Great guides good times - Hade a great day out on the river our guide Brooks was very knowledgeable about the area and knew the river well. My daughters 9 and 13 loved it. Highly recommend this trip for a fun day out on the river.

Spectular day for adventure - Ernie and Cody were our zip guides. They were funny and nice. Made everyone feel comfortable and safe. Robby rafting was 👍 great 👍 two thumbs up for the day. I highly recommend and will return.

Wild rapids ride! - We were a family group of 6. My wife and I had a grandson of 9 years, niece of 8, and two nephews 10 and 14. The river was high. Our guide (very experienced) took me aside and let me know he was going to make sure we kept the youngest two in the raft. The rapids were great - class 3 and 4 - and he held us together. The grandson was quite frightened, but Sean kept reassuring him and he made it through. Sean was assigned to us for a reason and he came through. Great guides, friendly people, great experience.

I will be back! - We had a great time on our first rafting trip. The staff/employees from making the reservation, the checkin at the outpost and tour guides were fantastic, knowledgeable and friendly. Safety is a priority for this team here in Buena Vista which is appreciated for first timer rafters. Our trip was approx. 10 miles down Browns canyon and so much to see but don’t bring your phones as you may loose then and you are required to be paddling so no time for pictures. They did have some helmets that weee equipped to mount a Go Pro if you are so inclined. I suggest purchasing the photo package at time of your reservation to save $15 from the cost of purchasing at the outpost after. This trip is for everyone who loves the outdoors and adventure. I will be back!

Family Fun! - Will was a great guide for our boat of 8 people! Half of our group had never been white water rafting, so it was a perfect Class 2/3 introduction for them. We all had a blast!

Awesome Float - Erico was awesome... great company and trip..4th time using them.. highly recommend this experience in Colorado

Small vacation get away before school starts - Brandon was our guide was amazing made our experience amazing first time ever being whitewater rafting and we enjoyed it. We stopped and ate lunch at a picnic area where Brandon cooked us some fajitas, white rice and black beans. My kids loved the food. It was my daughters 18th birthday and she had a blast. The water was cold but we had the best time ever. Thanks again Brandon!!!

Beautiful scenery, fun afternoon - Had a fantastic day - fun time on the river, lunch was wonderful. Kat did a great job as our guide. Thank goodness they provide a wetsuit and splash jacket - that water was cold!

