![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155408\/Shaina-Dad-Rafting.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI sit on the beach, watching my father struggle to step out of the boat. His Camelbak dangles awkwardly from one hand and he tries to catch himself with the other as the sand falls away beneath him. I take in his black tennis shoes, tall white socks and matching neon-and-black t-shirt and shorts combo. For someone who is so vocally skeptical of inventions like dry boxes, he really has embraced the worst of what modern outdoor apparel has to offer. I should get up and help him, but instead wiggle my toes deeper into the sand as someone else offers to help him ashore.<\/p>\n
In 2017, I took my then 67-year-old father on a five-day trip through the Gates of Lodore, an iconic desert run down the Green River within Dinosaur National Monument, which spans northwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. The trip was, in many ways, pure magic. It is rare to encounter a near-perfect combination of new and old friends, ideal weather, clean runs, and\u2014most miraculous of all for the Green River\u2014no mosquitoes. Although many of us were strangers when the trip began, by the second night we were salsa dancing on the beach and telling stories late into the night.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, while the rest of us laughed and re-hashed the day\u2019s adventures over cocktails, my dad stood awkwardly outside the circle, a decade-old brain injury muddling his once robust social skills. When I was in college, my father sustained a TBI in a car accident, compounding a lifelong struggle with bipolar disorder. A former first-rate boatman\u2014he ran the Grand Canyon three times\u2014he now couldn\u2019t balance while getting in and out of a raft and had a hard time remembering where he put his water bottle. Each day tested my emotions, and after a couple of days on the river, we both realized with stunning clarity that this would be his last river trip.<\/p>\n
Incidentally, my dad\u2019s first river trip fifty years earlier was through the Gates of Lodore, inspiring him to run rivers through his twenties and thirties. Dad\u2019s last big trip was through the Grand Canyon in 1986, the year my mother was pregnant with me. These trips were the stuff of legends in my family. My younger brother and I grew up hearing epic tales of a ragtag crew bumping around the West in a brown, windowless van. My mom was no stranger to the river herself, and my parents\u2019 early courtship featured several river incidents that could reasonably have sent her running. The \u201cDid we or didn\u2019t we almost die in Northgate Canyon?\u201d debate rages on even now, despite the fact that my parents have been divorced for nearly fifteen years.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155443\/Shaina_GC-map_Page_05-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155502\/Shaina_GC-map_Page_07-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155500\/Shaina_GC-map_Page_10-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nWe heard all the stories, but we didn\u2019t actually raft much when I was growing up. Though, when we did go, it was in full 1980s style. I remember one trip in particular on Utah\u2019s Dolores River, which summed up Dad\u2019s gonzo approach to river-running.<\/p>\n
My dad, my brother, a high school friend of mine and I made the journey in an old two-door BMW and a Ford Taurus that resembled a spaceship with a raft frame strapped to the top. The drive from Boulder to the put-in outside the booming metropolis of Bedrock was long, and by nightfall, we were all tired of driving. Dad declared a ditch on the side of the highway as good a place as any to camp and we set up tents just out of sight of the trucks that zoomed by all night long.<\/p>\n
We awoke in a field of broken glass and shotgun shells approximately ten minutes from the boat ramp. After a hasty breakfast and shuttle, we inflated the old Avon Pro (“Cadillac of the river!” Dad proudly declared), strapping down the hand welded-aluminum frame and loading coolers and rocket boxes before finally shoving into the River of Sorrows.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155506\/Shaina_Dolores.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Within minutes, we began to bicker. Dad desperately wanted me to learn to row, and yet, I had no idea what I was supposed to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, what do you think you should do?\u201d he barked.
