White water rafting may only be available during the summer but we can experience it year round through movies. Many journeys throughout history and books take place travelling down river, from Lewis & Clark to Huckleberry Finn, there are many adventures and life lessons that take place there.
These movies may not splash you in the face as you dip into a rapid, but they do give you the convenience of sitting at home on the couch with a bowl of hot popcorn and a story to experience along a river.
The River Wild (1994)
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, The River Wild is about Gail (Meryl Streep), an experienced river guide and her husband, Tom (David Strathman), who take their family on a rafting trip along the Salmon River in Idaho and come across two “inexperienced” rafters, one of which is Wade (Kevin Bacon). The two men hitch a ride with them to meet up with their friends downriver when Gail and Tom realize they’ve made a horrible mistake—they’ve taken on two armed robbers.
This is a great movie for learning what to and what not to do when you accidentally invite criminals on your family vacation in the wilderness.
White Water Summer (1987)
Hopefully you like Kevin Bacon because he is also in White Water Summer. Here, Vic (Kevin Bacon) is an experienced guide that takes four friends on an adventure in the wilderness for a coming of age sort of tale. One of the boys, Alan (Sean Astin), doesn’t appreciate Vic’s life lessons he’s teaching them and pushes back. With each push back, Vic tries to drill them harder and ends in Vic breaking his leg.
A lesson in humility, Dan and Vic must figure out a way to get down the mountain and find help.
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
This is a jazz-age fairy tale, is one of Disney’s first showcases of a black, female protagonist set in New Orleans. Tiana is a young woman looking to fund a restaurant that she wants to open and is tricked into kissing a frog Prince, Naveen, to get the cash she needs. Turns out he is broke and she is turned to a frog herself. Tiana and Naveen escape to the bayou and go on a journey down river to find a voodoo priestess to turn them back into humans. They befriend an alligator and lightning bug along the way.
While this isn’t exactly white water rafting, two little frogs on a tiny raft is comparable to humans in on one in a river. And who doesn’t like a heart-warming Disney movie with plenty of sing-a-longs?
At Wilderness Aware Rafting our passion is rafting and rivers. If you’re interested in whitewater rafting in Colorado, or Salt River whitewater rafting, browse our white water rafting trips for more information.
