Most of our group opted for river boards -- kind of like boogie boarding, but with thicker boards that have handles, and you gear up in wetsuits and fins and zip along through the rapids. Want an intense experience of the Deschutes? Try the river boarding. I kept to the raft, which was fantastic. Owner/Guide Randy Nathan is very knowledgeable of each set of rapids, local history, and just a very friendly and fun guy to chill with on the river. Solid equipment, helpful people, very friendly and flexible. Great guide. read more

Randy the Owner is the Man! Boarding down the Deschutes is quite different from rafting down. It's even more fun! I went with a group of ten friends and we had a blast! Equipment was in good shape and on a warm day it makes for the perfect outdoor activity! N8TV Adventures is legit! read more

Over the past six years, we have been River boarding with an N8TV with Randy, on the Deshutes River and the Whitehorse Rapid The Deshutes is a beautiful river, and with Randy's unique access through the Indian reservation made it a most spectacular river boarding trip. The river is quite wide, has deep water in most of the areas, and offers spectacular vistas of the surrounding hills and canyons. Going down the river, Randy got us through some moderate size rapids, to get us prepared for the challenges ahead, Once we arrived at the Whitehorse Rapids, we felt comfortable with the river boards. We enjoyed an exhilarating late the up-and-down thrilling ride through the rapids. We expected riverboarding to be a lot more terrifying, once in the water and able to move around on the board, we felt very secure and were able to enjoy the rapids! Randy not only provides great advice about the movements of the rivers in terms of the water lines and the eddies, but he also gave us a lot of insider tips about how to best run different kinds of rapids that we found most useful. Furthermore, Randy took pictures along the way, and share these with us, making them available at no extra cost. He also explained to us about the area's history, different plants, animals as well as sharing his hunting, fishing and guiding stores from over the years that has made for days of entertainment over the years. Based upon several trips with Randy over the past six years, we strongly recommend River boarding on the Deshutes, given his unique access, and the thrill of riding the Whitehorse Rapids. read more

Been on a several rafting trips across the US and comparing this trip to those. This outfit was by far the most unorganized place ever. The place is a total dive that looks like it should be posted on an episode of hoarders. We got there about a half hour early; they didn't start until about an hour until after we were supposed to leave. They didn't have gas in the vehicles they were running customers around in. As soon as we did get our hour late start, we had to stop to get gas. The staff was there the entire time we were waiting. Someone could have gone and filled up on fuel while we were waiting instead of having to wait again. The guides weren't friendly and were awkward in their communication. At one point, I asked our guide if we were about half way done, he simply said "no." I waited.... Finally another guide said we are actually about 3/4 of the way done. There were several of these smart answers given to me and the group throughout the day by him. Oh yeah, and he was the owner of the company. When you spend that much of your day paying to hang out with someone, you expect to have them at least be personable- at least not rude. It was a low-budget operation, that I overall would not recommend. To end on a positive note- The river was beautiful, though. It was a peaceful, relaxing day and the scenery was breathtaking. I'd hands-down recommend the trip, just with a different outfit. read more

My family went to the Kah-nee-ta resort near Warm Springs, OR for Memorial Day weekend. They said the river was too cold to do kayaking, but there was this activities stand that was booking kayaking trips out on Lake Simtusus, so we booked that. Overall we enjoyed the trip: the people were nice, the kayaks in good condition, and the lake was beautiful. However there were things about the business practices that compared relatively unfavorably to other such vendors we have used for other trips. 1. The lady who booked the trip with us asked if we could escort 2 other guests staying at the Kah-nee-ta resort to the kayak staging area. We've never been asked to do a vendor's shuttling for them. It seemed odd that they would want us to open our vehicle up to total strangers. Not that we wouldn't want to if they were nice people, but still. 2. We were told to show up at 1pm at the staging area, which we did, but we didn't actually end up leaving for the lake until almost 2pm. We like to pack a lot of activities into our vacation, so the extra waiting around was a little disappointing. 3. Three of the guides we had seemed to be minors, as far as I could tell from their appearance, behavior, and demanor. Nice kids, but if you had the interactions we had with them, "trained and certified professional" would not be the phrase that would come to mind. The man in charge, however, seemed much better in that regard. I believe he was the owner. 4. All those were relatively minor issues and I wouldn't write a review about just them. The only thing that really concerned me was the Chevy Suburban used to escort us to the lake. The fact that it was old and dirty didn't really bother me, and kind of seemed consistent with the rest of our experience. The 2 broken windows weren't that big of a deal either, nor the smell of either oil, fuel, or exhaust that seemed to hang around the back seat. The thing that had me a little tense was the lack of any working seatbelts, especially for my 2 young kids. It was about a 25-minute drive to the lake from the staging area, and about a 45-minute drive from the lake back to our resort (my mom had driven our van back to the resort from the staging area). Besides other vehicles to crash into, there appear to be hundreds of wild horses running around this reservation (which is great), but if just one of them had run across the road and hit our vehicle head on, someone (besides the horse) would likely have been kiilled. I imagine being on the reservation this operation is excluded from the usual safety and liability concerns that are standard practice with other vendors off the reservation. read more