Despite charges, NY guide allowed to keep license

ALBANY -- New York kept the owner of Hudson River Rafting Co. on its list of 2,500 licensed outdoor guides despite two charges against him of reckless endangerment and a dozen other tickets citing his guides with unlicensed white-water trips during the past five years.

That's because New York -- unlike many states, the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service -- regulates the guides themselves, not the companies. That focus, critics say, allows companies to continue operating even when their guides have endangered any of the thousands of outdoors-lovers who engage their services.

And New York rarely revokes the licenses of guides.

In one deadly case this fall, a Columbus, Ohio, woman drowned on one of the company's Adirondack white-water trips, headed by licensed guide Rory Fay, 37. Fay was charged with criminally negligent homicide, accused of rafting drunk when he and client Tamara Blake, 53, were thrown into the rapids of the Indian River on Sept. 27. Her boyfriend was also on the craft.

Meanwhile, owner Patrick Cunningham again faces reckless endangerment charges after he allegedly left a raft of clients he was personally guiding this spring to fend for themselves. The New York attorney general has since shut his rafting business and the state subsequently suspended Cunningham's and Fay's guide licenses.

On a white-water trip just a month earlier, on Aug. 26, 2012, two Hudson River Rafting clients were put into an inflatable kayak when its guided rafts were full. They capsized twice in 15 minutes.

"I began hitting rock after rock in the rapids and suffered significant bruising and cuts to my legs," said Richard Belson in a court affidavit. "At one point I was dragged under the water by the current and had great difficulty getting back to the surface," he said.

Cunningham and his attorney Jason Britt have challenged the court-ordered shutdown but declined several requests to discuss the case. One of the early Adirondack rafting guides, Cunningham has taken thousands of clients down the Hudson in three decades. He and Fay denied the criminal charges. Whitewater kayakers often ride the rapids on their own, without guides.

Blake drowned despite wearing a flotation vest and helmet.

In other parts of the United States, authorities focus on the companies, not the individual guides, according to David Brown, executive director of the American Outdoor Association in Knoxville, Tenn. He predicted New York would change its approach.

New York "regulated the guides, not the companies," Brown said. "The guide can make a mistake. The company can continue to operate. That's a unique situation."

A survey by the Outdoor Foundation showed 3.8 million Americans went rafting in 2011. As many as 5,000 U.S. outfitters provide guide services around the country, ranging from day hikes to weeks-long wilderness adventures.

At San Juan Mountain Guides in Colorado, which has special permits to operate in several national forests and parks, owner and director Nate Disser said there's no state guide certification like New York's, and the company bears the responsibility for what they do.

Brown and several New York outfitters familiar with the Hudson River rafting case said clients should check customer reviews on websites and said recurrent complaints should be a red flag.

TripAdvisor recently showed 28 reviews of Hudson River Rafting Co., with nine saying their trip was excellent and 17 saying theirs was terrible.