It’s mid-September on the popular stretch of the Deschutes River that meanders through Bend’s Old Mill District, and gone are the float-tubers that clog the waterway nearly all summer.

What’s left is one raft of four women, perfectly timing their paddle strokes with strength and tenacity on the cool, calm evening. They are training to compete in raft racing on the world level at the Pan American Rafting Championships in Pucon, Chile, on the Trancura River, Oct. 30 through Nov. 3.

Longtime Bend resident Jen Kjellesvik started the “Bend Baddies,” and now they will be the first raft-racing team from Bend to represent the U.S. in an international championship after placing third at the U.S Rafting Championships on the Upper Clackamas River in Estacada in May.

Most of the women on the team are guides for Sun Country Tours and spend their summers taking customers down the Class III Big Eddy Rapids on the Upper Deschutes near Bend. Kjellesvik, 49, is also a longtime racer in standup paddling, outrigger canoeing and a swift-water rescue educator for Adventure Medics in Bend. Her main goal is to grow the sport of raft racing in Central Oregon.

“It’s such a good sport for all ages, so my goal is to grow it as big as we can because, as you know, Bend has the athletes,” Kjellesvik said. “The U.S. is a bit behind. We need a circuit. Most of the raft racing is in Colorado and on the East Coast.”

The Bend Baddies — including Kjellesvik, Alison Fountain, Valerie Urban and Brooke Price — will race in four different whitewater rafting events in Chile: a downriver race of about 6 miles, head-to-head, sprint and a slalom course around gates.

Kjellesvik, the team captain, said that this year’s Pan American event is an historical race, because it combines the World Rafting Federation and the International Rafting Federation in an effort to streamline competitive raft racing on the global level and possibly make it an Olympic sport in the future.

Long history of guiding and racing

Kjellesvik, who has lived in Bend for 23 years, has been a river guide for 30 years. After graduating from high school in Highland, Utah, she saw an ad on the back of Outside Magazine that was calling for whitewater guides on the Nenana River in Denali National Park in Alaska.

“I had no experience,” she recalled. “I was one of three women at four rafting companies. I didn’t know anyone that rafted. I grew up in the Rockies skiing.”

Since then her whitewater guiding and paddling has taken her across the world to places like Nepal and Maui. Her 25-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter were raised on the water with her husband, who is also a longtime guide.

Kjellesvik has also raced outrigger canoes for 21 years, and she is incorporating that into the training for Chile, as it helps the team with the timing of their paddle strokes. On Wednesday night in the Old Mill District, after a rafting session, the Bend Baddies jumped into an outrigger canoe to continue their training.

“Raft racing is like chess, and outrigger is kind of like checkers, it’s pretty straightforward,” Kjellesvik said. “Raft racing is just so intricate. Every person plays such a role with our four. The water is changing and every country is different and every boat is different, and there’s four different events. I like the fact that you can’t stop learning, you are constantly challenged, and the camaraderie and traveling. Being on a team is awesome.”

Fountain said that her and Kjellesvik have been talking about forming a raft racing team since 2017.

“It’s something Jen’s been after for a long time, and now we’re actually doing it and competing on an international level, that’s amazing,” Fountain said. “We’re finally making it happen.”

Female river guides find their way

Fountain is a former whitewater guide with Sun Country, leading customers down the Big Eddy, down the Lower Deschutes near Maupin, and also along the McKenzie and North Umpqua rivers.

As a woman in a male-dominated sport and occupation, Fountain noted that the obstacles are not just in the whitewater.

“We have all had to overcome challenges just to be able to be accepted in the whitewater community,” Fountain said. “It’s definitely a male-dominant world. It speaks loudly to us overcoming those challenges and us working hard to get these guiding jobs. And now to go and represent down in Chile, it’s pretty amazing.

“I don’t think that everybody understands that it is hard for women guides. All of us have been in the situation where you get to work guiding, and your customers get put with you and somebody goes, ‘Ugh, we got the girl.’”

Urban, 28, said she got her start in river guiding because of her first experience as a customer on a guided whitewater rafting trip as a youngster.

“The first time I ever went as a customer, my guide was a girl, and if it weren’t for me being in her boat, I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have been a guide,” Urban said. “So when I have a mom with a daughter and the mom goes, ‘You are the only girl guide, and my daughter wanted you,’ then it’s like, that’s why I do this.”

Pan American Rafting Championships

The Bend Baddies, a women’s raft-racing team in Bend, is trying to raise funds for its trip to Pucon, Chile, for the Pan American Rafting Championships, Oct. 30-Nov. 3.

To donate or for more information, go to “Bend Baddies Raft Racing” on Instagram and Facebook, or find them on Venmo @Bend_Baddies_Raft_Racing.