About
About Pagosa Outside
Pagosa Outside is a family-owned river outfitter and river gear shop in downtown Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
We run guided rafting trips on the San Juan River, whitewater tubing trips, DIY tube rentals, inflatable kayak and SUP rentals, and a shop full of river gear we actually use ourselves.
We’ve been running Pagosa Outside since 2006 and family-owned since 2008. A lot has changed since then. The river still makes the rules.
What hasn’t changed is pretty simple: do the little things well, hire good people, use good equipment, know the river and give guests the kind of day we’d want our own friends and family to have.
Our Story
Pagosa Outside started with a raft guide who had spent most of his 20s chasing rivers around the American West and a recent college graduate trying to figure out what came next.
One of us had a decade of guiding, questionable housing arrangements and an unusually strong opinion about river equipment. The other had a college degree, student loans and enough faith in the idea to help turn it into an actual business.
We began running Pagosa Outside in 2006 and became owners in 2008.
The original goal wasn’t particularly grand. We wanted to run professional river trips in our hometown, build a crew of guides we enjoyed working with and create the kind of river culture we had experienced elsewhere but hadn’t yet seen fully develop in Pagosa Springs.
Then we kept going.
Over the years we’ve guided tens of thousands of guests, raised two daughters, worked with generations of river guides, helped shape Pagosa’s river experience, worked with whitewater manufacturers to improve commercial equipment, participated in efforts to improve the downtown river corridor and spent an unreasonable amount of time studying what the San Juan does at different water levels.
Somewhere along the way, the little river company became part outfitter, part gear shop, part river-information desk and part ongoing experiment in figuring out how to make a day outside work better.
We’re still hands-on. We’re still learning. And we still get excited when the river comes up.
Our Staff
A river company is only as good as the people standing behind the counter, driving the van and sitting on the guide seat.
Our crew is a mix of returning veterans, seasonal river people, photographers, drivers, shop staff and guides who know that doing this job well involves a lot more than simply getting from put-in to takeout.
They learn the river. They learn the gear. They learn the logistics. They notice when somebody needs a smaller PFD, when a family would be happier together, when the weather is changing and when a guest just needs a straightforward answer.
Some have been with us for years. Others show up for a summer and eventually follow the river somewhere else. That has always been part of outfitter life.
What matters is that while they’re here, they become part of the river family
And when you call or walk into the shop, you’re not reaching a distant call center. You’re usually talking to somebody who has loaded the boats, driven the shuttle, photographed the trip, checked the river and helped guests get out the door that same week.
Real people. Real river knowledge. Very few scripts.
MISSION
Our mission is not complicated: make it easier for people to have a really good day outside in Pagosa Springs.
That means professional guides, reliable equipment, thoughtful logistics and honest recommendations.
It means including river shoes when they make the trip better. Taking photos so guests don’t have to risk a phone. Keeping changing rooms and lockers at the shop. Building scheduled tubing shuttles instead of making people wonder when the next ride is coming. Maintaining equipment we trust ourselves.
It also means being willing to say when the river isn’t providing the experience we want to sell.
The San Juan is a natural, free-flowing river. Snowpack, runoff, summer rain and changing channels make every season different. We’ve spent decades learning those changes, and today that knowledge shows up everywhere from the trips we operate to the public Pagosa River Desk and the slightly less respectable Black Hat Hydrology Lab.
We don’t expect guests to notice every little decision behind their day.
In fact, that’s kind of the point.
If everything feels easy, we probably did our job.
Location
Pagosa Outside is located at 350 Pagosa Street in downtown Pagosa Springs, right on Main Street and directly beside the San Juan River corridor.
The whitewater park, Riverwalk, town parks, Hippy Dip hot springs and downtown river access are all right outside our door.
That location shapes the way we operate.
Rafting trips begin and end downtown. Tubing guests finish near the shop instead of waiting wet for a return shuttle. DIY tubers can walk directly to the river and run laps through the downtown corridor. Rental guests can stop in, ask what the river is doing and head out from there.
The building has housed a long list of Pagosa businesses over the decades, and today we share it seasonally with Pagosa Ski Rentals—river gear in summer, ski gear in winter.
For us, 350 Pagosa Street isn’t simply a storefront.
It’s Pagosa's river headquarters.
See You on the River!
You don’t need to know exactly what you want to do before you get here.
Want a short rafting trip? We’ve got one. Want to disappear into Mesa Canyon for half a day? We do that too. Want us to handle the tubing logistics? Book Deluxe. Want a tube and the freedom to figure out your own river day? Grab a rental. Want to paddle a mountain lake, find the right piece of river gear or just ask what the San Juan River is doing today?
Come find us on Main Street. We’ll point you in the right direction.