Video by Greg Cairns

What is a Guide?

I love this question. It falls into the metaphysical realm for me, because being a guide is who I am. All of a sudden it feels like you can step outside of yourself and become the person you were always meant to be; and isn’t everyone perpetually striving to figure out who they are?

 I’ve thought about it a lot… To keep it short and sweet, a guide knows where the magic happens. 

A guide makes the uncomfortable, comfortable. Allowing everyone around them to sink into this unbelievable state of euphoria, instead of overthinking the unknown. 

A guide doesn’t tally their river miles at the end of the season as some great accomplishment, they do it to relive every one of those miles, those moments, those shooting stars, the laughter, the joy. They do it so they can figure out a way to squeeze in more the following season. They patiently, or not so patiently, wait for another magnificent cycle of water.  The first snow of the year laying down the foundation for all the preceding storms, a subtle or sometimes dramatic fluctuation between the hot and the cold, and everywhere in between.  Then just like that the cold spurts become less and less frequent… the days continue to get longer, the nights warmer, the fires burn bigger, and the river gets higher and higher. 

A guide smiles, a lot. Then they share what they’re smiling about. They notice the family of otters sliding into the river (invisible to the untrained eye), and usher others into excited silence. Patiently waiting, hoping the critters will be enticed to pop back up… as excited to see you, as you are them.  

A guide is giddy, because some days the water is big, and your heart pounds, and your fellow guides, your team, and the guests are relying on you to do your very best; relying on you for safe passage.  The rapid approaches and you settle into yourself, your oars strike the water exactly how you want them to, your strokes put your boat exactly where you want it to be. You know you can do it, and you know your team and these people have your back.  Your line is flawless and you holler at the top of your lungs, and these new friends, who have become your family, join in with you.  

A guide loves, they love the river, and they absolutely love the perpetual search for the place where the magic happens.     

Essay by Riah Risk 

There’s this thing, this energy that all who adventure and wander into pristine places feel. Whether it be at the top of a mountain or floating through the bottom of a canyon; whether it be a person’s first day in the backcountry or their 100th, this vibration reverberates silently in these places and echoes inside of those who explore there. 

It is what I like to call stoke.

Stoke of the river is magical energy. It begins with someone’s first time running a rapid, or first time watching the sunset over a river. Once found, the stoke is so powerful it sustains throughout a person’s life. It is passed down from river generation to river generation, like seasoned guides passing the torch to young, rapid-hungry rookies. But the true privilege is when guides get to pass this torch to those unfamiliar with it, unexpecting of it.

When I ask river guides to think back on their first trips and share the experiences that made them want to come back, I hear a variety of answers. The excitement and rush of running rapids; the peace found in a pristine wilderness; the control one yields to the river; the wild joy expressed through cheerful howls when a huge rapid is run; the intimate connection created between themselves and the beautiful canyons; empowerment from rowing a boat and accomplishment from catching a fish.

What all these memories have in common is that they are all felt and not taught. A good guide can give talks on geology, set up a trap, and make a delicious dutch-oven chocolate cake. But a great guide is one that opens up others’ hearts and minds to the feeling of an experience, where they feel things they have never felt before. Feel a rush so powerful that you instinctively yell with excitement on the same day you feel inner peace watching the morning sun meltdown a canyon wall. Feel a joy so pure that it makes adults giggle like children, dancing around a campfire wearing costumes and singing songs off-key. Feel the significance of an ancient canyon that is so great, that even our tiny selves become greater floating in its presence. 

All of this is the stoke of the river, the energy that ignites a fire of passion and connection. The things that cannot be taught but felt only in places so wild, they bring out the wild in ourselves. A good guide likes their job; a great guide, however, is stoked.

Essay by Malissa Balthrop

Returning “home”

The Middle Fork of the Salmon River has stolen my heart

Fifteen seasons of river guiding in various places has allowed me the time and space to know this river is my home. I love how she changes after we leave her alone all winter. The smell of burned soil, purple lupine and fresh rain churn together; butterflies in our stomachs at Boundary Creek. It’s time to return home.

