{"id":21451,"date":"2019-10-30T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-30T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=21451"},"modified":"2019-10-25T08:25:05","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T15:25:05","slug":"moms-day-out-westwatatas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2019\/10\/30\/moms-day-out-westwatatas\/","title":{"rendered":"Mom’s Day Out: WestwaTaTas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWell, at least I remembered the oars this year.\u201d I grinned, gesturing to the boat and trailer which were parked in the middle-of-nowhere BLM land behind the silver anachronism of my front-wheel-drive Dodge minivan. Around us, scrubby eastern Utah reached out to the Book Cliffs in the north, the La Sals in the south, and was sliced by deep, invisible canyons somewhere in between. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We watched sunset rains wash across the world, obscuring nearby I-70 and growing into flickering thundercells as they climbed the Western Slope of Colorado. The bluff was remarkably peaceful and still, and, knowing the intensity of the next day\u2019s activities, all five of us appreciated the calm. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tomorrow we would launch on the second-annual, ladies-only Westwater trip, fondly known as the WestwaTaTas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Leia and Kristen, my idol and little sister respectively, laughed. Last year\u2019s WestwaTaTa\u2019s trip had involved a nightmarish moment when the ranger asked me, at the put-in, if I had three oars for each boat<\/a>, and I realized that no, I did not. (Spoiler: we recovered logistically and then I managed to maybe flip a boat in low-water carnage-creator Skull Rapid the next day.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But this year already felt different in so many ways. Last summer, had been brutally hot and dry, the rivers gasping for water and the mountains on fire. This year, the river still clung to high water at the end of July, and rain pelted the desert. Last year, Westwater had been running at 2,100 cubic feet per second, and this year it was just below 12,000.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a mom, rafter, and writer, I was also in a very different place a year after that inaugural float. I\u2019d been getting almost enough sleep for once. Perhaps not enough to erase the deficit of the last six years completely (much like one wet season won\u2019t erase the drought in the west), but enough to refill the reservoir of my own frontal lobe. Hence the presence of all essential trip gear. My arms were in better shape (mostly from doing pull-ups on the swingset), and my passion-career had taken off with many unexpected opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n