In a few weeks, ECHO begins its 35th year of running rivers. Like a river, ECHO is ever the same and ever changing. The same owners walk through the office front door every day, the same way the Middle Fork of the Salmon, the Rogue, and the Tuolumne keep on flowing.

Yet, we know both man and river are ever changing, and there in lies the excitement and magic. We are excited by the young-bloods who surround ECHO these days, and they, in turn, are excited by rivers that offer up different water levels, new rapids, and new challenges.

We have seen a lot in 35 years–forest fires, floods, droughts, and even a volcano erupting. Our trips have been influenced by human events too–the gas embargo of the ’70’s, inflation and deflation in the ’70’s and ’80’s, the Falkland war, the Gulf war, 9/11, the Afghan war, and the Iraqi war. But somehow we keep rolling along.

We are beginning a special season, and we look forward to spending some river time with you. It has been a great ride, and it is going to be a great ride.

The U.S. Tour Operators Association has just come out with its hot spots destinations for 2006, and we are proud to say once again Idaho is not on that list. While millions and millions of Americans will be crowding into Las Vegas, Orlando, New York, and Los Angeles, ECHO guests who will be going down the Middle Fork of the Salmon will have the benefit of easy airport access, easy connections, and easy car rental locations. They also will have beautifully clear air, lovely campsites along the river, low humidity, and quiet nights for sleeping under the stars.

Let others jam into a “Disneyesque” scene, while you head off to experience the real thing in the land of free flowing rivers.

We’ve recently made several improvements to our photo site. The biggest is the ability to order a CD with all of the pictures of your trip for just $40. To do this, simply login to you Photo Site account, click the “order CD,” and follow the directions to pay securely with your credit card.

We added the photo site last year so that our guests could stay in contact after their trip and share their digital photos. We send an ECHO digital camera on most of our trips so that every trip will have pictures. Viewing and downloading full quality pictures on the photo site is free.

We have a limited number of long sleeved ECHO shirts available with a fun new logo. This is a 100% organic cotton shirt made by the Beneficial T’s branch of Patagonia.

We have all sizes (S-XXL) available in white as well as sizes XL and XXL in a fun gray. The shirt costs $26 which includes tax and shipping to anywhere in the US. To order one, just give us a call at (800) 652-3246 during normal business hours with a credit card, or send us a check to ECHO River Trips, 6529 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA 94609.

Just in time for the holidays, we are offering gift certificates for our river trips. You can purchase one for a specific dollar amount or you can cover the amount of an entire trip.

Gift certificates make nice gifts for family, friends, and co-workers. We can send them to you or directly to the participant in time for Christmas.

We have been discussing retro designs here at ECHO World Headquarters for the past few weeks as we come up fresh designs for our ECHO gear (cups, hats, shirts, etc). Dick trumped all of us by bringing in the very first ECHO t-shirt ever. Truly retro!

There will be limited number of long sleeved organic cotton t-shirts available the second week of December with our “new retro design” (not the one shown here) just in time for the holidays.

This is a miraculous story! Dick’s Apple laptop flew off his motorcycle on the freeway last week. We all considered it gone and took it to the Apple Store to see if a “Genius” could get all of the data off of the hard drive. At the store, Zach pressed the on key and the laptop turned on as if nothing happened. Everyone at the store couldn’t believe it actually worked.

Everything works (including DVD drive, monitor, and hard drive) except for the built in keyboard and mouse. This computer is still being used, but is just a little less portable.

A new web page look for the 2006 season was launched today. We hope that the new page is easier to use, has a better feel, and the fonts are easier to read.

In October, we will update the blog page as well as information about our International trips for 2006.

We’ve just finished our 2006 calendar and have set the dates and prices for our 2006 river trips. You can view them at: Rogue Availability, Tuolumne Availability, and Middle Fork of the Salmon Availability.

Special trips in the works are the ever popular Wine, Bluegrass, and DeRiemer Kayak trips as well as a Gourmet Food trip with the Master Chef and Owner of Citron Restaurant in Oakland.