I often wonder, why is “The Church” our home? Is it because of the community, my chosen family? Yes. It is where bloodlines and lineage have new meaning – where gnarled Ponderosa roots dig in and clear, freshwater veins run deep.

Where your fly is tugged by a beautiful cutthroat as you feel warm water massage your shoulders.

Where we get to share our bedroom with thousands of good people, showing them the magic. This is where we grow up, fall in love, and heal our wounds. We are the lucky ones.

Yet sometimes home can become stagnant. How do we find a fresh outlook in a familiar place? How can we keep that magic alive? To feel rejuvenated, to grow, to fall in love with her again...

In August of 2019, I was invited on a Middle Fork trip with a group of Shoshone-Bannock families. Jessica and Sammy Matsaw are cultivating a culture of authentic connection where their Sheepeater ancestors come from. Their children are forming a personal relationship to their roots, by returning to their land, while experiencing the river through traditional ways of knowing.

My responsibility on this trip was on-water safety and running first, and humbly, I felt comfortable in that role. But what took me by surprise was letting go of time. I don’t wear a watch, but guides don’t need one to be able to tell what “time” it is: time to load up, time to take down the groover, time to stop for a snack or lunch, swim or hike. We have this idea of a river time schedule – gotta feed the people every six hours, get to camp by 4:30 for happy hour, then change into cotton and start cooking dinner “on time.” The truth is we have always pulled it off.

The irony is guides say they “go with the flow,” but do we really?

What if we as guides let go of time out there, and completely rethought our connection to the river and each other? How much do we actually cultivate and model that mentality? What if we encouraged guests to play as these Shoshone kids – in and out of the river as long as the sun was up. Sand in every crevice, shivering from being wet all day, grabbing a sandwich for dinner in the dark with the biggest grin.

As we overlooked Underwater Canyon one morning, one of the parents said: “This place is always here for you. Just like medicine, this river is just that for us. Whenever you need to come home, you can.” So, the next time we are able to return, we must remember how, indeed, the river is our medicine.

What will we give back to her, as she gives us so much?

 Essay and photos  by Tess McEnroe 

The Best Guides I Know 

The best guides I know are facilitators. 

Yes, they cook the food (Mark Keegan), they row a beautiful boat (Sena Strenge), they lead the hikes (Ashley Brown and Jeff Berkey), they find fish (Wyatt Myers), or they choose the perfect fly (Casey Jones).

 Yes, they build a routine that fosters community and appreciation of nature (Greg McFadden, Ned Perry), they are kindness and stoke masters (Kelli OKeefe, Mia Clyatt). They have the words to explain the relationship between land, water, and human (Morris Uebelacker). They know history (Nick Grimes, Barry Dow, Les Bechdel). They know science (Kerstin Shneryl, Maddie Friend).

Yes, they are leaders, organizers of people, great masters of logistics (Bronco Brushank, Amber Shannon), they are serious about fun (Kerry Athey, Sarah Mallory, Seneca Kristjonsdottir). They are themselves (Abby McMurtry). They have, when necessary, cared compassionately for 24 puking and shitting strangers.

 These are things that a guide does, but not what I guide is.  My job as a guide, as a facilitator, is to help the land speak to those who are ready to listen. Kind of like a pet psychic––but for an entire ecosystem. 

 I guide because I believe Frank Church Wilderness and the rivers that run through it can transform people’s lives. In the ten years, I’ve worked here as a river ranger, fisheries technician, camp cook, and guide, my life has been transformed countless times. I have come into being in this place, as many people as possible should have the same opportunity. 

 There is no formula for facilitating this transformation. I’ve let a guest cut the peppers, or swim across the river or hike alone, or sit on the beach be bored. Maybe it is listening to what needs to be left behind, cleansed by the campfire, by a death march through the sagebrush, or by a cool dunk in the river.  Sometimes it is establishing the rules, the ethics, and responsibilities of a place, the reality of impact, of respect, of poison ivy. 

 A guide is here to facilitate––to manage the risk, to believe in a person, and help consider unseen possibilities.  but this is their adventure, and the rewards don’t come without some effort and discomfort. We aren’t there to make it easy.  

