Raft Trips on a Whirl of Rivers

Aside from the obvious excitement that white-water rafting offers on mild as well as action-packed rivers, there are also more subtle pleasures for the rafter--such as hiking, photography, painting, sightseeing, biking, fishing, camping and exploring unspoiled wilderness areas.

On these rafting trips, powerful rivers can be frothy, churning and stirring up a storm, and other rivers purr like kittens.

Contiki Holidays is geared to 18- to 35-year-olds on trips from 18 to 21 days to Australia and New Zealand and 18 to 25 days to Europe, where the white-water rafting destination is the River Inn in Austria. The Shotover River on South Island is a New Zealand river-running destination. In combination with its white-water rafting, Contiki provides tours, sightseeing, hiking, cycling, sailing and cruising.

Vacations of 9 to 50 days cost about $55 a day per person, including land transportation, two meals a day, sightseeing and a variety of accommodations, such as castles and chateaux. Air fare is extra. Last year the 26-year-old firm served 75,000 people from 15 countries. Write to Contiki Holidays, 1432 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim 92805, or call (800) 624-0611 in California or (800) 626-0611 outside California.

Whitewater Voyages, P.O. Box 906, El Sobrante, Calif. 94803, arranges trips in California and Oregon, generally May through August. California rivers include the Kern, Tuolumne, Merced, American, Stanislaus, Yuba, Trinity, Salmon, Klamath and Scott and there’s the Rogue River in Oregon.

One- to five-day trips cost $75 to $100 a day per person, including guides, equipment, a variety of meals and land transportation. The firm also is starting a “row your own or paddle your own” division featuring small rafts for two people on the Lower Klamath, Trinity and Rogue. Call Whitewater Voyages, (415) 222-5994.

Sobek’s White Water River Expeditions (Grand Canyon) and Sobek Expeditions (abroad) visit all continents and include China, Soviet Union, Zambia, Ethiopia, Turkey, Sumatra, Chile, Nepal, New Guinea and Alaska. Its “most popular and best-known trip,” however, is to the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River, according to director Charlie Ross, and costs $995 for seven days. All trips, most of which cost under $1,400 for a 14-day package, not including air fare, are combined with sightseeing, hiking, cultural activities and what the company calls the “friendship of rafting.”

The China trip, 25 days, is to the Yangtze River. In the Soviet Union, river runners go to the Katun River, $4,950, or the Bashkaus River, $5,950, each for 16 days. “These areas have been closed to Westerners until recently,” Ross says. “The trips are adventurous ways to travel to formerly inaccessible regions.” Write to Sobek Expeditions, Box 1359, Angels Camp, Calif. 95222, or call (209) 736-0427.

American River Touring Assn. takes river runners to California, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Arizona on 1- to 13-day trips costing from $60 to $1,400 mainly March through September. Rivers include the American near Placerville, Calif., for one or two days, and the Rogue in Oregon for four days.

The price includes land transportation, guides, meals and equipment. In addition, American River offers river running in inflatable kayaks (for one person) on what it describes as “easier” rivers. Write to American River Touring Assn., Star Route 73, Groveland, Calif. 95321, or call (800) 323-2782.

White-water rafting vacations to Peru, Nepal and Costa Rica are the specialty of Overseas Adventure Travel, 6 Bigelow St., Cambridge, Mass. 02139, phone (800) 221-0814. Along with river running, the firm combines hiking and sightseeing activities.

In Peru, Overseas Adventure takes people for 17 days on a “Machu Picchu Highland Trek” at a cost of $2,300. “Mountain River Tiger,” $3,000 per person, is the destination in Nepal, and “Costa Rica: Tropical Paradise” costs $2,500. All prices include air fare from Los Angeles. Rafts are for 4 to 14 persons with an average age of 38. Prices include guides and transportation to the rivers.

All-Outdoors Adventure Trips runs groups to 10 rivers in California from one to six days, April to October. Trips involving persons 6 to 80 years old cost $60 to $119 a day, not including air fare.

All-Outdoors, which has been in business for 20 years, provides land transportation, guides, equipment, meals, etc. Write to All-Outdoors Adventure Trips, 2151 San Miguel Drive, Walnut Creek, Calif. 94596, or call (800) 942-RAFT or (415) 932-8993.

Natural history, fishing and wildlife sightings in Alaska’s “untouched natural parks” is the focus of Mountain Travel, 1398 Solano Ave., Albany, Calif. 94706, on white-water rafting trips to the Tatshenshini and Alatna rivers.

Costing $100 to $150 a day per person, the trips last 12 to 14 days and include meals, equipment, guides and accommodations. Air fare is extra. All are combined with hiking. Promotions director Pam Shandrick says 20- to 70-year-olds take trips. Because the Alatna River is so isolated, rafters must fly in by float plane to a lake, making the trip more expensive.

In addition, the firm takes groups on 15-day vacations to Peru for river running that is combined with hiking. Call (415) 527-8100.

Eastern River Expeditions runs white-water rafting trips to the Hudson and Moose rivers in the Adirondack Mountains in New York, in April and May; to the Penobscot, Kennebec and Dead rivers in Maine from May to October, and to the Gauley River in West Virginia in September and October. The cost is $25 for a half-day outing, $180 for two days and one night. Eastern River also has a one-day trip costing $60 to $85. All trips are with guides and are combined with hiking and bird watching. Write to Eastern River Expeditions, Box 1173, Greenville, Me. 04441, or call (800) 634-RAFT.