Time to sign up if you want to be a guide, or if you just want to feel comfortable on the river on your own.

Only a few weeks away from our annual seven day guide training odyssey on the Deschutes River in north central Oregon and - as the senior instructor - I am beginning to feel the undertow of another river season.

Orion's guide training course kicks off every whitewater season and is comprised of seasoned and salty veterans, women and men, wide-eyed whitewater neophytes, those who revel in the adversity and those who are challenging their ordinary state of being, whatever that may be.

It is a time for ditching cellphones and the comfort of our creature habits. Sharing and laughing and looking one another in the eye. Being physically present because...you have to be to deal with the circumstances of being out amidst the elements. Setting up tarps in windstorms and cooking over fires.

It will be a memorable trip. Even for those of us participating in it for the 40th time.

Everything is fresh and possible and an entire season of running rivers with people steeped in the culture and those just being introduced lies before us. Our guide training trip is the perfect introduction to the world of river running.

You'll have seven days and seven nights learning the ropes both figuratively and literally.

Seven days and nights being immersed in the culture and all that entails from fireside tales to what-if scenarios.

Seven days and nights commiserating with your fellow students about the cold, the wind, the food, the insects, while soaking up the knowledge of instructors who have been there and back, and then gone back again.

Seven days and nights we wager you won't soon forget.

The waters might run high. They might not. The weather might be miserable, or it might be delightful, or it might be both. Just what one would expect from an early spring outing.

We guarantee you adventures will be had. Much learning will be accomplished. And friendships will be forged.