The River Runs Deep
The Harrisons’ Six Rivers Rafting on the Trinity…
Sara Harrison was born in Trinity County, grew up playing in the Trinity River, and has spent the past 23 years working on it professionally. By any measure, she is a woman who found her place early and never left — not because she had to, but because she genuinely couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
“I’m so fortunate to be able to make a living here, just down the road from where I grew up,” she says. “It’s awesome to send groups of people rafting every day, and they get to appreciate what I grew up with my whole life.”
Sara and her husband, Pete Harrison, operate Six Rivers Rafting, a guided whitewater company on the Trinity River, with operations out of Junction City and Willow Creek in Trinity County. Pete grew up near Acadia National Park in Maine — his parents led Sierra Club hiking and camping trips — and began guiding commercial whitewater in California in 1999. He arrived on the Trinity in 2001.
The two met on the river about 20 years ago and have been married for 16 years. Together, they have built one of Northern California’s most highly regarded rafting outfitters, a company known not only for thrilling trips but also for a genuine sense of purpose.
The Trinity, Sara will tell you, is a hidden gem. Other California rivers — the American and the Kings — draw bigger crowds and bigger headlines. But the Trinity offers something quieter and, she argues, richer.
“Trinity really has it all,” she says. “Great rapids, beautiful scenery and excellent weather. For me, there’s nothing like it.”
Six Rivers offers the full spectrum, from half-day floats suitable for young children to multi-day expeditions on the Eel, Klamath and Trinity rivers. The company holds permits from the Shasta-Trinity, Six Rivers and Klamath National Forests, and its guides are a particular point of pride. TripAdvisor and Yelp reviews consistently rave about them by name, and the praise is effusive. What Sara says she looks for goes well beyond technical skill.
“Obviously, you need experience on whitewater rivers and a strong knowledge of raft safety,” she says. “But a guide needs leadership and organizational skills, and a sense of humor. And a guide needs to know how to read people.”
That ability to read the room, she explains, is what separates a good guide from a great one. A raft full of scientists gets an ecology lesson. A bachelor party gets loosened up. Nervous first-time rafters get reassurance. Raucous teenagers, dragged along by their parents and already mourning their video games, get something they didn’t expect.
“I love the smiles of younger kids after rafting through an exhilarating rapid,” Sara says. “Seeing the joy on a kid’s face makes my day.”
That philosophy extends well beyond paying customers. Six Rivers runs multi-day trips for urban youth — groups of teenagers from places like Oakland who have never camped, rafted, seen a bald eagle or watched a deer drink at a river’s edge. For Sara, it’s not charity so much as a mission.
“Our goal is to get people back into nature and reconnect with it,” she says. “A big part of that is bringing out kids who have never been on a river before. They don’t know the birds and the ecology of their areas. Just reconnecting with nature — that’s important.”
The company’s Junior Guide School has, to Sara’s admitted surprise, become something of a phenomenon. The first year, three kids signed up. Then 10. Then 30. This year: 42. “I think we’re on to something,” she says with a laugh. “The parents really want to drop their kids off so they can be off their screens all day and learn something fun.”
The environmental commitment runs just as deep. Six Rivers serves local, organic food on every trip, asks guests to leave disposable plastic bottles at home, composts food waste, and uses real plates and silverware on the river. Pete and Sara describe themselves as stewards, not merely outfitters.
“It’s not just a local issue for us. It’s a global one,” Sara says. “We should all take responsibility for keeping the Earth clean.”
Even the food reflects that ethic. The dinner trips and overnight expeditions are famous for meals that somehow feel elevated given the setting. Sara acknowledges the challenge of feeding people well when your kitchen is a riverbank, and your chef is a 20-something guide.
“We focus on ‘as fancy as you can be’ while still being on the river,” she says. “It has to be something that’s doable. It’s really toeing the line between fancy and the ability level of people who aren’t exactly chefs.”
Come mid-October, Pete and Sara trade Junction City for the Humboldt coast, where Pete teaches through the winter. After seven-day weeks and 12-hour days from March through early autumn, they’re more than ready.
“Our bodies need a break,” Sara says simply. “As much as we love what we do, it’s nice to take a little break. The changing of the seasons is a great time for us.”
And then spring comes around. The Trinity wakes up. And Sara Harrison goes back to the river where she was born, to do it all over again. •
www.sixriversrafting.com
Article Written by:
Al Olson loves culinary arts, adult beverages and hiking in the North State wilderness. You may find him soaking up the scenery at one of our area’s many state or national parks or sitting in a barstool sipping a cold locally brewed craft beer.
