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<\/p>\nI arrived at Deer Lodge Campground at 1 AM. My headlights illuminated raft trailers scattered around the parking lot, the rafts on top waiting patiently to be rigged. The moon cast gentle beams across the tops of cottonwood trees, the edge of an eroding riverbank, and the slow, calm flow of the Yampa River.<\/p>\n
I laid out my still-wet kayaking gear across the top of my truck before crawling into the bed and hoping that sleep would come amongst my excitement for the next morning. Too few hours later, I awoke to sun pouring into my topper windows and the gentle murmurs of others at the campground. I rolled over to see Ana, my dear college friend who had invited me on the trip, already up and moving. We hadn\u2019t seen each other since winter the year before and as much as I wanted to keep sleeping, I wiggled around in a circle to open the back of my topper and greet her.<\/p>\n
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Ana had invited me on her cousin\u2019s Yampa Canyon permit only two weeks before the launch date. Aside from Ana and her cousin, I knew no one. I\u2019d been a wild card on many river trips before and knew that it was always a gentle dance to figure out where you fit into a group. It had been four years since I\u2019d been down Yampa Canyon. On top of a new group of people, I wondered how the passage of time would fit its way into my journey downstream. What memories and feelings would arise after so much time away?<\/p>\n
Based on the spreadsheet, our trip was a mishmash of adults between the ages of 25 and 68 from all over the western US. They were professors, lawyers, policymakers, mathematicians, and filmmakers, to name a few. Ana and I were in our mid-twenties and had both spent a few post-college years as baristas between seasonal jobs before she started at an environmental non-profit and I pursued a career as a freelance photographer. Despite how much we\u2019d grown since college, neither of us felt like \u2018real adults\u2019 in comparison to the rest of our crew. But we both had river experience, and what kind of boater and person you are matters more on the river than your occupation.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nAs we chatted in the days leading up to our launch, we wondered exactly what to bring. Would this crew wear glitter and paint their nails with us? Should we bring more beers than the typical estimate? Would they want music on the river or at camp?<\/p>\n
With six rafts, a cat, three kayaks, one OC1, one ducky, and one packraft, we pushed off into the mighty Yampa flowing at 5,000 CFS. I\u2019d forgotten certain details of the river, rapids, beaches and so on, but as we arrived at Ponderosa camp our first night, feelings and memories came flooding back to me.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d spent a few years living in Steamboat Springs and paddled the Yampa many times. The Class III town stretch was a staple of spring and early summer in the Yampa Valley. Miles of Class II riffles and flatwater stretched from Hayden to Little Yampa Canyon and offered mellow floats far from the bustle of downtown Steamboat. Cross Mountain Gorge, just above Deer Lodge was one of my first big Class IV runs in a raft and then in a kayak. The Gorge\u2019s desert walls, warm water, and steep, committing rapids were proving grounds for Routt County boaters. Each stretch of the Yampa held memories, sensations, and pieces of a place I\u2019d once called home.<\/p>\n
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In a day and age where wild rivers and wild places are not as common as they once were, Yampa Canyon and Echo Park are two particularly special spots. In the 60s, as the Bureau of Reclamation sought dam sites to aid the Western US\u2019s growth and demand for power and water, they seriously considered a spot just downstream from Echo Park at the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers. The Sierra Club\u2019s David Brower fought hard against the dam in Echo Park and the Bureau eventually set their sights on Glen Canyon instead, which continues to be a controversial decision as climate change impacts Lake Powell.<\/p>\n
Whether or not this was the \u201cright\u201d choice is another conversation. No matter the politics, my first time down Gates of Lodore in 2017 captivated me to the point that I became a guide on the Green and Yampa.<\/p>\n
My first commercial Yampa Canyon trip was in 2018. When we put on, the river flowed at a bony 1200 CFS and dropped quickly throughout our trip. The other guides showed me how to rig my raft, make coffee on the blaster, cook staple multi-day meals\u2014and slip away from the guests to watch the sun disappear over the canyon walls. We battled raging upstream winds, skunks, and low flows as one often does on desert rivers. My first run through Warm Springs, the notorious rapid created in 1965 after a rock fall into the canyon, was a blur. I bounced off rocks and tried to keep my raft straight in the remaining holes at that flow.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nI fell deeply in love on that trip. The Weber sandstone, desert varnish, and juniper trees captured my attention easily. Being the only person accountable for pushing downstream on my gear boat provided me a purpose in a new way, different from paddle guiding or kayaking. The lapping of eddies against my raft tubes as I slept on my boat lulled me to sleep each night and I wanted to never have to leave.<\/p>\n
