A long trip in a van exploring the West brought me to western rivers. I started in Jackson Hole guiding one-day trips, but I’d say what really caught my attention was my first multi-day rafting trip, a Yampa trip with OARS. I was hooked after that trip.
I want to say I was 25. I was rowing a baggage boat as a trainee. Coming from backpacking where you’re carrying all of your supplies on your back—that was my experience previous to that—and then going on a Yampa trip and exploring for five days out in the backcountry, eating steaks and shrimp cocktail, that was the turning point. You could experience this wild place and do it in style and luxury.
Then there was the excitement of the whitewater. The Yampa is scenic and beautiful, but it’s not full-on, “Class-scare-your-pants-off.” There’s some nice flat water, but then you get to Warm Springs. It was exhilarating to run a big-volume, challenging rapid like Warm Springs for my first time rowing on an expedition-style raft trip. That heart-pumping whitewater, the luxury of raft-camping and being in a wild and pristine environment, all of those things culminated in that one trip. The other thing I took away from that experience was the community that you build and the relationships you make. It’s all these amazing parts that make a river trip.
Being out on the river is such a dynamic experience that every time you go out, it’s uncertain what exactly is going to happen until the day is over. The excitement of not knowing is an integral part of the experience: on a whitewater river, you might make it through clean or you might flip! But in the end, it’s all the little things that come together to make a wilderness river a truly magical place.
Why Rivers Matter: Stories from the People Who’ve Dedicated Their Lives to Them