Hyak River Rafting

We were visiting british columbia a month ago and decided to go river rafting. We chose hyak and i’m glad we did. Our guide, beth, was really cool and gave us some unique (fabricated) local insight into the rapids and the surrounding areas. Everyone was super friendly and the scenery was amazing. Despite the low water levels, it was a really enjoyable experience.

Enjoyed going on the best class 4 river rafting tour with Hyak River Rafting down the Thompson river @ Lytton BC pop 1300. It’s my 3^rd time with Hyak & they never disappoint! Staff are always experienced and great & they are rated the best on trip advisor. My favourite part is getting thrown up the air by these powerful rapids as u hang on 4 dear life & scream!!! It’s now a powerful motorized taking u up & down on the roughest rapids.
Very cool seeing the blue coloured Thompson river join the silty coloured Fraser river. Big horn sheep everywhere and cool history of the gold rush era with train tunnels. Our guide was great at telling us stories and jokes along the way. We had a 8 year old boy on our boat with family so it’s totally possible.
We camped at Jade Springs campground with Western theme BBQ organized by Hyak. A great addition to the trip I recommend. It was country style party til late with professional can can dancers.
You got to love camping next 2 a railway track on Fraser canyon with train screaming by every 20 mins & a highway buzzing above u. This campground offers Chinese & Canadian gourmet cuisine. A convenience store with beer anytime before 6. Not sure if it’s real camping but it’s the True Canadiana experience eh & had the greatest time. Bought this on groupon and new it was steal of a great deal! Great time and will be returning next year!

Hyak stole money from me. What else can I say? I tried phoning them just now to find out why they charged my credit card again yesterday when I had my trip (which was already paid-​for) a month ago, and their phone lines only have a Telus recording and no way to leave a message. I sent them an email, which probably won’t even get read until Monday, and will be filing a dispute with MasterCard to get my money back. Shady, shady … AVOID HYAK. Kumsheen is an excellent rafting company instead — I took a group with them once and loved it, and they did not steal from my credit card.
Ironically, before this I would have given Hyak 5 stars, based on taking groups with them several times over the past several years and loving every trip, but this unauthorized and unexplained use of confidential financial information is so egregiously wrong (not to mention illegal) that it undoes all of the good work they had done before.

The job is to review the company AND the experience but there are several factors at play here. First of all the river tends to be high in May/​June so going whitewater rafting in July leaves you with low water but still enjoyable and adventurous especially for beginners or new to rafting.
We arrived at the meeting spot and were greeted by Hyak guides who were friendly, informative, and open. Gave us the info and were required to wear bodysuits which I hated but the water was cold and what can you do? Anyway, the guide we had was Sophie and she made the trip 10x more enjoyable and always with a smile and a little sarcasm. It was informative and we seemed to be smiling and enjoying ourselves way more than the other boats. The trip itself was beautiful including the people along the riverbanks, the whale sighting, and the dreaded «Allyson» pool haunted by a ghost. If you ask Sophie she’ll know what I’m talking about.
Lot’s more to say but have to reiterate that this is Vancouver at it’s greatest. The people at Hyak were from all over the world staying in Vancouver because of the beauty of it’s nature and adding to the beauty of it’s people. It would have gotten 5 stars if not for the low water at this time. Paddles up from Chicago.