Chasing the never-ending-summer of paddling and guiding from Idaho’s wild and remote Salmon River to Chile’s sapphire-blue Futalefeu has allowed me to maintain a remedial-level grasp on Whitewater 101 year-round. Spending three months rowing an 18-foot raft down long and technical rapids in the Southern Hemisphere, while everyone else shreds powder turns back home, might make one think that one is prepared for rowing himself and others—say, one overweight/diabetic grandfather, his darling daughter, and her two lovely children—down the Middle Fork Salmon once spring has returned to the North.
But “spring” is a relative term in Idaho, and no amount of off-season rowing could have prepared me for the mixture of howling wind, snow, high water and bitter rain freezing my eyelids shut as we round the corner to the infamous “Murph’s Hole,” an angry hydraulic feature that has flipped a number of two-ton, 22-foot-long sweep boats. (Not an easy thing to do, nor an easy mess to clean up.) I didn’t know Murph, but I’m sure he and I could agree on one thing: it’s not good to have a river obstacle named after you.
A strong current rips around the dog-leg-left, shoving flotsam, jetsam and river trash to the outside of the bend. The inside of the bend is where I want to be. But the inside is about 20 yards to my left, damn it. The inside is moving away from me quickly, too quickly.
Diabetic Grandpa grips his daughter, who embraces her 11- and 12-year-old children the way a mother would in a car or plane crash. This is the classic “oh shit” moment when a river guide realizes they have just (in technical guiding terms) “screwed the pooch.” It’s the moment when the guide, yours truly, realizes that they are about to be responsible for sending a sweet family of four swimming down a whitewater torrent that will quickly envelop them in its hypothermic grip, smash them against rocks, and potentially kill them. It can be described as a “humbling moment.” Poor Murph must have felt the same way.
We pull into camp a few hours later. Not soon enough. Thank continental-subduction for solid land. It’s been hailing for 30 minutes now. Paco Pads have been de-rigged mid-float and held overhead, acting as makeshift shelters. Each piece of groppel feels like a rubber band snapping the skin. The guests jump off the boats in a fit of frostbite and confusion, running without direction, for direction is typically given at a time when these particular guests will be huddled in their tents under sleeping bags, cursing the HR person that decides when to allot vacation time. All that our guests know is that they are cold, there is no hot-tub, and warm water doesn’t come out of a tap around here.
Fortuitously, the guests on my boat have also learned that a fully loaded raft can rotate over 90 degrees on its side and then somehow return upright with all of its passengers still on board to continue downriver. The wind must have been blowing in our favor. All’s well that ends well.
Mark holds the blaster, a device meant for rapidly boiling water by straight-lining propane as quickly as it can combust, to a heap of drenched wood. Soon, flames crackle and frosty hands congregate around the heat like moths to an incandescent bulb. Good attitudes are water soluble, so guides run about, wrapped in soggy Gore-Tex, erecting makeshift tarp cities with oars, iron stakes, rocks, hammers, and trucker’s-hitches.
“So, like, is there going to be a room or something where we can dry our things out for the night?” one guest asks.
The bustling guides pause to consider this question. Eyes meet across the camp, lips crack into grins. We hold back our pretentious giggling. Who’s going to break the news that there’s no central heating in this joint?
The thing about guiding is that, yeah, guides are good at being outdoors. Maybe that’s just because they’ve done it more than others. There’s a common notion that spending more time outdoors leads to some sort of enlightenment, or connection with Mother Nature, and maybe it does, but mostly it just helps one become better accustomed to suffering. There is nothing enlightening about having 200 mosquito bites on your body. True, you’re never closer to Mother Nature than when she’s driving 200 tiny hypodermic needles into your flesh. However, by comparison, that makes having five mosquito bites feel like a stroll in the park.
The point is, our guests are truly outside their comfort zone. But, in the end, we’re all sharing the same adventure. Some of us are just more used to it than others.
