Standing atop a raft, lead guide Glenn Goodrich of Adventures on the Gorge briefs junior guides at the foot of Summersville Dam during a training trip the day before the opening of the Gauley whitewater season.
SUMMERSVILLE, W.Va. — With the Gauley River swirling across a shoal behind them at the base of Summersville Dam, a group of new Adventures on the Gorge whitewater guides clustered around a newly inflated raft, atop which a lithe, white-haired man, speaking in calm tones, went over paddling commands and briefed them on things they should keep in mind to stay safe during the 12-mile, rapid-choked trip they were about to begin.
The scene took place during a guide-training day on the Upper Gauley, held earlier this month, the day before the opening of the 2016 Gauley River whitewater season — 22 days of 2,800-cubic-feet-per-second releases from Summersville Dam that extend through Oct. 16.
While many of the guides in the group quietly listening to Glenn Goodrich’s briefing were hoping to qualify for their first season of leading trips down the world renowned rapids, it was Goodrich’s 39th season as a Gauley River guide, having guided 561 trips down the Upper Gauley and 406 trips down the Lower Gauley, a total of 12,347 miles of paddling on both sections of the river.
“My goal is to guide through 50 seasons at least,” said Goodrich, known to fellow guides as the “Gauley Lama,” a man who is keen on setting — and usually surpassing — goals involving his whitewater career.
“I love it,” he said of the Gauley River whitewater season during a recent mid-week break from guiding. “If someone wants a day off and I’m not working that day, I’ll take their day. Being here in September and October is still special to me. I tell people the Colorado through the Grand Canyon is my favorite river, but the Gauley River is my favorite whitewater river.”
Goodrich, a native of Connecticut, was first bitten by the whitewater bug in 1976 during a raft trip down the New River while on a break from classes at Ohio State University. His guide for the event was Dave Arnold, then working for Mountain River Tours, and now senior vice president at Adventures on the Gorge.
“It way exceeded my expectations,” Goodrich said of his debut whitewater raft trip. “I loved it. I came back to the New River a couple more times that year as a customer and then in 1977, I took a raft trip with [Mountain River Tours guide] Jeff Proctor on the lower Gauley in April and came back that fall to take part in a training program for guides that Mountain River had going. I guided my first commercial trip in April of 1978 on the New,” and within a matter of months was guiding there full-time.
“I had been studying computer science, but I decided there was no future in that,” he said with a smile.
Guiding and paddling, he said, became such a passion that he couldn’t see himself doing anything else.
“I guide from March to October, starting on the Salt River [in Arizona] and then guide at least two [14-day] Grand Canyon trips before filling in the summer with something different every year, anywhere from Alaska to California, and finishing the year on the Gauley,” he said. “After the Gauley season ends, I’ll travel to other rivers I’ve wanted to try with other guides — I have 500 on an email list — so we can share expenses and experiences.”
Since that first trip down the New River in 1976, Goodrich has paddled in 46 states and 33 countries, including Chile, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Uganda and Nepal, and plans to make his first European paddling tour next year in Italy. To date, he has paddled 61,343 river miles worldwide.
“There are still new places I want to work as a guide, like the Snake River [with whitewater rafting in Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon] and the Arkansas River in Colorado.”
Goodrich, who turned 62 during the current Gauley season, said he’s never looked back on his career choice.
“I feel good, I plan to run my 1,000th Gauley trip next year, and keep going. I have a good friend who’s 64 and still guiding the New and Lower Gauley, and I know people in their 70s who are still guiding. There are a lot of old lifers on the Grand Canyon who have been going at it longer than I have.”
When not riding the rapids, Goodrich lives in Indiana, where his girlfriend of 10 years lives and works.
He said he sees the whitewater outfitting industry moving into a modest growth period.
“It’s been in decline since ’96 or ’97, but I’ve seen it coming back a little in the past couple of years,” he said. “The number of people on the Colorado in the Grand Canyon is back to 100 percent of what it once was, and I’ve seen a little surge on the Salt River. But the clientele has changed a lot since I started, and so have the guides.
“We had a lot of 20- to 25-year-old customers when I started, and now they’re in their 50s, bringing along their families or grandchildren. In 2000, the guides were young and willing to go big and swim, as were their customers. It’s a little more conservative, now.”
Goodrich, soft-spoken and modest, said he “likes to keep things simple — work, eat at home, don’t really party and live in my camper.”
“He is very humble and almost shy,” Arnold said. “That’s who he is. But he is not only legendary here, but on most continents and many countries as well. He has been called the ‘Gauley Lama’ for years.
“He is a true worldwide rafting guide, perhaps the best migrant wave worker on the globe.”
While Goodrich is aware of his status in the whitewater community and says he appreciates respect, “I don’t want to be glorified,” he said.
“When I’m in the company of a bunch of guides, many of them in their 20s, I just want to fit in. I just want to be another guide.”
Reach Rick Steelhammer at [email protected], 304-348-5169 or follow @rsteelhammer on Twitter.