She was the first woman to run the Grand Canyon as a commercial enterprise, and she introduced several innovations and adjustments to the way that guides ran the Colorado River.
[3] Georgie and her daughter were close companions after her divorce from Clark, engaging in outdoor activities such as mountain and rock climbing, skiing, skating, and bicycling.
Harry had recently fallen in love with the lower Colorado River through Grand Canyon, and invited White on a different sort of adventure, to demonstrate that in the event of a boating accident, it would be easier to float downstream than hike out.
Though wearing the bulky "Mae West" life jacket, they were still able to carry backpacks for watertight tins that contained first-aid supplies, food, cameras and film.
The eccentric pair wanted to prove beyond a doubt that river travel was a safe proposition, and provide good press for the emerging commercial rafting industry.
After recovering from their epic hike, where they nearly perished from thirst, they built a raft fashioned after James White's, who had allegedly been the first to float the Grand Canyon in 1867.
She made her name when, in the early 1950s, she lashed three rafts together to achieve better stability in big rapids and began taking paying customers to "share the expense" of running the river.
Her "Royal River Rats" achieved some fame, being featured in Life Magazine, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and countless newspapers.
Following her death, those who examined her personal effects found artifacts which led some to speculate that White had, in fact, been Bessie Hyde, the woman who had vanished with her husband during a honeymoon float of the Grand Canyon in 1928.
Her business had the distinction of having the first rafting commercial fatality, Mae Hansen, aged 64, in July 1972, and the first injured person to be evacuated by helicopter from the Grand Canyon, Vernon Read, who suffered severe skull and spinal fractures on a trip in 1959.