Dustin Aherin

I am a 5 th generation Idahoan from the Lewiston area. I graduated from Genesee High School and attend Lewis Clark State College in Lewiston studying History and Theatre. My family were loggers, farmers and ranchers.

During college I worked summers for a local rafting outfitter and once finished with school worked as a big game guide as well as river guide until founding Idaho River Adventures in 2011. Idaho River Adventures is a whitewater rafting and fly fishing guide service operating multi-day trips on the Middle Fork, Main and Lower Salmon Rivers.

I am also one of the owners of Salmon River Transportation Company, a shuttle bus and car shuttle service providing transportation for Middle Fork and Main Salmon rafting parties. For the 2024 river season I will have under my employ 36 people between the river and transportation business, all deriving our income from public land.

For 8 years I have been president of the Middle Fork Outfitters Association, a trade group representing the 27 licensed operators on the Middle Fork Salmon. We work with the permitting agency, the US Forest Service, as well as State and local governments on a variety of issues concerning our industry. These issues vary from being specific to the management of river travel to bigger picture issues such as Federal minimum wage standards and endangered species issues that could potentially result in loss of use.

I am very interested in keeping public lands and waters public as well as working with managing agencies, whether those be State or Federal, to update practices to both protect our public lands and provide access for the ever growing number of users.