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It was August 6, 2021, a year and three months after my brother, Chris, died. He was supposed to have been on this trip; my mom and I had bought a seat for him and one for my dad for Christmas in 2019. But that was the last time I saw Chris. On May 27, 2020, he told my parents, who he was living with, that he didn\u2019t feel well and was going to bed early. It was the height of the pandemic, so my mom didn\u2019t hug him. But she did wish him a good night and tell him she loved him.<\/p>\n
Normally back then, she and Chris would get up early and walk in my parents\u2019 southern Nevada neighborhood before the desert sun superheated the blacktop. So, when 9 a.m. and then 9:30 came and Chris hadn\u2019t come out of his bedroom, my mom texted \u201cYou alive in there?\u201d And when he didn\u2019t answer, and she went to his room, opened his door, and saw him lying on his back with dried blood crusting his mouth, neck, and upper chest.<\/p>\n
Chris had been an alcoholic for more than three decades, and at 53, his liver had finally ruptured. That\u2019s a very sad story, but sadder still is that for seven months before he died, he\u2019d been sober. When I saw him on Christmas of 2019, he was just a month into sobriety. I knew he struggled\u2014and I know how transformative a river trip can be. My mom and I had intended the Middle Fork trip to be a kind of reward for his hard work, a rejuvenation after so much sorrow. So, when he couldn\u2019t come in his human form, she, my dad, and I invited my son, Scout, to go in his place, and Scout, my dad, and I brought Chris\u2019s ashes with us.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\tLess than 24 hours after we pulled into Canyons\u2019 headquarters, we were standing in the McCall Aviation office meeting our trip mates. I was the family spokesperson (me before then: \u201cDon\u2019t tell anyone I\u2019m a journalist!\u201d Me then: \u201cLook at me! I\u2019m a journalist!\u201d), Scout was the token teenager; and my dad carried the duffle with Chris\u2019s ashes. That we were harboring dead matter was a secret to the handful of folks who\u2019d fly to Indian Creek landing strip with us, but not to the guides on the trip. In fact, one of them, a smiling 18-year-old with a swimmer\u2019s build and a hint of pink across his cheeks, was Scout\u2019s younger brother, Hatcher, who\u2019d started a job that summer in the Canyons warehouse.<\/p>\n
By the first week of August, he had worked his way from packing trips to flying all of the food for a Middle Fork trip once a week to Indian Creek in a Cessna. He\u2019d unpack the food from the plane and haul it to the river. Then he\u2019d fall asleep under the stars to the lullaby of riffles. The following morning, he\u2019d pack the food onto boats that his fellow guides had deadheaded from the put-in.<\/p>\n
As soon as Hatcher told me about the best part of his promotion\u2014flying in bush planes\u2014I thought of Chris, who had always wanted to be a pilot. That lead to me thinking of how thrilled he would have been to putter through the origami folds of the Frank Church Wilderness\u2019s mountains with \u201cHatch Daddy,\u201d his favorite nephew. Hatcher loved him the most of my three kids; he\u2019s also both the most guarded and most emotional. And because he\u2019d already left for Idaho when we had Chris\u2019s long-overdue memorial in Nevada, us bringing Chris along was especially powerful for Hatcher.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\tHe and Greg had also devised a secret. They told us that Hatcher would be too busy to join our trip. We didn\u2019t argue\u2014it was his first summer and we wanted him to show how hard he could work. We also believed him when he said he was \u201cjust going to fly with us to Indian Creek, help the guides launch the trip, and then hop back on the plane when the pilot signaled.\u201d So, I laugh-cried when the plane took off and Hatcher popped out from behind a tree. Then I just cried because Hatcher and Greg\u2014mainly Greg\u2014had made the arrangement. They weren\u2019t the only ones in on the secret though. As we\u2019d soon find out, our mission to honor Chris was also a top priority of the guides, mandated by Greg.<\/p>\n
From the put-in, our group of 20 piled into duckies, paddle rafts, and onto the cooler tops in oar boats. The sun beamed down and the sky was cloudless. The water was an emerald green, warm enough to swim in. As we took off, I looked at my dad, who gave me a wistful smile. The journey to introduce Chris to my family\u2019s favorite place in the world, and then leave him, had begun.<\/p>\n
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Two days later, we were getting the best of a river trip with Canyons. In low water and perfect weather, the sweep boat piloted by Hattie, Tessa, or Tyler would leave early in the morning. Then two oar boats would go, usually one with a lone guide and my dad. Then the \u201cmama duck,\u201d or paddle raft, leading out the duckies. And often, Hatcher and I were somewhere in the mix, R-2’ing a 10-foot inflatable. That\u2019s when we\u2019d get to say a few things about Chris, conjuring his spirit.<\/p>\n
