Andy Round

A world class professional whitewater paddler, Andy Round is the lead kayak instructor for Wet Planet. With incredible kayak skills, a friendly, professional demeanor, and an ability to put new techniques into the hands of his students, Andy is in high demand with both kayak students and our rafting guests.

Born in England, Andy first began kayaking 20 years ago, and began paddling whitewater about 16 years ago. By the age of 17, he was tackling class V whitewater in England. At the age of 19 he began traveling and paddling internationally. To date, he has kayaked throughout Europe, Nepal, Costa Rica, Ecuador, New Zealand, Fiji, Mexico, Canada, Tibet, and the US (including Alaska). He has completed 30 first descents (meaning the first to ever paddle a section of river) in Ecuador, England, Tibet, New Zealand, and the French Alps. He has competed in freestyle kayaking and extreme down river racing for roughly 10 years. He was a member of the British freestyle team in 1997-1998 and the British kayak surfing champion in 1996.

In recent years, Andy has been pushing his skills by undertaking several major kayak exploratory expeditions. In the Fall of 2005, he joined a team of paddlers attempting the triple crown of North America. Regarded as the Mount Everest of expedition kayaking, this includes paddling the Alsek, Susitna, and Stikine Rivers. During this expedition, the team paddled the multi-day Devils canyon of the Susitna at the highest known flow that it had ever been attempted. He followed this expedition with another major undertaking in Tibet in 2006. During that trip, Andy and a group of international paddlers explored the rivers of Tibet, completing numerous first descents. One of those was the first descent of the Upper Bhote Kosi, a canyon that had been explored for the past ten years and never run. The team also paddled the Rong Bok river, beginning at 5200 meters at the Everest base camp, making them the only team in the world to have paddled from both the north and south sides of Everest. One of the kayaks from their trip is on display in the LiquidLogic museum.

Andy's career with raft guiding and kayak instruction began as a kayak instructor for a large outdoor center in England. A BCU certified whitewater kayak instructor, he has spent the past ten years teaching kayaking, guiding rafts, and safety kayaking in England, Austria, Ecuador, and the United States. During this time, he spent much of his time working for a program teaching mentally and physically disabled children to kayak, canoe, rock climb, sail, and cave.

Although Andy and Todd crossed paths while kayaking in Ecuador, they did not actually meet until they were both in White Salmon, Washington. Todd was starting Wet Planet and Andy was looking to continue his work as a raft guide and kayak instructor in the White Salmon valley (he landed there after chasing a girl). Andy is now an invaluable member of the Wet Planet team and frequently lives at the Wet Planet headquarters when he is not traveling. When he is not on the river, he can often be found training for endurance on his road bike or working on his balance on his unicycle in the Wet Planet parking lot.

Currently, Andy claims to have retired from competitive kayaking. He states, "Kayaking is about freedom, competing is not. Being on the river is not a sport for me, it is a way of life." However, anyone that watches him paddle knows that he is still on a mission to master all of the latest freestyle kayaking moves, while his expedition paddling continues to add to the known runnable rivers around the globe.