 When it does take, it’s worth it. Day three when the glaze is gone from the face of a 15-year-old who's never been away from his phone, or when strangers rally around a guest with Parkinson’s, making sure he is never without a shoulder to lean on or a listening ear, or when a woman is reborn, unabashedly peeing in the river wherever is convenient for her. 

 It doesn’t always take, and the best guides I know don’t live and die with this. To facilitate is to accept a lack of control. A guide can interpret for the land, but they cannot make people hear. I’m constantly humbled by that. But the Frank Church is a good place to be humble––we will all return to ash before these rocks reach middle age.

 Essay  By Elise Otto

"What is a Guide?"

“Why are you a guide?” I ponder this often –

Sit with me awhile to hear some lessons I’ve gotten.

It’s not all rose, and it isn’t all thorn –

But together, as a whole, there's beauty in both calm and storm.

I can tell you of darkness, waking before so many dawns,

body sore and stumbling amidst a symphony of yawns.

In the dark I may grumble, stumbling over my peers,

On way to the water, wondering why I’ve been at this for years.

And when I get there - do you know what I see?

Myself reflecting back, looking deep inside me.

A Guide.

I’ve come to awaken…with nature, stars and clouds –

Awaken, in places which tug away fictional shrouds.

I’m here to teach and be taught, to learn and to listen,

To give and receive, these lessons and vision.

The landscape compels me, to boil some coffee,

In hopes that my guests become a little less groggy.

They’ll wake up to see, this existence we’re in –

In this way, I’m a Guide, inviting them to be kin.

And akin to the notion, that here we are family…

No matter what, come sunshine or calamity.

As my partners awaken, I take great ease in knowing,

Together, as Guides, these seeds we are sowing.

But Guides don’t just make the coffee and bacon…

(Though outdoor kitchen mastery is an aptitude, don’t be mistaken)

We will help you navigate perhaps the greatest jaunt of your life,

Sharing tales wrought with intrigue, connection, and (hopefully not) strife.

We’ll be there to urge you, blazing trails of imagination,

As companions, together, sharing moments devoid of stagnation.

We’ll traverse pathways overgrown, encounter animals wild,

Rapids raging frothy and complex ancient histories compiled.

We’ll be with you in times of your need and your prowess,

the Wardens of wild places - ready to share them if you’ll allow us.

A Guide is a Director, producing the Present simply by being -

Creating experiences of the rawest live-action - well worthy of seeing!

We are Stewards to curious souls who are searching,

steady Gurus for those who seek unconventional churching.

We are Interpreters of environment, translating true nature -

From the vast of the deserts to the depths of a glacier,

the peaks of precipitous ranges to the meat of strong rivers,

in the heat and the rain, through snow, sweat, and shivers.

We are Conductors of energy, current with life’s rhythm pulsing –

Sparking lightning within you – warning: shared laughter may cause convulsing.

Surely there are so many aspects that make up a Guide,

and in a lifetime exploring, I could never fully describe.

But I’ll say, if you ask me, ‘Well, what is a guide?”

A Guide is a Healer – helping discover yourSelf, amplified.

Poem by Sara Sweeney

Guide’s Prayer

A truth is just this. Something that ‘is,’ by virtue of itself. There are moments that align this world in natural places. Where truth can be seen through the haze of motives, desires, perceptions. Moments when stark reality both shatters and refines the order of thoughts and patterns developed through baggage of historical precedent, tradition, and intent. A moment when the wind eases over a ridgeline and pushes past my ear at daybreak. It shatters these patterns as I turn to see those I’ve guided with me on the ridge. Silence, with slow smiles spread through the group watching the glow of dawn hurry itself onto the hillsides. It is through knowing glances that we share the rueful understanding of how powerful this 1200’ climb is up to this point where the sky, wind, and river flow together. We cannot begin to explain to each other through human words how important this moment is to each of us. But we have the delicate patch into truth written in our glances. If only briefly. And with understanding lost in other thoughts we blink and realize the sun has come, that breakfast will soon be ready down at Little Pine thanks to the other guides, my friends, my family. Who let me enjoy this place with others while they stayed to cook breakfast. So silently we turn from the point looking both up and downstream and make our way down what was once just a game trail, thoughts moving to where the river will next teach us. Where we will all find communion with ourselves, others and the truth of the world found in the river. I turn to look at this granitic outcrop before walking away, one of many along this river. A well of gratefulness, sadness, empathy, solace, and hope rise and pass through my mind like the morning breeze carrying the hymn of the wren. With each step downhill, my breath rhythmically murmurs the guide’s prayer,  “Let me guide with guidance along the path, with ceremony, and reverence for all things.” A meditation and memory to be the medium for the truth to approach others.    

