3
To my surprise, my resolve actually works. Once I set my mind to it—to embrace this peculiar pilgrimage on the river—I start to settle in and even enjoy myself.
Macy leads the way at the helm of our raft, followed by Bryan in the first gear boat; then Gracie in the other passenger raft, and finally, Josh in the second gear boat.
Between the women’s light chatter and the constant instruction to “Row, all forward! Now left, hard left, dig in!” I manage to relax.
I lose myself in the feel of the paddle catching the current, the sound of the water’s surface breaking over and over in a rhythm, the river breeze on my face, and the stunning curve of the canyon ahead.
Scrappy green pines burst from nooks and crannies in the steep basalt cliffs; lazy stretches of water reflect the deep blue, cloudless sky overhead; starlings dip and dive across our path in quick bursts, leading us as we glide.
“How fast are we moving?” asks a voice behind me. I turn to look at the woman wearing a black headscarf and enormous gold-rimmed aviators. She adds, “It feels like we’re in a time warp down here.”
“We’re going about five miles an hour through the calm stretches, ten in the fastest parts,” Macy says matter-of-factly with a smile.
“So, we’ll only do about seven miles today, even though it feels longer in the slower water.
Tomorrow we’ll do thirty-five. Sounds like a lot, but we’ll be moving way faster once we start cruising through rapids.
If you pick the right lines and raft through the night, you could actually cover this whole stretch of river in a day and a half.
” She smiles again. “I’m not gonna recommend that, though. Way too dangerous.”
The woman in the headscarf laughs and peers over her sunglasses as she adjusts her life jacket—purple, instead of the standard-issue orange ones the rest of us are wearing.
“Let’s not do that, then. If I die on this trip, my husband will kill me.
I left him with our seven-year-old twin boys who are out of school for the summer. ”
Deborah chuckles. “Tell me your name again, hon?”
“Imani.”
“Atta girl, Imani,” Deborah booms with pride.
The sheer rock walls seem to glow amber in the fading light.
Above us, basalt columns rise hundreds of feet, streaked with white mineral deposits and dark bands of volcanic rock.
Each time we turn a bend in the river, the sun sinks a little lower, until it hovers on the rim of the cliffs and then disappears altogether in a riot of reds and yellows.
I think again of the calendar Parker tacked to our wall, the postcard-pretty photos.
They don’t hold a candle to the scope of my surroundings, the vast size of the canyon, the power of the current beneath us, and the fading light turning the water into hammered copper.
The air smells like sunbaked pine and overturned earth.
I trail my fingers in the current where the sunset casts its colors.
After just a few seconds, the cold makes my knuckles tingle.
I imagine a look of total euphoria on Parker’s face, wind ruffling his rumpled brown hair, his paddle held in anticipation of everything ahead of him. Everything ahead of us.
My throat tightens. I thought we had so much ahead of us.
It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it? I can almost hear his warm, deep voice.
“So beautiful,” I whisper, feeling another knot form in my throat.
He’d be in heaven here, knowing that this slice of remote wilderness would be his for the next five days, ripe for exploring.
Like me, he loved everything about the outdoors, and the Northwest felt like our playground.
In our six years of marriage, we’d gone backpacking to alpine lakes, hiking in the Grand Teton Wilderness, fly fishing on the North Platte River, and paddle boarding on the Snake.
If not for Parker, I probably would’ve been content to car-camp or hike. But he always brought the adventure, and I’d learned to love that part, too. He was the ultimate tour guide, the confident explorer who made me feel safe in even the wildest places.
This is my first time adventuring without that safety. Without him.
For the past year, nowhere has felt safe except that sad apartment.
But now, I realize I’ve missed it—the greatness of the outdoors.
A smile spreads across my face, and I dig in with my paddle, feeling for the first time genuinely glad I’ve come on this trip. Not just for Parker, but for me.
I turn toward shore, where a line of redheaded ducks swim against the current.
“See those little mohawks on top of their heads? Those fine feathers? Mergansers.”
My smile widens. Parker prided himself on knowing everything there was to know about the flora and fauna of any forest, lake, or river we visited.
