Guide Time Out
A River Guide at his 50 year Reunion
In September, I attended the 50 year reunion of Sobek Expeditions, the first international river rafting company in the world.
Scores of adventures gathered on September 2nd at the Sobek warehouse in Salmon, Idaho. But for two days prior, a smaller group of old timers gathered at the ranch of one of the original guides.
We pulled our RVs into a field, set up tents, and told stories for two days and nights. Laughter and music floated on the air. It didn’t matter if we had heard some of those stories before, it was so refreshing to hear them in the original voice of old friends, many of whom had not seen each other in decades.
It moved me deeply to remember my 20 years of guiding across the globe, so I wrote a small speech to give at the official reunion in Salmon. I never gave the speech for various reasons: everything had been said, the last speech had been a drunken bore, and and some mushrooms someone gave me were kicking in.
So, I sent the speech out as an email to the gang at our small gathering. I hope it captures the joy of that life and the nostalgia we felt for those times.
We all came to the river from various paths. We were all young.
In 1982, the future stretched out in front of me, a great expanse where anything was possible if I could just figure out which direction to go. I wanted adventure, travel, and excitement; to shoot the moon, to skim the cream off the top of life; to only fall in love and not out of it; to taste every tantalizing excitement without sticking around for the consequences.
I imagine we were all like that to some extent.
When I stumbled into guiding, I felt like Alice in wonderland falling down the rabbit hole, or Neo taking the red pill.
Running whitewater set its hook by turning us into adrenaline junkies. But two deeper hooks found their way into us: a profound connection to nature and a relationship to an odd collection of like-minded hippies, dropouts, and misfits.
We were like a band of pirates with river knives for cutlasses, sunglasses for eye-patches, and our stringy hair tied in fabric. “Arrr matey!” On the river, we communicated with the nod of a head or gesture, while in camp we spoke in punch lines and obscure phrases from old stories. We partied hard at night, but showed disciplined efficiency during the day.
Somewhere along the way, Lord Sobek cast an even deeper spell on us. It whispered, “Sell your possessions, leave your lovers, sleep on the ground. Spend you last dollar to fly to other countries hoping to earn a ticket home.”
And we all answered, “YES!”
We followed the dance of light and water and we found ourselves on the most magnificent roller coaster ride, sending us all around the world. And we hung on as long as we could — year after year, decade upon decade.
As we were lined up at the Sobek bar with unlimited drafts of adrenaline on the world’s most beautiful rivers, our connections to each other grew deeper.
Often, if we got to camp early enough, after sending the clients off with their bags and setting up the kitchen, we would take a break and drink a beer on our boats for a short while. During guide hour, we asked the clients not to bother us with anything short of an arterial bleed. We could relax — “dinkin and drinkin” on our rafts; sharing what our day had been like, how our runs had gone, what we had seen. Those shared moments have stayed with me as much as the rapids themselves.
The only problem with a river trip is that it must end. The same with river guiding. Would that there could be a river trip without end, that we could row with our best friends into eternity. No take-outs! No needs except for the feel of our oars caressing the river currents; for the delicious exertion; the mental void of merging with the river.
But each of us old-timers eventually found the roller coaster ride brought to an end by injury, burnout, marriage, or all three. The carney was telling us it was time to get off that magnificent roller coaster ride.
And so we spilled out into the carnival that we had been soaring above. Crowds of people jostled as we tried to find an exit back to peace and quiet. Barkers called to us with cheap distractions. Something wasn’t right. Something was missing. What was missing was that profound relationship with nature and our deep connection to our river tribe. We could no longer count on seeing those friends next season.
For me, this reunion was like one more guide hour — one more time to relax and share how our lives have been.
I want to thank you who have traveled hundreds of miles just to tie up on this shore together once again. Thanks for one more guide hour.