I guided two Yampas that summer and three the next. While I loved rowing boats, the toll of the guide life set in. Accommodating guests made me feel disconnected from all the things I loved most about running rivers. The magic I\u2019d once felt gave way to burnout. I started to resent the heat that I once relished. The canyon walls made me feel trapped and the murmur of crickets that once lulled me to sleep, kept me awake late into the night.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nNow, four years later, what would it be like? I felt lucky to have been invited to run Yampa Canyon again, a notoriously difficult section to get a permit for. But I also felt apprehensive. I had social worries like whether my occasionally chaotic personality would fit in with these \u2018real adults.\u2019 I had logistical worries. Which raft would my dry bags go on? Had I brought enough snacks and if not, would people share? I had safety worries. How experienced were the boat captains and the other paddlers? Would we be equipped to handle any carnage as a group? And I worried about leaving the outside world for six days. Would something bad happen? Would I miss an important work email?<\/p>\n
But in this group of people, my apprehension floated away. I connected most easily with Jim and Nick. Nick was the other kayaker on our trip and Jim\u2019s raft adopted us whenever we weren\u2019t kayaking. Although both were my parents\u2019 age, spending time with them felt as easy as spending time with any other friend.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nJim would poke fun at us and call us \u201ckayaker trash\u201d before happily letting us stow our lap bags on his boat and sharing his cold beverages. Nick was a regular purveyor of chaos, convincing me to cliff jump at camp, scramble over questionable rocks on hikes and sit around the fire a little longer at night. They embraced each wave on the river, each adventure at camp and every moment in between with the kind of pure and genuine joy teenagers express on their first river trip.<\/p>\n
I baked Dutch oven pineapple upside-down cake the same golden brown as sections of the canyon walls and danced to Katie Lee in the kitchen with my cooking group. Everyone smeared glitter on our sun-kissed cheeks before big rapids. We played cribbage in the dirt next to the firepan. When Ana and I were too tired or sore to kayak, we climbed on rafts and drank cold beers that hadn\u2019t been rolling around in our sandy boats all day.<\/p>\n
We laid in the sun at camp with other women on the trip and laughed as others bumbled around fighting the afternoon heat. We poured whiskey out for our friends taken by the river. Ana and I asked Jim, who has a daughter our age, for dating advice. We burned incense and finished our tequila to cope with the mosquitos at Island Park. Individually, these things may have been unremarkable for a group of friends on a river trip, but for us it was the spark that created what I knew would be lifelong friendships.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
It felt less like coincidence and more like serendipity that we camped at many campsites I\u2019d been at on that first Yampa trip (Ponderosa, Harding Hole 2, Laddie Park 1). Snippets of that trip came back to me not only at these sites but throughout the canyon.<\/p>\n
The corner above Mantle Ranch where the wind had howled upstream and pushed me into an eddy and a rock wall while I fought my oars; the bend in the river where I had rowed through a downpour; the kitchen spot under the tree at Laddie 1 where another guide, one I would eventually fall in love with, and I had cooked dinner together for the first time. These sweet memories swirled through my head like echoes. We moved through the canyon, and I wanted to close my eyes and live in every moment I\u2019d ever had on that river like a dream. The past ran its hands through my silty hair and cracked skin, tugging my thoughts to pieces of my life I\u2019d left behind.<\/p>\n
The joy of the present, however, pulled me back. Over the six days between those canyon walls, I felt connected to both the people around me and the magnificent landscape we existed in together. The desert is not a hospitable landscape, but together we embraced it. Together, we woke with the sun as it peeked over the canyon walls before giving way to the heat of the day. We cared for each other, making sure everyone had enough water, food and cold drinks.<\/p>\n
While everyone brings their own things to the put-in, by the time you\u2019re moving downstream life is communal. We shared meals, morning cups of coffee, games, little corners of camp to set up our tents and Paco pads, sunrises, sunsets, discomforts, and triumphs. The Yampa\u2019s beaches delighted our childlike spirits as we ran down under the sun and then let the warm sand cradle us at night.<\/p>\n
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