Colleen McNally-Murphy

Rogue River Guide

Colleen's first river trip was on the Rogue River with her father, ECHO veteran Matt Murphy. She was six years old and spent the entire trip in the wooden driftboat Matt had made by hand. Colleen remembers the trip well and laughingly notes, "I was required to salute and say, 'Aye, aye, Captain SIR!' whenever he said anything." As she got older she was allowed out of the wooden boat and into rafts, where she learned to row and paddle guide under her dad's watchful eye. She has always loved being on the river and hoped to stay out as long as possible. When she came to ECHO in 2007, it seemed this goal could be achieved.

Colleen was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California with a healthy love of traveling. One of her life goals is to visit every continent at least once, and she is more than halfway there. However, after a recent trip to Southeast Asia, she decided that one trip to each continent would not satisfy her wanderlust, so the list of destinations continues to grow. Colleen graduated from Lewis and Clark College in 2006 with a major in Sociology/Anthropology. Her favorite word is "onomatopoeia". Anyone who can explain to Colleen why the word doesn't imitate what it describes will get seconds of dessert.

In addition to being a second generation ECHO guide, last year we welcomed Colleen's sister to the Rogue crew. Kaitlyn joined ECHO at the Rogue proving that good river guiding must run in the Murphy blood and also that ECHO is truly more of a family than a business.