I have a group of friends who do hiking trips together every few years, and this year we picked…read moreMorrisons Rogue River hike with support from guides on rafts. Booking the trip was relatively straightforward, but Morrisons highly encouraged us to do trip insurance because they don't offer refunds, which should've been the first red flag.
Before I go too far, I do want to give a huge shout out to our guides Drew, Adam, and Johnny. They were amazing, and if I were rating just them, this review would be 5++ stars. They were friendly, knowledgeable, helpful, and genuinely cared about us and our hike.
The rest of the Morrison's staff...not so much. There was an active wildfire in the area before we started the hike. We talked to Morrison's several times in the days leading up to the trip (before we flew out) and even asked about rebooking the trip for a different time, when the forest in the area wasn't on fire. We were assured that even though they were planning a few modifications to our itinerary (i.e. at least one day of rafting instead of hiking), they were confident that it would be a wonderful trip. Fast forward to the end of day 2 of our trip...and they had to cancel the rest of the 4-day hike due to safety concerns and, ultimately, a mandatory evacuation.
To be clear, I'm not upset that we were pulled out of the woods, as that was an obvious safety decision. I'm mad because we specifically asked about rebooking for different dates and were told no. Morrison's got us back to their main lodge the following morning, at which point they considered themselves done with us. There was no refund, no help finding rooms for the night, and the last lodge we were in literally wouldn't even let us use the bathroom in the hour we were waiting for vans to get us back to safety. Morrison's did at least send us all an official email about the trip cancellation so that we could share that with our travel insurance (if we'd purchased it) to try to get a refund, but that was about it. Morrisons also made the guides tell us, rather than having anyone higher up in the company talk to us. From what we can tell, they also didn't do anything to help their guides (e.g. helping them find lodging) once the trip was canceled.
I will also add that I'm vegetarian, and although there was a lot of very tasty vegetarian food available, vegetarian protein was extremely scarce. For dinner the two nights we hiked (~9 mi on day 1 and 15 mi on day 2), there was no source of vegetarian protein for me to eat. (The gluten free and dairy free people fared much better.) It would've been so easy to roast a portobello mushroom the way they roasted salmon, or to do some kind of meat substitute when they did ribs (they did have meat substitute at the lunches, and eggs or veggie patties at breakfast). I had brought some protein powder with me, but not enough to make up for dinners without protein. My friends ended up giving me the protein bars they'd brought for themselves to try to make up for the dinners. To Morrison's: please consider all macronutrients (carbs, fat, AND protein) when planning meals for your guests!
Overall, I would absolutely go back to the river with any of the guides, but I'll never use Morrisons again, and I recommend that you don't either.
