Team River Runner back in Colorado: Year 3

By Ben Guska

For the third time ever, team River Runner will be migrating from the Walter Reid Army Medical Hospital out of Washington D.C. to kayak the cold waters of Colorado. This is a huge, and exciting year for the group as we have so many soldiers joining the program, we have to bring two groups out this year to accommodate the different levels of kayaking!

Team River Runner is a Non-Profit organization that helps wounded war veterans from the present and past wars. The group has kayakers from 20 years old, all the way to over 50! 3 years ago was the first time a group was able to make it out of the D.C. area, and has been coming back to Colorado ever since. It’s goal is to provide health and healing through whitewater kayaking, and in general whitewater all-together.

I was excited to hear from Jason Beakes, as a few of the first paddlers will be arriving for group one this week. Since the start of the program we have had a number of kayakers get so good we had to create a separate trip for our more advanced group. (Who will be running class 3 and 4 this year). Some still enlisted and some even out of the army are die hard dedicated kayakers! This will be a super fun year for both groups, as I am super excited to see all the old faces of friends from the last two years, and of course, some new faces looking for a good time in Colorado this year!

This is always one of the biggest highlights of my year. We get a chance this year to really go with the flow, and decide as a group of kayakers where we want to boat. This year will be extremely special as our first group will be hoping to look for a good overnighter. And who knows, we might find one, might not…. Really depends on the river flows and what we want to do!

Look for us on the rivers of Colorado June 15-21, and group 2 a week after, as we aren’t quite sure where EXACTLY we will be, but we are going with the flow!
For more information, check out www.teamriverrunner.org!

Ben Guska