International river guide training

Industry-Leading Instructors

Each course is run by some of the most experienced river guides in the industry and will fast track your development, confidence, and guiding skills on the water and provides the perfect fundamentals to further develop a river based guiding career.

Past IRGT participants now work all over the world in at least 13 countries as river guides, and IRGT is run in a number of countries including across Asia, US and in Europe.

(Previous instructors include Himalayan legend Gerry Moffatt and paddling icon Willie Kern)

Flexible Course Pathways

We offer two IRGT course programs: IRGT ‘day guide’ with the focus on guiding day trips or IRGT ‘expedition guide’ with the additional content and knowledge to guide multi day expeditions.

The expedition river guide course is our most comprehensive course and as such includes remote multiday river expeditions as part of this river-based training course.

Comprehensive Curriculum

The curriculum focuses on water safety, technical rafting, team leadership, and multi-day expedition planning and includes content as listed below:

• Personal White Water Rafting Skills & Training
• Raft Construction, Equipment Maintenance & Repair
• Safety Briefs, Pre-Planning, Risk Assessments and Emergency Procedures
• Communication and Signals
• Himalayan Hydrology and Navigation
• Principles of River Rescue and River Safety
• Scouting and Portaging Rivers
• Raft Flips, Pins and Rescue Techniques
• Remote First Aid, Casualty Management
• Incident Management
• Expedition Planning and Considerations
• Wilderness Camping and Cooking
• Leadership and Team Management

Certification & Assessment

On completion of this course participants are individually assessed and graded for guide competency on the river, according to the International Scale of River Difficulty (Class I- VI) to ensure they can safely pursue the next appropriate employment or learning opportunity on course completion. Participants will be certified by IRGT Training Directors on this basis at a presentation at the end of the course.

In addition to this all participants complete their Rescue 3 International ‘Whitewater Rescue Technician -Professional’ certification as part of the IRGT certification process.