Famous Grand Canyon boatwoman Georige White was notorious for her “canned food cookouts.” She would put a random selection of canned food items in the drag bag during the day and come into camp and dump the cans on the beach and yell: “Dinner!” Now you have to understand that a can of food in a drag bag gets banged up and usually the label falls off pretty quick in the rough Colorado River water. So Georgie’s guests would meekly walk over to the pile of cans, pick one up and that was dinner (no matter what you got). Only after cracking the can open would they realize that dinner for them on that night in the Grand Canyon was going to be peaches or green beans or olives or tomato soup OR tomato sauce. You get the point …
Here at GCW, we absolutely try to do our best to accommodate the hundreds of different dietary restrictions around now-a-days. We WILL try but you have to understand that a Grand Canyon Whitewater rafting trip is not a catered tour, and our food preparation and storage facilities — at the bottom of Grand Canyon in utter wilderness — are limited.
Our company takes over 1,000 people down the mighty Colorado River annually and we feel like we pack nutritious, hearty camping food that most of our guests do love. A common theme on our guest feedback forms is that people are impressed with the quality of our food: cowboy steaks and potatoes, pancakes, eggs to order, Dutch oven lasagna and sometimes homemade cakes and brownies, just to name a few.
If you have a serious dietary restriction (NOT just a preference or a weight-loss diet) where you feel that you could not safely eat the prepared food in the Canyon, we ask that you do a few things. First of all: please tell us in the office. We need to make note of it so our warehouse/operation crew can try to pack you alternative options. If we know about it here, we can send you an email that details the sort of food that we offer and food that we can pack specifically for you. Second: please be proactive about helping the guides understand and remember your dietary restriction. There are 27 other people on your trip with potentially a multitude of different needs, both dietary and otherwise, so please take an active roll in your own well-being. Offer to help in the kitchen, if the guides are preparing special meals for you. Third: always remember … it is a wilderness adventure! We really do try our best to accommodate dietary restrictions but don’t forget that you’re, in most cases, hundreds of miles away from civilization, roughing it on a crazy rafting adventure.
So please don’t forget the first step: call our office and let us know so we can talk about it. If we don’t know, then we can’t help, so speak up before the trip AND on the river.