Prayer by Nate Moody

Why I guide for Girls

I am a guide, and I am also a feminist. Since the day someone put a paddle in my hand and gave me the “go” to head downstream, I have experienced a myriad of sexist and harmful commentary as a female river guide. From men taking yeti coolers out of my hands, to an act I coined “the Dad stroke”, where the patriarch of a raft insists on correcting the angle of the boat I’m steering, to the men that instinctively hop on-board my colleague's boats at the put-in, to the utter shock on dudes face’s when I’ve made it through a rapid or once again successfully rigged my boat. Over the past half a decade, I’ve been lucky enough to guide, period. There have been countless men who have indeed taught me to guide and supported my journey on the river who I hold near and dear to my heart. On the contrary, there have been men who undermined or underestimated my abilities as a female guide; I thank them too, as they pushed me to prove myself and to be all the more capable. In turn, I guide for girls. For the girls that have been faced with the equivalent of having a cooler torn out of their capable arms…I guide for you. For the campfire giggles into the night, the dance parties through class-fun whitewater, for the silliness that arises and the emergent confidence in the eyes of girls who, prior to their river trip, have yet to pitch their own tent or live outside. I guide for the girls on my boat to viscerally experience feminine pride and ability. For the girls that turn around after a massive splash with an enormous grin on their face and yell “That was HUGE!”. I guide for the nine-year-old girls who learn to set up a ferry angle and want to continue to gain the skills of river navigation. I guide for the girls who want to see someone be as silly, feminine, and filled with joy as they are while simultaneously modeling capability and strength simply by getting us all down the river. I guide to show these girls that they too can push themselves into the women they want to become. In my story, #whatisaguide means so much more about the conversations with girls who are getting to know themselves than anything else. I get to share the importance of caring for the natural world, of feeling calm and confident in trying times, about triumphs and setbacks, we get to be vulnerable and share our stories. I get to teach girls that life doesn’t escape you when you’re on the river…rather, it shapes you. I am a guide for the little girls whose relentless squeals for joy ring through my ears and encourage me to be the most honest & capable version of myself I can possibly become. I am a guide because I want to continue to be a female role model to every girl that has been told she’s not enough or that she cannot become the woman she wants to be. I guide for the look on a once-strangers face after six days floating down the Salmon; filled with a newfound understanding of what a girl can be.  #femaleguidepower #thisisaguide #feministraftguide #Imwithher #girlsboat #whatisaguide #redsidefoundation

Essay and images: Bobbi Anderson

It’s a Guide

 It’s the mountains, the deserts, the rivers, and the sea

 It’s sunrises, sunsets, and many moons

It’s the Southern Cross and the North Star

It’s the alpine, sea level, and the in between

It’s a 25 knot hairdryer, 24/7

It’s water so calm you could walk on it and the 65 knot gust

It’s the green flash and the flash flood

It’s the avalanche and the microburst

It’s the spring runoff

It’s lightning

It’s a golden eagle

It’s a pelican

It’s a canyon wren

It’s a frigate

It’s a vulture  

It’s a cow elk waiting to cross

It’s a bull moose on the trail

It’s wolverine tracks in the snow

It’s a manta ray’s belly and an eagle ray’s flight

It’s a hammerhead’s pace

It’s a green turtle grazing

It’s a red salmon’s last breath

It’s the long walk up

It’s a careful analysis of terrain, weather, and ability

It’s a go

It’s skins off and goggles on

It’s breathing through the nerves

It’s everyone watching

It’s tips to the lip

It’s DROPPING!

