 From the bank, the river looked like a snake. A glistening green anaconda sliding through the rocks. I couldn't see its fangs, but I knew they were there, waiting for me just around the next bend, sharp, white and dangerous – The Rapids. I was scared. Hell hath no terror like that of those-who-have-almost drowned, which I had in a river long ago, young, foolish, and in the company of similarly moronic friends, one of whom somehow managed to rescue me by the hair at the exact moment I had surrendered to the dark death-god of the river. The ordeal left me deeply marked by the power of whitewater, and I had avoided it ever since. But now, I knew, my number was up. I had, after all, lived an adventurous life. Being a nature writer by profession, I had been obliged to kayak in deadly storms, hike rattlesnake-ridden ridges, track moose through blizzards, crouch just inches from stampeding buffalo, fish alongside Alaska brown bear, swim with whales, snorkel with salmon. Why, I had even camped on the steppes of Outer Mongolia with the local pit vipers, one of whom decided to make an unscheduled appearance in my neighbor's bedroll. Clearly it was time to make peace with the grim river reaper. So there I was, standing in the morning light of an Idaho September. The Salmon River, much to my mortification, also is called "The River of No Return," which meant, of course, that I would never get out alive. I'd never return home, never see my dog again, my French china, the little black dress Tweeds finally got around to mailing me after being sold out of it for three months. "Need sun block?" asked an insufferably cheerful river guide. "No," I replied. "I need a lobotomy." We were putting in, as they say in the river running business, at Corn Creek, a two-hour drive from the already remote town of Salmon, Idaho. At the moment the place looked like an ant farm. Fat yellow rafts and elegant high-sided dory boats waited in the shallows while troops of extremely tan people crawled all over them. They were our fleet of guides and their mission was to stash the mountains of supplies that littered the beach into secret compartments deep in the bowels of the vessels that would carry us downstream for the next six days. Coolers, tents, duffel bags, sleeping bags, tables, lanterns, cooking things, rubber boots, and backpacks . . . the scene looked to me like preparations for war. "You can stow your ammo cans here," offered a quiet guide named Lonnie Hutson. We had, indeed, been given genuine government issue metal ammo cans in which to keep the stuff we wanted near us at all times – sun glasses, cameras . . . arsenic. I studied the other guests for similar signs of angst. Nothing. Just smiles and spirited stomping around. "Hi, I'm Jeanne," announced a pretty woman with an East Coast accent. "That's my husband, Herb." Herb waved and smiled which made him look exactly like Lorne Greene. They were, it turned out, a bonanza – a psychologist and a doctor team from Maryland who had already done O.A.R.S.' 17-day Grand Canyon dory trip and lived to tell the tale . . . many times and with great enthusiasm. I asked Jeanne if I could ride in her lap. That, of course, is all you have to say to a psychologist to get her undivided attention. "This is your first river trip?" she asked. I told her about the near-drowning. "Then, this is the best thing you can do for yourself," she said. "I was just as scared when we did the Grand Canyon, but by the end of the trip the whitewater was like an exciting friend. Besides, these are the best guides in the world and this is one of the safest companies -- we researched it thoroughly before we chose it. You'll be fine." "I'll be damned," I thought. I was damned, in fact. Lonnie had just given me a front row seat in the upcoming theater of disaster, pointing to the bow of his boat. When we pushed off the bank at Corn Creek, I had a death grip with my left hand, my right fingers tourniqueted around the hand grip and my toes jammed under the seat. Even from the depths of paranoid dementia I could see that the Salmon River is a beautiful place. It is, in fact, one of the longest undammed American rivers left. This triumph occurred largely due to the heroic efforts of a man named Frank Church and of former Idaho Governor, Cecil D. Andrus, both of whom saw to it that the millions of acres of unspoiled wild lands were kept that way. Idaho's glorious unfettered heart is now called the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. Bear, elk, eagle and big horn sheep call it home. It is, indeed, a masterwork of rock and pine, river and sky, and whitewater. "What's that?" I asked Lonnie. It sounded like rolling thunder. "That's our first whitewater," he said. This is a drop and pool river," he added, as if abstract analysis could somehow derail the tsunami of panic that was flooding my mind. I can now proudly say that I personally know how General Lee felt when he heard all those damn Yankees coming up over the draw. How pitcher Ralph Branca felt when he heard the crack of Bobby Thompson's bat at the 1951 World Series. How the aviator and writer Beryl Markham felt when she heard her plane's engine sputter over Nova Scotia. How the itsy bitsy spider felt when it heard the first raindrops rattle down the water spout. Because I am now on a first name basis with that sense of dread breaded with destiny that deep-fries your brain in two seconds flat. You know what's coming and you know there's not a darn thing you can do about it. History has been written in the grease stains of such events. Lonnie surveyed the roiling water calmly – you could almost see the physics and logarithms computing in his eyes. Then he rowed to one side, then let the river do the rest. It did. Suddenly we were flying. Dipping and flying with water spraying out in all directions. Suddenly, my drowning memory was eclipsed by an earlier one, a thing of absolute delight. What was it? Boat. Speed. Water spray. Laughter! Happy squeals and laughter. My sisters. The Matterhorn. DISNEYLAND!!!! There is a time before fear. A time of joy as pure as a bunch