Whitewater Rafting Terms 101
Dinner Conversations
If you’ve ever popped into a river town with good whitewater, you will notice that everything is about the river. The names of food items will be names of rapids and river features. The name of restaurants will be river related. All the people will be talking about the river. Dinner conversations quickly become overwhelming when all anyone is talking about what happened using river terms. For example, “Huge hole they got surfed in” or the “tube stand that Billy did in Satan’s Slide”. We’re going to try and clear up some of this chaos for you. We created a little index of some of the most common whitewater terms you will hear.

Obstruction in the River
Eddy – Eddies form behind any feature that causes an obstruction in the river. Water must then move upstream to fill in the space created by the obstruction. Most commonly, eddies are found behind rocks. But eddies can also be found on the inside of turns at the bottom of a rapid. Eddies can be 1 foot wide or as big as a football field. On the Grand Canyon, there are 300 foot wide powerful eddies. Eddies are usually very helpful for waiting. You can essentially wait in in an eddy for others to arrive. This is common if you want to make sure people get through a rapid or feature safely. However, an eddy can also mess with your angle or do a number of things to get you off your line.
Eddy Line/Fence- Eddy Lines/Fences form where the upstream current meets the main downstream current. This is very turbulent water as the currents are flowing against each other.
Eddy Out – Eddying out refers to pulling into an eddy in order to set safety, scout a rapid, take a break, or simply pull over.
Ferry Angle – The ferry angle is the angle of your boat that you are holding within the river. This is an important topic to master early in your whitewater career.
Throw Bag – Rescue tool consisting of 75 feet of rope in a bag. Used to pull swimmers out of dangerous river features.
A groover is handled with care
Groover – Most rivers do not have outhouses along the way. As a result you are required to pack out all solid human waste. The groover is a common term for the box containing all the solid human waste for a trip. As one can imagine, the groover is handled with great care.

Pourover – Pourovers form when a shallow amount of water passes over a rock in the river, resulting in a steep drop, often forming a hydraulic (defined below) just below the rock. These can be steep, violent features that usually should be avoided. If you find yourself going over a large pourover, brace yourself.
Lateral Wave – Lateral waves are basically waves that are at an angle to the downstream current. To pass through a lateral wave, generally, adjust your angle of the raft and “T up” the wave.
Water passes over a rock
Hydraulic/Hole – Like a wave, a hole forms as water passes over a rock, with the difference being that holes are breaking. Holes are generally avoided. Depending on their size, these features can flip rafts.
Strainers – When logs, branches, ropes, nets, etc. fall into the river, water is able to pass through them, but objects are not able to pass through, creating what is known as a strainer (think of pasta strainer, and rafts or people are the pasta). Strainers are some of the most hazardous features on a river and are to be avoided at all costs.
Scout – Pulling over to either side of the river above a rapid in order to take a look at the rapid to identify which line to take and which hazards to avoid.
Highside – Highsiding refers to act of moving all of the weight on the boat to one side of the boat to prevent a boat from wrapping or flipping. In general, all weight should go to the “high side” of the boat.
Wrap around a rock
Wraps – Wraps occur when a raft hits a rock sideways causing the downstream of the boat to ride up on the rock, and the upstream tube will get pushed down. If enough water is pushing on the upstream tube, the boat can wrap around a rock which causes the boat to get very stuck.
Dump Truck – Everyone falls out of the boat, but the boat does not flip.
Bus Stop – Everyone falls out of the boat, except the guide, but the boat does not flip.

Sneak Line – Avoiding the main features of a rapid, often by sneaking far on the right or left of the river.
Swimmer – A person who has fallen out of a boat is called a swimmer.
Wave Train – A sequence of waves in a row. Usually, wave trains are good to run, but occasionally there is a breaking wave somewhere in the wave train that can cause problems.
T up – To hit something with the correct angle is called “T-ing up”. This is a crucial skill, and is very important trying to pass through a lateral wave. As you are dropping into pretty much any feature on the river, it’s important to have the correct angle, which is usually to hit it straight on.
Carrying your boat
Portage – Carrying your boats/gear around a rapid to avoid running a dangerous hazard. Portaging can involve carrying gear or using ropes to line boats.
Boof – Going over a drop and landing flat in your kayak.
Volume of a river
CFS – Acronym for Cubic Feet per Second. This is how the volume of a river is measured. In metric countries, they use cubic meters per second.
River Right/Left – When describing anything on a river, direction is always on the assumption you are facing down river. So a wave train on river right, refers to the righthand side of the river, even if you are downstream of it looking up.
Tube Stand – After hitting a large feature, a raft may come close to flipping, but can sometimes end up staying upright. As a result an effective high side can prevent a boat from flipping and lead to an epic tube stand.

Surfing – Certain waves/holes have the ability to stop a raft in its tracks, but not cause a boat to flip over. Boats can get stuck in the recirculating water and without active highsiding, will often flip/swim everyone in a boat. Surfing is often done intentionally as it’s quite fun.

Haystack – A large breaking wave will often have water splashing up which can be seen from upstream. These are usually pretty powerful waves.

Wave – There are a lot of ways that waves can form in the river, but to make it as simple as possible, waves typically form as water passes over a rock.


About Our Partner
In 2020, Matt Volpert, Byron Roos-Collins, and Augie Houlemard joined together to form GoRafting.com. The three launched the project to publish detailed whitewater rafting and kayaking guidebooks for rivers around the globe. By pairing extensive professional guiding and expedition experience with help from industry partners, the GoRafting.com team has created modern guidebooks for many popular rivers. Whitewater excursions, whether single-day or multi-day, involve a significant amount of variables to be run safely, efficiently, and enjoyably. These are the factors that have driven the clear, and information-filled design of Gorafting’s guidebooks. The team is thrilled to partner with FarOut to take their guidebooks offline, and to join FarOut’s expansive community of backcountry enthusiasts. Augie, Byron, and Matt spend most of their free time on river trips—say hello if you see them on the water!