It’s the first turn

It’s the mouthful of white

It’s the crux

It’s your time

It’s the fire in your legs and beating of your heart

It’s flow

It’s the safe zone

It’s be cool, don’t fall over, everyone’s still watching

It’s your signature on the mountain

It’s string cheese and a Snickers

It’s Caribbean blue and cedar green

It’s Colorado red and Clearwater brown

It’s Wallowa white

It’s the prism

It’s bees

It’s mosquitos

It’s bees

It’s ants

It’s bees

It’s spiders

It’s bees

It’s cockroaches

It’s BEES!

It’s the businessman, the businesswoman, and the wannabe 

It’s the moms and dads and uncles and aunts and grandma

It’s the toddlers and teens and queens

It’s the fat and skinny

It’s the black and white and both

It’s the hairy and young and old and beautiful

It’s the princess and the joker

It’s the fakes and the frauds

It’s the welders and framers and farmers

It’s whoever just walked down the dock

It’s the old friend you just met

It’s Hawkeye

It’s the whites in their eyes the first time they see the Tobago Cays or Impassible Canyon

 It’s the journey from the awkward handshake to the long, heartfelt embrace

It’s the in between

It’s the connection

It’s the best tip of the season..

It’s the campfire

It’s the transom

It’s the cooler

It’s the groover line

It’s the trail

It’s the truth

It’s a loud crack followed by a distant scream

It’s blood, so much blood

It’s the brink of panic

It’s a deep breath

It’s a repeated training remembered

It’s another deep breath, a smile, and a calm tone of voice

It’s saving the day

It’s BREAKFAST!

It’s the early morning darkness

It’s the sound the blaster makes, like a dragon’s breath, when you light it

It’s ½ drank beers and tipped over wine

It’s those precious moments alone in the dark

It’s quiet reflection

It’s boiling coffee..everywhere

It’s “Shit, here they come..”

It’s “Good Morning Campers!”

It’s gameday

It’s pineapple boats and apple turtles

It’s 103 degrees and 40-Mile Stew

 It’s 100 pancakes

It’s 81 sausage links

It’s 64 French toast

It’s 36 biscuits

It’s 24 ribeyes

It’s 13 salmon fillets

It’s 4 dutch ovens

It’s 2 grilled cheese

It’s 1 for the crew

It’s an oddly quiet kitchen

It’s on everybody’s mind

It’s so much worse than last year

It’s a distant roar

It’s just around the corner

It’s butterflies

It’s a horizon line

It’s on

It’s the green tongue

It’s the V wave

It’s wet

It’s a ledge on the left and death on the right

It’s the run out

It’s done

It’s the turn back and tip of the hat.. “See you next week, my friend”

It’s a textbook bear hang

It’s a huge, frightened bear with a can of “Swiss Miss” stuck to its face

It’s the cloud of chocolaty grey smoke that billows with each fearsome exhale

It’s a 12yr old girl screaming, “IT’S A FIRE BREATHING BEAR!!”

It’s taking her home

It’s ending the trip

It’s telling her dad that he doesn’t get his money back

It’s the snap of a sweep blade in Kramer

It’s upside down in Lochsa Falls

It’s feeding the Duck

It’s the middle of China

It’s Ladle, Pistol, Lava, and that shallow SOB… “NOT AGAIN!”

It’s a boat underway named Pocmahon

It’s the pool of blood on the cabin sole

It’s gluing Young Frank’s tooth back in his mouth

It’s the unknowing guests’ reveling in the sunshine and breeze

It’s rum

It’s a mid-portage CODE BROWN movement.. “Sorry guys, I had no choice”

It’s a flaming paper plate on the windshield

It’s the Dixie Chicks turned up to 11

It’s the waving arms of a redneck hanging out the t-top of a Trans Am

It’s RAFTS ON FIRE!

