Safety First
At Ohiopyle Trading Post and River Tours, your safety is of utmost importance to us. Our safety record is unparalleled in the industry. We are able to accomplish this excellence through our quality equipment and experienced staff.
The equipment we use for our trips is all new and purchased within the last 10 years. All of our rafts are self-bailing with thwarts and foot stirrups to allow riders to brace themselves in the boat for improved balance. These rafts are specifically designed to get the best ride and safety on the river. Sizing is important because too large a boat diminishes the experience on the river where too small a boat makes the raft unstable in the rapids. In addition, we purchase new lifejackets and paddles semi-annually.
Our guides are some of the best trained staff on the river. The Ohiopyle State Park requires that river guides have 10 runs down the Lower Yough to become a guide for an outfitter. We require that our guides have a minimum of 30 runs on the Lower Yough to be a guide for Ohiopyle Trading Post. We also require our guides go through CPR, First Aid, and a Swiftwater Rescue course each spring to prepare them for any situation they may encounter on the water. Our guides set safety in each of the major rapids on rocks with throw ropes or in a safety kayak. This is to shorten the swim time of anyone who unintentionally ends up in the water in the rapid. The less time someone spends in the water, the lower the chance of an incident arising.
Ohiopyle Trading Post and River Tours also has a greater guide to guest ratio than most; we put more guides for the amount of guests on the trips. This allows more guides to be available to set safety on the river. Our average trip size is around 60 guests. This allows our trips to be closer together as they travel downstream and not get spread out over a large area like a bigger trip would enabling our guides to keep better track of the rafts.
Our larger trips are around 80 people, the maximum allowed by the state park. On these larger trips, the state park requires just 5 guides to accompany the trip down the river. We generally double that requirement with at least 10 guides on a trip that size. We were the first outfitter in Ohiopyle to offer fully guided rafting trips on all sections of the river at all water levels. Fully guided puts the guide in the boat with the guests helping to steer the raft through the rapids.