\n\u201cDad, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
[A wooden oar slams into the canyon wall.]<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat were you thinking? Didn\u2019t you see the wall?\u201d And so on.<\/p>\n We also argued over our differing wilderness ethics: I watched in horror as he tossed the trash bag that had been lining our ammo-can groover directly into a gas station dumpster. \u201cWhat?\u201d he said, exasperated. \u201cWhat else am I supposed to do with it?\u201d<\/p>\n However, I was enchanted by the sandstone cliffs and the muddy water swirling in and out of eddies. Beneath the bright desert sky, I caught a glimpse into my father\u2019s past\u2014which would frame my own river adventures for years to come. When we were in our twenties, my friends and I raged around Colorado and Utah in that Avon Pro, wearing bright orange life jackets and bailing with an ancient Tide container. People would stare as my girlfriends and I floated by, looking like we had come from another era. I learned to love the river on that old boat, and my adventures provided a constant point of connection for Dad and me as I grew into adulthood and he received a diagnosis of the early stages of dementia brought on by his head injury.<\/p>\n Even prior to the car accident and this diagnosis, my relationship with my father wasn\u2019t easy. He wasn\u2019t diagnosed with bipolar disorder until I was sixteen, an experience laced with private misery for everyone in my family. The diagnosis and subsequent treatment offered relief, though, because the illness had manifested itself for years in random fits of rage that provided an ugly backdrop to my adolescence. But through it all, we had one reliable topic of conversation: rivers.<\/p>\n The lucidity my father has when talking about rafting is truly astonishing. He can describe every wave train, every \u201ccan opener shaped rock,\u201d every bend in the river with guidebook-like accuracy. I once needed some information on a run I couldn\u2019t find a map for, and the descriptions he gave of the first two rapids were as accurate as if he had been there yesterday, despite the fact that it had been more than twenty years and that he often forgets my birthday.<\/p>\n When my dad talks about rafting his eyes light up and his gestures magnify as he remembers those old days on the river. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s boasting when he tells stories in which he was clearly the best boatman around, and I don\u2019t really care if he tells the same stories again and again. I am able to peek at my dad the way he was when he was young and when I was young before a brain injury changed him forever\u2014though certainly not beyond recognition.<\/p>\n One morning on the Gates of Lodore, I watched as he stepped tentatively into an inflatable kayak. Watching him stumble was the moment I truly understood that he would get old, that it was already happening, and that bearing witness to it might be the hardest thing I would ever have to do. A long sob ripped out of the depths of my stomach. My friend, Anna, grabbed me and pulled me into her lap as my husband rowed us slowly into an alcove so I could weep undisturbed.<\/p>\n However, as Dad peeled out of the eddy, my red helmet perched high atop his head, he clearly remembered what to do. He whooped as waves broke over him and though I was anxious that he would flip or somehow hit his head, he was having the time of his life.<\/p>\n When we pulled into camp that evening someone set up a solar shower and we prepared for the requisite end-of-trip costume party. Our theme was \u201csalsa night,\u201d and people emerged from their tents wearing a dazzling array of bright colors, sequins, and fringe. When my dad finally arrived on the beach, everyone stared, exchanging glances of \u201cwho is this guy?\u201d The man who had spent the last four days in neon and orthopedic sneakers now wore a starched white shirt and black shorts, complete with a fedora and a red scarf tied around his waist. He clearly still had it.<\/p>\n Around that night\u2019s campfire, the old guys told canyon stories from the \u201870s and \u201880s and my dad held court as he described the time he flipped in Lava Falls, \u201cseeing God\u201d as he rode it out clinging to the frame of the upside-down Avon Pro. We passed drinks, and my dad even took a nip out of the whiskey bottle.<\/p>\n My dad kept a journal on our trip, reflecting with great clarity on the beauty of the canyons, his opinions on everyone\u2019s rigging style, and profound feelings of grief and humiliation. \u201cAngry at being shouldered aside by old age,\u201d he writes, \u201cI realized that the ravages of the car wreck were what made it nearly impossible to make a comeback.\u201d However, the final entry reads: \u201cIf this is to be my last trip, let it be this one. Great people, excellent boating, stunning scenery. It would be a high note to go out on.\u201c<\/p>\n Three years later, we\u2019re still talking rafting. We talk about him coming to do another river trip, even though we both know it is unlikely. He has slowly started giving me his old river gear. Some of it is beyond use, but oars and rocket boxes and solid wood decking stand the test of time.<\/p>\n
\n<\/span>\u201cI told you I didn\u2019t know what to do!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155449\/Shaina_Rafting-2009_SMALL-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155404\/Shaina-Dolores-dad-rowing-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155447\/Shaina_Rafting-Fall-2011--100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155402\/Shaina-Rafting.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155507\/Shaina_Dad-Rafting-80s-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155458\/Shaina_Kiddo-Canoeing-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155509\/Shaina_Dad-Lodore-Ducky.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155504\/Shaina_Final-Night-Lodore-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/31155451\/Shaina_New-Raft-1-100x100.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n