Hatcher talked about how much Chris would have loved the simple act of floating, most likely on an oar raft, with one of the guides rowing. Knowing Chris, he\u2019d want to ride with Bobbi or Tessa. He might ogle them a bit, but he\u2019d win them over with his sense of humor. I thought of how much he would have goddamned loved this place with its twisting canyons, black cliffs, hot springs, sagebrush scent, and Sheepeater ruins. He wasn\u2019t much of an adventurer by the time he died. But I fully believed that the river might have stirred his spirit.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t much later that our trip came to a screeching halt, when Tessa and Syver, trying to bump the sweep boat through a bed of rocks in an impossibly shallow rapid, augured it in and couldn\u2019t get it unstuck. As the rest of us came upon them, the other guides initiated a coordinated effort to free the boat. Each guest participated in some way\u2014either by watching up-river for other groups, or by being part of the fire-line Hattie formed to offload some of the sweep\u2019s gear, or by the younger passengers\u2014like Bobbi\u2019s stepmom\u2014helping the older ones\u2014like my dad\u2014carefully navigate the boulders lining the river to get from point A, where we\u2019d stopped, to point B, where we re-loaded our boats after Tessa and Syver freed the sweep.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s moments like these (and many others) that dismantle the walls between strangers on a commercial trip. Maybe it\u2014and a couple too many beers\u2014is what loosened my dad up at that night\u2019s camp. Whatever it was, he let it leak out that we were carrying Chris\u2019s ashes. I heard him telling Syver with tears in his voice. But Syver was a perfect listener. My dad also told him that we might want to leave some of Chris on the river if we could find the right spot. The one Syver suggested sounded perfect, although before we would give it the thumbs up, we had to check it out.<\/p>\n
That wouldn\u2019t come for a couple more days, during which we got to experience more of Canyons\u2019 magic. It starts with Greg, whose name, for me, conjures the word Love. He loves his people (literally hundreds of friends, and family), his work (outfitter and guide, but also eternal party host, acclaimed watercolorist, and champion of the LGBTQIA movement), rivers, wilderness, and humanity. His guides, including, now, Hatcher, embody Canyons\u2019 ethos while bringing their own skills and love. What clients get is stories of their globe-spanning adventures, infectious enthusiasm for Idaho, and a kind of rugged concierge service that ranges from showing you the cleanest line to take through an intimidating rapid to bringing the Sheepeater pictographs to life through their knowledge of history to leading you through muscle-loosening yoga poses as the smell of bacon wafts over the beach.<\/p>\n
We had all of that, and, as word of our mission slowly spread throughout the group, a kind of love and support I\u2019d never before felt. Ever so tentatively, different people would approach us and ask a question about Chris. They knew Scout, Hatcher, my dad, and I were on the trip to memorialize him, but it took added probing to learn we had him.<\/em> I thought we might weird them out or mute their fun, but they only wanted to know more about us, our story, and my big brother. I\u2019ll be honest: we were pretty raw the whole trip. But once the others knew our secret and supported it, we were unselfconsciously able to do things like throw our arms around each others\u2019 shoulders and rest our heads together and cry over the finality of what was coming.<\/p>\n We\u2019d had Chris\u2019s body cremated but we hadn\u2019t buried any of his ashes. On the next morning\u2014the second-to-last of our trip\u2014we would finally make that happen. The guides had made a plan that everyone would understand once they revealed it. After breakfast, yoga, and packing up, the sweep boat would depart camp about an hour early. Just behind it would be Syver, my dad, Scout, and me in an oar boat. And off on his own, but within sight, Hatcher would paddle a kayak. We\u2019d be able to see him, but we wouldn\u2019t know that as he paddled he\u2019d be crying.<\/p>\n As Syver rowed, Tyler steered the sweep while dancing to a tune we couldn\u2019t hear on his AirPods. In reverence, I think, the rest of us were quiet. Well, that\u2019s not exactly true: Syver, always a guide, continued a story of the river that he\u2019d had going all week, about the geology, the history, the wildlife, and the people. My dad, Scout, and I didn\u2019t mind. It gave us more knowledge about the place we\u2019d leave Chris, which we came to as the day\u2019s first rays of sunlight touched the river.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/d2kl15j267vxtq.cloudfront.net\/duct-tape\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/31143732\/MF-Fleet-of-IKs-100x100.jpg\")
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