Lauren Peterson

Growing up in Nebraska, Lauren was not exposed to camping, or any of the outdoor adventure sports that dominate her life now. Her dad is an avid hunter and fisher, and she spent lots of time in the forest near her house, but there weren’t any outdoor activities that captured her interest. When she went off to college in Lincoln, Nebraska she began to work for the outdoor program there, and immediately fell in love with backpacking, skiing, rock climbing, biking, and especially being on the water. She taught semester-long classes and trip-led adventures for the students, but eventually she decided she wanted to expand her opportunities. In 2017 she left Nebraska for the summer, headed to California, and put herself through guide school.

2017 was a big water year in California which meant that Lauren was exposed to lots of different amazing rivers in California, and the stoke was incredibly high across the state. It was a magical first season, and she was hooked. She came back to California for three seasons, during which she guided the forks of the American, and had the opportunity to paddle the North Stanislaus, the Tuolumne, the Merced, and the notorious class V Cherry Creek. She rode the bus out with Dane Jackson afterward. After California, Lauren headed to Oregon to begin rowing and multi-day guiding on the Klamath and the Rogue. This gave her the opportunity to hone her trip leading skills, and she began to set her sights on a different river, the Colorado river through the Grand Canyon.

This season Lauren will be bouncing back and forth between trips down the Grand Canyon, and working her freshman season with Wet Planet. With her new home base being Portland Oregon, she is incredibly excited to be working for Wet Planet. It will provide such a great opportunity to meet more people near her new home, and to deepen her connection to a river she has already fallen in love with, the White Salmon. She is super excited to run Husum, to share this special place with other locals and folks traveling through, and to keep digging her roots deeper in the Columbia River Gorge and the PNW.