It didn’t take Chris Reeder long to become hooked on rafting, and now the Lewiston native is a member of the U.S. national team.
Some people join the Navy to see the world. Chris Reeder hopped aboard a raft.

And since he enlisted with the men’s U.S. National Rafting Championship team, the Lewiston native has been criss-crossing the globe for the past two years and loving every minute of whitewater excursions to exotic places.

“It’s a perfect excuse for me to travel to the best rivers in the world,” said Reeder, who makes his home in Vail, Colo., where he and his wife, Lisa, own and operate their whitewater rafting business – Timberline Tours – the third largest outfit in Colorado.

He also started another small business and called it Mongo Products, which manufactures safety harnesses and throw bags for other guides.

In 1987, “Mongo,” Reeder’s nickname based on the Alex Karris character in the movie Blazing Saddles’, went west to attend the University of Colorado. He never left the state. The 35-year-old outdoorsman eventually became a guide and a member of the Vail Mountain Ski Patrol.

“I moved out here and started guiding,” said Reeder, who has always been an avid outdoorsman since his canoe trips down the Allagash River and family hikes up Mt. Washington.

“I took a guide training course with a rafting company.We have adapted to getting close to the outdoors. I am pretty deeply rooted here.”

Welcome aboard

Reeder has been a paddler all his life and never thought about jumping ship to guide a raft like he does for the U.S. National Rafting champions.

Canoes had always been his forte. He never gave it much thought of handling the guide stick of a raft.

But when he accompanied his wife, Lisa, a member of the women’s national team, to the Zambezi River in Zambia for a competition, the Lewiston native knew he wanted permission to come aboard.

“I felt like I missed the boat,” said Reeder. “When we got home, I started putting out feelers and looking for teams.”

He joined the two-time defending champion men’s national team and it’s been down river ever since. And he’s not about to abandon this ship.

“The hardest thing (about rafting) is the environment is so demanding,” said Reeder. “River rapids are always changing and unpredictable.

“The hardest thing there is training so hard and you can flip and the race is over.”

In August, Reeder and his team will be competing in the nationals at Gore Canyon in Colorado. He is certainly familiar with that river. He steers up to 35 groups of paddlers in the right direction there each year.

Last year, the U.S. national team traveled to the Czech Republic to compete against 33 countries in the World Cup, where the team took fourth place.

But the U.S. team isn’t satisfied with their fourth-place finish and hopes to improve when the team travels to the next World Cup event in Ecuador in 2005. In the Worlds, there are three events where each team earns points.

In the sprint portion, rafters duel for 300 yards down a fast-moving river. The teams move on to compete in the slalom competition where gates hang above the rapids. The final event features teams going head-to-head for a 10-mile race.

“It’s like any other sport,” said Reeder. “The team trains together and we have tryout times together.”

Staying put

Reeder won’t be pulling his roots in Colorado and heading home to Maine anytime soon.

` He enjoys the challenge of earning a living as an outdoorsman who can’t stay out of the woods or off the river. He never gets tired of his job where his work environment has no windows and office cubicles don’t exist.

“It’s just so fun for me to show them my office,” said Reeder.

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