Smoky Mountain Outdoors (SMO Rafting) has a long-standing record of providing outstanding whitewater rafting trips in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. We raft on the Pigeon River, one of America's most popular whitewater rafting rivers, near Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
The destination and heart of the rafting action are our Riverside Outpost in Hartford, Tennessee. The Outpost is supported by our Marketing and Reservations divisions which are active in the Smoky Mountain tourism zone.
Seasonally, the Marketing division hires and trains summer interns for real-time face-to-face marketing and brand promotion in the tourism zone of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville. The summer offers a well-rounded approach to the overall tourism picture at the gateway of the most visited National Park in the United States. It is a paid internship. Spaces are limited, so apply early!
SMO Rafting has a longstanding tradition of training great river guides. Over the past two decades, we have trained hundreds of guides, many of whom have continued on to other rivers both in the states and internationally. Several guide schools are held each spring. In order to provide a low trainer/trainee ratio, each class has limited space, so apply early!
Our guide program teaches rafting fundamentals as well as international professional standards. Our guide school has a high completion rate and can usually result in a guide position for trainees who successfully complete the training, though our limited number of positions means not all guide school graduates are guaranteed a raft guide position at SMO.
