By Queenie Wong, Sacramento Bee

Rafting companies are counting on higher-than-normal snowmelt to rescue their season after a chilly spring kept customers on shore.

Gregg Armstrong, owner of the Lotus-based All-Outdoors California Whitewater Rafting, said his company’s spring reservations fell about 20 percent from last year, which was already slower than 2008, when he saw record sales.

Yet Armstrong is hopeful this year’s higher water flows will reverse his fortunes. His company does 80 percent of its business in the summer, when calmer waters attract a less extreme crowd than the rougher rapids of spring.

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