of kids running around chasing each other just to do it. A time when you feel in every cell of your body the miracle of your own existence. We are born into it, every one of us, and even though life with adults – and certainly as adults – tends to tarnish it, often badly, what I learned on the river that morning is that you can have it back. "Lonnie," I said with tears in my eyes. "That was fun." "That was Killum," he replied, smiling. "Killum Rapid." Kill 'em?" I repeated, and I started to laugh. "Kill 'em Rapid!" I shrieked. For the rest of the trip, the rest of the rapids were a piece of birthday cake. Our guides were all veterans. Curt Chang had actually founded what is now the Idaho dory arm of O.A.R.S. 20 years ago. Lonnie has been a river guide for 17 years. The two other guides, Don Rhoades, and Brannon Riceci, had six and four years on the water apiece. Besides safety and service, O.A.R.S. guides are famous for their cooking. I would add that they should be famous for their kitchens, which are astonishing feats of construction and deconstruction that remind you of the circus coming to town. Once Lonnie, the trip leader, selected a beach, the crew eviscerated the rafts, set up the cook station, and had lunch ready before I had figured out how to undo my life jacket. Et voila! We were in Lebanon. There on the sand beneath the pines we were served fresh humus sandwiches, grilled eggplant, and excellent tomato and cucumber salad. If they had trotted out Turkish coffee and fresh-baked baklava I wouldn't have been surprised. The lunch kitchen vanished as quickly as it had appeared and, while kingfishers stitched the air above us, we disembarked once more. We made camp on a handsome beach, and dinner was incredible. I mean grilled salmon and steak? Fresh corn on the cob and spaghetti? How could they top that? They did . . . with homemade strawberry short cake (Curt had baked the biscuits at home), fresh berries, and whipped cream hand-whipped by Brannon in a metal bowl held in the river for proper chilling. It was as if the Camping Goddess had flown down on pine-scented wings and gone Zing!: "Thy whitewater fear shall turn to glee, and thou shalt be fed like Queen Piggy her Royal Self." The next morning the sky was the blue of those Don Ho cocktails you always end up drinking in Honolulu. You start thinking tropical thoughts like that when you're floating along on a hot day in big sky country . . . until you hear the distant growl of an approaching rapid. Salmon Falls. Jenny and I rode Brannon's dory that day – for variety, every day everyone switched guides – and Brannon looked concerned. To the left, water fanned over huge exposed boulders. To the right a narrow chute between two rock walls waited like a cavity in the devil's molar. "That's the tightest I've ever seen it," Brannon said. "There's no margin for error." We watched transfixed as Lonnie, carrying Jeanne, Herb and Mike, navigated the slot without a hitch. Brannon followed his lead and we made it through just fine. For one particular shallow rapid Lonnie had Jenny and me transfer to Colby's raft. With less weight dories do better in such situations, and being rubber, rafts tend to thwang off rocks rather than plow into them. So, we had an opportunity to experience why rafts are a lot like shampoo – they give your ride more body, bounce, make it more manageable. Rafts will, in fact, practically wash your hair for you. Because, without the protective high sides of a dory, you sometimes get a lot wetter. For camp that evening, Lonnie chose an especially beautiful spot called Swimmer's Beach. Chipmunks scolded us from the boulder there, a mink dodged out of sight, and a family of river otters paddled by like a very nervous welcoming committee. "I feel like a kid at summer camp," I announced. "You are," Lonnie replied. There was a wild game of horseshoes after dinner, then Jenny told about five million ghost stories. Then Don, Brannon and Colby had a coal tossing contest . . . barehanded, a sport which rendered their complaints of "rowing blisters" the next day somewhat suspect. Fun aside, it was a glorious night, filled with aromatic zephyrs, cricket music, and the haunted cries of the night birds on their evening hunt. "Tomorrow's my last day," I confessed to Jeanne. She understood, of course, and was so sympathetic that just to make me feel better she made the quintessential Girl Camper sacrifice: she gave me some of her Baby Wipes. It was a grand day, that last one. First we had breakfast with a family of seven big horn sheep who marched through the far edge of camp to take a drink in the river. Then we got to go down Big Mallard, a rapid so colossal that Curt told everyone "Batten down the hatches." Everyone made it through this tricky whitewater just fine. As well as Elkhorn, Growler, and Ludwig, famous Salmon River rapids, all. That afternoon we made camp beneath a bridge on the far side of an old homestead called Jim Moore's. Black bear were feasting in his orchard, as their little hills of apple scat testified. Colby informed us that, acting as a miner's general store, Moore's place had been quite a going affair during the gold rush. Don, Brannon and Lonnie cooked that night and dinner was perfect again: Fettuccini with fresh shrimp and red and yellow peppers, Lonnie's amazing fresh cod with bouquets of fresh dill and lemon wheels . . . and Caesar salad. The only thing better that night was Curt's Miraculous Peach Cobbler, baked in a Dutch oven right on the campfire. It was very hard to leave the next morning. We all hugged and exchanged addresses, then Curt rowed me downriver to the pick up spot. When my plane headed back up river I pasted my eyes to the window until I found our camp . . . then began waving like an idiot. No one could see me up that high, but I kept waving anyway. Then I saw a little white dot waving back as wildly as I was. Jeanne! Tears threw themselves down my unwashed cheeks. Jeanne! Jeanne! Good-bye Submitted by our freinds at O.A.R.S. (Outdoor Adventure River Specialists |
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