing raft and we still get a great laugh every time!

We also loved the rapids! There were many great rapids that gave us a good ride but also proved to be a little challenging. It was a perfect family trip.

Donny is known in our family as 'River Indy'. He really is incredible. Having spent a lifetime rafting, we learned about many of his adventures and all of the lives he has touched in sharing his love for the outdoors.

His nickname came from an incident we had on the river one day. As we approached a rapid, Donny asked our boat if we wanted him to personally take us through it. My boat had 4 teenagers, 2 of mine and 2 of the scouts. We said 'Yes.' Donny promptly jumped in his boat and took off down the rapid. We thought he must have not heard us!

We were all stopped as we watched him complete the rapid and then row backwards upstream, which I am certain could not have been easy since it was at the bottom of the rapid. The river was still going pretty strong right there. He oared his boat off to the side, jumped out and started climbing the rock on the opposite side of the river from the rest of the group. At this point, a couple of other groups had pulled in behind us and literally everyone, probably 20 people, were stopped and staring at Donny. 'What in the world is he doing?', I wondered. It would be impossible for him to get to us. The rock on the other side was a complete wall of shale. He scaled one wall, shimmied across another, dropped to a ledge, climbed another area, repeated this a few times then leapt off the cliff into the water and swam over to us. 'Let’s Go.', he said calmly. We all stared in disbelief. Seriously, the entire thing took no more than 5 minutes. We knew right then we were in the best hands ever and River Indy was our friend for life.

Donny knew the river so incredibly well. He knew the best places to camp, where it was safe to cliff jump, where we would likely see wildlife, took us to a waterfall and pointed out some petroglyphs.

Time at camp was also something we will treasure. It is a time to read, sing, play games, enjoy each others stories and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. The downside of spending a couple of hours on a day raft trip is when it ends... I have always been so sad to get off the river after just a few hours. On a multi-day trip it’s the best thing ever to wake up and know you get to go out on the river again. It is truly the trip of a lifetime!"

~ Shelly Russon, Utah

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