Note: Please read—this background information is important to your understanding of this survey.

Back in the mid-1990s, a few intrepid river guides initiated an outfitter pay and benefit survey which entailed sending out about 400 questionnaires, mountains of data entry, and a couple years to complete. The results appeared in the Fall 1997 issue of the bqr. Many guide comments from this summer’s gcrg ballot suggested implementing another survey of this type. You spoke and we listened. River guides are the very reason for this organization’s existence and the driving force behind our policy decisions. So often we concern ourselves with the health of the resource, and rightly so, but in this case, the “resource” is the guides themselves and their immense value to Grand Canyon and the commercial river industry. Consequently, gcrg has conducted a new guide and benefit survey, but with a few distinct differences from the previous survey:
1) This new effort is not a wide sampling, but rather a sharply focused survey based on information gathered primarily by members, a few other key individuals, and the outfitters themselves. Whenever the information has been guide-generated, we have attempted to verify that information with the relevant outfitter. The spreadsheet below indicates whether results have been verified or not. We strongly caution that any information not verified by an outfitter is subject to errors and gaps.
2) This information was gathered and published in a matter of months rather than years because wage scale and benefit information can so rapidly become obsolete. The quick turn-around time for this survey will ensure that information is current and accurate for this point in time, when outfitter verified.
3) This survey is anonymous with no outfitter identifiers (no company names, no user days). We have retained motor and oar identification only because the differences in pay scales directly relate to the amount of work each type of trip entails. The purpose of this current survey is to show a range of pay and benefits that exist in the world of commercial guiding in Grand Canyon. Please note that we have not been able to obtain information from all companies (roughly two-thirds), but certainly enough to provide a feeling for the general range available to working guides.
4) We have included nps wages and benefits for comparison. However, please remember that the Park works off grant money and taxpayer dollars, and is not subject to profitability. We only include them to broaden the range of what’s out there-not as any direct comparison to outfitter wages and benefits.
5)We have streamlined the survey questions to focus on a few key areas. Tangible and intangible benefits have been retained in this survey because they truly help to provide a more accurate and balanced picture of valuable advantages offered to working guides in Grand Canyon that supplement wages.

As we mentioned, the purpose of this survey is to show a general range of the wages and benefits available to guides. However, there are some distinct variables and qualifiers at work here that can directly affect this information and how you perceive it. This listing includes (but is not limited to) the following factors:
•Wage scales have been simplified for ease of dissemination, but they can actually be quite complex.
•Outfitters may approach their wage scales differently depending on variables like years of experience, number of trips, years of service and/or number of trips with that particular company, etc...
•An economy of scale may come into play (larger companies may have more resources, for example).
outfitters who provide motor trips pay all guides on the boat while others may pay only one guide (which allows them to pay at a higher rate).
•The number of boats on a trip affects the number of personnel (paid and unpaid) needed to successfully run the trip.
•Some companies pay for the rig and de-rig days. Others don’t.
•Not all companies have a wage per day-some guides are salaried. •Some guides do their own food-packing where others contract it out.
•Some outfitters offer end-of-season bonuses and/or profit sharing, while others do not.
post-trip meals are sometimes provided by outfitters, but not always.
•Some outfitters pay for various training sessions, while others do not.
• Worker’s Compensation is always provided for paid employees and is part of an outfitter’s overhead.

Our desire is that this survey will prove beneficial to river guides in Grand Canyon by enabling them to clearly see where they stand in relation to the rest of the community. This project may also prove useful to commercial river outfitters as well-seeing what other companies do differently may prompt information sharing and initiate productive dialogue. Overall, Grand Canyon River Guides would like to emphasize the positive with this survey as a useful tool for guides and outfitters alike, and we offer it for your review in that spirit. Lynn Hamilton