Great time on water - logistical and organizational nightmare off the water! - Our time on the water was pretty amazing - we had fun rafting, had experienced whitewater guides, saw beautiful scenery, and saw some pretty rare animals. Our time on the river makes this two stars - everyone else was garbage. Off the water, our experience was an organizational nightmare. We loaded into a van with six kids and six adults. No one had a functional seatbelt - our guides and driver said "None of our vans have seatbelts - no worries it's just a quick trip away". Not sure what counts as a quick trip, but 30 minutes at 65 mph on a two land highway is not a safe, quick trip in my mind. A few miles down the road in our seatbelt-less van, our driver pulls over, tells us something is wrong with the van and to get out of the van and go far away from the van. No other details. We proceed to hike up the hill next to highway and watch while our guides frantically try to get cell service and start running up the highway. Come to find out we've run out of gas. After a 15ish minute wait in the hot sun (wearing long pants wetsuits, long sleeve splash jackets, and our PFD), a new van pulls up. The guides say we can start loading while they transfer the rafts over, but then the guides stop and just wait some more. Another 15 minutes goes by and a third van pulls up. Turns out the second van had bad breaks! The guides proceed to transfer the rafts, we all load up (some of the seatbelts work, but not all). As we are pulling out, the driver that brought the third van yells to our driver "This is the van with the broken gas gauge, make sure to fill it up at lunch." By the way, these vans are the same vans used by their sister company Peak One Express in the winter months to transport folks from Summit County to DIA - not the kind of van I want to be in on a snowy day on I-70! We finally push off from the river at 11:00 am, our check-in time was 8:45 am. At lunch time (12:45), we stop at Hecla Junction for what is supposed to be a tasty meal of fajitas. We all get out of the raft and sit down at the picnic tables while our guides start pulling out equipment and ingredients. Then they walk over the boat ramp parking and are talking on their phones. They come back and said there has been a change of plans and they can't make lunch here so we'll have to head back to the outpost for lunch, but they have snacks (one small bag of chips for 12 people and some orange and apple slices). Good thing that we brought along our own bag of snacks that they told us we wouldn't need because a great lunch would be provided for us. On of the people in our party was told by the guides that the ranger told them they weren't allowed to use gas at that pullout - how does a rafting company who guides this river many times a day not know this? 35 minutes later we get back on the river for the last two miles of our trip. We ride back to the outpost (45 minute trip). During which the guide tells the driver not to talk about the mishaps when we get back to the outpost and not to make a big deal about it. Once back at the outpost, our guides unpack everything, get our wetsuits squared away and then make us a fajita lunch (reheated chicken slices, reheated rice, peppers and onions). We finally sit down to eat lunch at 3:30 pm. After lunch, one of the folks behind the front desk apologies for the mishaps and the missing seatbelts and how it was completely unacceptable. They say they would like to give us a full refund, but have to wait until management is back in the office. The next morning we return for a Via Ferrata trip (which our group did greatly enjoy and had vans with seatbelts!). We're told that they are still waiting on management, but will have an answer for us at the end. Three hours later, we still don't have an answer, but that we're waiting for Sales to get back to us ("you know how Sales is, they just like to talk and don't actually listen") and that it's been elevated to the CEO. The front desk staff apologizes again and says they went down the mechanics shop last night to get their act together (because apparently another trip had a vehicle issue the day before as well). We wait about another 45 minutes and they tell us we should go ahead and leave and Sales will get back to us, but that we won't be getting a refund because we continued with the trip. Oh and by the way, our guides lied to us the day before (and/or lied to Front Desk staff) because Front Desk staff says we didn't get lunch on the river because the guides forgot the pans to cook the fajitas - who know which story is accurate. After waiting hours for a call from Sales, we are told that Front Desk staff is wrong, no full refund, but only a 25% refund because we went through with the trip (like we had an option when they've left us stranded on the side of the road and kept us hungry until 3:30.... Additionally, to be aware, the Browns Canyon Sizzler is not actually that much more than the half day trip. The half day trip gets you 10 miles of rafting. The Sizzler Full Day trip adds on 2 additional miles with only 2 additional Class III rapids plus a "free" lunch. For an extra $50 per person, it's totally not worth it. For a six hour trip, we spent about 2 hours and 15 minutes in the water. So while our rafting experience itself was great (but shorter than we expected), the organizational ability and honesty of this company leaves much to be desired.

Unsafe/broken vans, terrible logistics, but good rafting - Browns Canyon is beautiful and the rafting is great for families, but please choose _any other_ outfitter besides AVA. Our party of 12 (6 middle school-aged kids and their adults) booked the Summer Sizzler as the cap on a Colorado camping adventure week, but unfortunately we had a lot more misadventures. We experienced an organizational clown show and an indifferent admin that seemed unable or unwilling to make it better when their mistakes kept piling on. Our summer sizzler trip started with the van not having functional seat belts, and the guide casually saying "oh, none of our vams have seat belts". After a few miles in the van, we ran out of gas. We waited with the kids about 15 minutes by the side of a busy highway in the hot sun (in our wet suits and PFDs!) while the hapless guides tried to run up the road until they could get a cell signal. When the rescue van came, we couldn't use it because it had bad brakes. The 3rd van that came worked, but it also lacked seat belts. [ These same dodgy vans are also used by Peak 1 Transportation in the winter to Breckenridge, so avoid them too! ] If this is a company that puts "safety first," as I was told, nobody mentioned that to their van mechanics. We were excited about the planned riverside hot lunch of grilled fajitas. After we pulled out at Hecla Junction, the guides started to make lunch...and then stopped. I have heard a few different reasons why, but the story kept changing and I'm still not clear why this happened. Back onto the river without lunch! We ended up not getting lunch until back at their office at 3 pm. Even with our late arrival, they still didn't have our river trip pictures ready. Given the compounding series of mistakes, I was expecting an apologetic arrival back at the office, likely with food and refunds ready. That did not happen. They didn't seem too concerned about the cascading series of logistical fiascos, even though the office staff knew all about it. When I eventually asked to speak with a manager, they were apologetic and pledged to help, but they weren't authorized to do any refunds, and the back office guy who could make things happen didn't call me back for over 24 hours (even though we were back at AVA the next morning for another pre-booked outing) and then made only very weak attempts to make things right. I'm giving 2 stars instead of one because the guides were good on the water, the river and rapids were beautiful, and we saw some great wildlife, but you should choose any of the dozens of other outfitters running this river.