It’s a hard hit to the chin

It’s flat backed on I-90

It’s a timely fire extinguisher

It’s ice cream cones and a quiet ride home

It’s college

It’s a recovery mission

It’s a frozen tomb

It’s a dead man’s sleighride

It’s a medicine man’s smoke

It’s a widow’s gratitude

It’s the next slope

It’s the cream dream

It’s pressing on

It’s a family affair

It’s a dad, dead on the sticks

It’s “Get the guests out of here”

It’s a son’s face

It’s a corpse in a blue tarp

It’s a long walk

It’s a quiet row out

It’s a call home long overdue

It’s campfire jams and passing jugs

It’s bus ride sing-a-longs

It’s whackin’ pots and slappin’ spoons

It’s live

It’s unplugged

It’s authentic and real and right now

It’s a fond memory… “Man we sounded GOOD!”

It’s your brothers and sister

It’s full timers, the old boys, and swampy

It’s more time with them than anyone else

It’s late night walks and coffee talks

It’s hang back smokes and the same old jokes

It’s good the bad and the ugly

It’s the mud and the blood and the beer

It’s the only reason you’re going again

It’s your family

It’s yachting

It’s getting a little boy to lip his first bass

It’s applauding teenage girl’s boney cast

It’s their parents watching from a distance

It’s resealing an old bond

It’s gratitude

It’s breaking your rod at the put in

It’s an old man lending you his ‘spare’ that’s worth more than your first car

It’s a 100 fish day

It’s another 100 fish day

It’s getting that rod back to the old man

It’s respect

It’s the four ½ inflated, wet, catlike steps to the shore with an armload of 4 eggs, 6 limes, 3 beers, 2 Diet Cokes, and a mouthful of Oreos.

It’s your precious dry feet

It’s not your day

It’s stitches above the eye

It’s a soggy ego

It’s wet feet..

It’s the guy that drank too much and didn’t show up

It’s your turn, ready or not, to row the gear

It’s getting stuck on the rocks in the rain

It’s the rest of the boats disappearing around the bend

It’s up to your tits in real current

It’s pushing an enormous, squishy, impossibly heavy thing with all your might

It’s giving up

It’s tears

It’s back in the water

It’s strength from a depth beneath your feet

It’s just enough

It’s going

It’s getting away

It’s a Spiderman dive between rooftops

It’s back in the saddle

It’s more tears, except these taste different

It’s an arrival

It’s building a z-drag

It’s pulling the boss, and his guests, off the rocks

It’s the sound a tight rope makes when you cut it

It’s fulfillment

It’s my eyes opening

It’s 3 deep, foggy breaths

It’s a prayer

It’s aches and pains

It’s a wonder why

It’s a pause

It’s a vision of a joyous child, a couple’s overdue embrace, an old man’s content

It’s the point

It’s up and at ‘em

It’s a master’s degree in one hand and a deck brush in the other

It’s “What are you gonna do with your life?”

It’s “When are you gonna grow up?”

It’s “Wow, must be nice.”

It’s “Man, I wish I had your life.”

It’s experiences over accomplishments

It’s earned, not given

It’s being the last one down and the first one up

It’s everyday

It’s relentless

It’s exhausting

It’s forgetting what day it is

It’s lonely and tired

It’s alcohol and drugs

It’s living the dream and losing control

It’s a bold friend in the perfect place and time

It’s rehab

It’s shame and fear and resentment

It’s treatment and therapy

It’s prayer and meditation and exercise

It’s moving home and going to meetings

It’s recovery and sobriety

It’s a metamorphosis

It’s a renaissance

It’s speaking up and helping others

It’s a problem

It’s hope

It’s a life worth living

It’s a life worth loving

 It’s 22 years in the game

It’s 22 years from now

It’s never wanting to stop

It’s the paint on the walls and the scars in the caves

It’s the feeling that someone’s been here before, a long time before

It’s a passage through a sacred land with respect and consequence

It’s a place that was theirs before and is yours now

It’s a great responsibility

It’s an honor

It’s a kid on a Quetico shore

It’s a mentor’s words

It’s the group within the group

It’s a real job

It’s a dream

It’s a reality

It’s a career

It’s a life’s work

It’s a guide

Poem by Jon Totten