He would point them out studiously, like a Nat Geo documentarian.
“That’s a newt, not a salamander. People get them mixed up pretty often.
But just look at that rough skin along its sides.
” I generally let him be the expert. But I’d started trying to beat him to the punch, just for fun.
Whenever I saw the distinctive mergansers that are so common in the Northwest, I’d call out the name like an announcer. It always made him laugh.
On a whim, I do exactly what I’d do if he were beside me. “Mergansers!” I belt out, pointing in the ducks’ direction. The ducks startle, taking off at a run across the surface of the water.
Allie grins at me. “Sayonara, mergansers!” she calls.
As we approach the next bend in the river, Pam cries out from the back of the raft. “Oh! Oh, everyone. Look at the precious babies!” She points to the nearly vertical rock face to our left.
We crane our necks, searching the deepening shadows of the boulders.
When one of the rocks makes a sudden leap across the cliff face, I can finally make out the stout body of a mountain goat, its horns curling around its ears.
Once I know what to look for, I realize there are dozens more perched impossibly, fearlessly, on narrow ledges—even a few fuzzy gray baby goats.
One of the kids rears up and playfully headbutts its mother, seemingly oblivious to the sheer drop of the cliff face directly beneath it.
A strange twinge of longing catches in my chest. How do they survive—thrive, even—knowing they’re always one short step away from falling into the abyss?
Maybe they don’t understand the danger. Maybe none of us really do until we fall.
The lump in my throat grows tight, but I swallow it down as we take a sharp turn into a narrow chute. The rapids roar as we approach, drowning out my internal monologue. I wedge my right foot against the side of the boat for leverage, clutching my plastic paddle a little tighter.
Macy calls out, “Okay, this one doesn’t look like much, but it’s actually a doozy. All forward, easy forward!”
We dip our paddles obediently into the white froth, my pulse speeding up as we reach the first cresting wave. The drop is much steeper than I anticipated.
“Oh shit!” Allie and Deborah cry in unison, earning laughs that turn to gleeful shrieks as we dip sharply. The nose of the raft pops upright out of the trough, diving hard into the next rushing wave.
As the water slows and smoothes out, Macy leans forward from her oar rig near the stern, grinning. She stage-whispers, “Hey, watch Flip-Flop take the gear boat over that one. I swear, if he biffs it and gets our tents wet, though …” Macy trails off, shaking her head in mock disappointment.
All of us turn in unison. Bryan’s gear boat, loaded high with our dry bags and camping gear, trails maybe ten yards behind us—close enough that I catch the look of sheer panic on his face.
His oversized swim shirt billows between his life jacket straps like a trapped flag, and the painful-looking sunburn on his face makes him look perpetually embarrassed, even from a distance.
I can’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but given the thick unibrow shooting halfway up his forehead, I imagine they’re wide with terror.
Macy winces as his gear boat slams into the right side of the narrow chute, pinballing to the left where it ricochets off the trough of the deceptively powerful wave. The raft spins backward out of the rapid, nearly toppling Bryan from his perch at the rear.
Before he can recover, the second passenger raft speeds through the rapid behind him, the women howling with laughter.
I roll my eyes, glad to see that no one in my raft seems especially amused.
Even if the new-guy hazing is part of the whitewater culture, it’s already getting old as far as I’m concerned.
“Encore, encore!” Macy hoots, but Bryan’s face is a mask of concentration.
He’s repositioned the gear boat only to get stuck in the lazy whirlpool of an eddy.
He keeps his head down, mumbling to himself as the second passenger raft glides past, the woman still laughing at him as their paddles slap the water.
“Why do you call him ‘Flip-Flop’?” Deborah asks.
Macy sighs, releasing the oars so she can wring out her now-dripping blonde ponytail.
“Because he showed up to training on the Lower Fork in flip-flops. I’m honestly surprised the owner didn’t send him home to change.
But I guess being teased for three days straight was just as effective.
That, and losing to every single girl at Fight Night,” she says, smiling wryly.
“What’s Fight Night?” asks Allie, perking up yet again at the mention of danger.