River is Boss: Lessons from a Grand Canyon Trip Interrupted — OARS, The Eddy

"Flying out of the canyon in the sleek red helicopter with the Park Service rangers, the low sun casting its orange glow on the river below, I wasn’t overcome by pain or fear; it was gratitude for those friends who had held me, whom I left standing in a spray of sand on the beach.

And it was complete and utter awe for this river, for this canyon."

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What Two Indigenous Guides Want You to Know Before Your Next Trip — OARS, The Eddy

“You’re in the heart. You’re right at the source of it. You’ve got to feel that. Be in the moment. Not the past or the future, be in that moment."

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Collective Action on the Colorado River — OARS, The Eddy

No one person can, or will, decide what happens on the Colorado. This water—this river—is simply too vital. "We can choose to fight over scarcity or we can choose to partner with each other to foster abundance and resilience. And that can only happen when we each rise above our own particular special interest and really work to help one another be successful.”

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What is the Future of Grand Canyon Rafting — OARS, The Eddy

“Dam or not, low water, high water, whatever it happens to be, the Grand Canyon’s going to be there and Mother Nature is going to persevere. And that trip, and that place, will continue to hold a lot of magic. So you have to just get out there and appreciate the conditions that are there, for what it is and try to understand our place in it.”

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Cataract Canyon: A Bright Spot in the Colorado River Basin — OARS, The Eddy

The Colorado River Basin is one of the most heavily-developed watersheds in the world, with fifteen dams on the mainstem Colorado and hundreds more on its tributaries, thirst-quenching tendrils reaching into the American West. But in this hard-working, exceedingly managed basin, one stretch of the Colorado flows defiantly and freely, reminding us exactly what this river is made of.

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What This Year's Snowpack Means for the Colorado River — OARS, The Eddy

As much as 75 percent of water supplies in seven western states comes from snowmelt. It’s that melting snow that turns icy trickles of mountain streams to surging rivers in spring and delivers water to more than 40 million people in the Colorado Basin. So after more than two decades of drought, snowpack like we’re seeing this spring is welcome and worth celebrating.

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A Thirsty West: How Did We Get Here? — OARS, The Eddy

We need water. We need rivers. And we need the Colorado.

Beginning with the Tribal Nations that have lived in this landscape since time immemorial, the Colorado River has delivered life, sustenance and resilience. So why in the world are we sucking this life force dry?

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Navigating the Uncertain Future of the Colorado River — OARS, The Eddy

There’s no doubt that we’re facing uncharted territory here, but the fact of the matter remains that the Grand Canyon is a representation of all the majesty that Mother Nature has to offer—and we can use that power to fuel action. “We’ve got to get people out and help them understand that there’s a real river here."

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Saving The World One Party At A Time with Emily Nuchols — Dying to Live Podcast

Emily Nuchols is the founder of Under Solen Media. She has also been known to throw one hell of a party and wholeheartedly believes that celebration is at the core of great work — and that we can save the world one party at a time. In fact, she's currently working on a special project which, ahem, celebrates the role celebration plays in our culture.

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River Warriors: Paul Robert Wolf Wilson — Kayak Sessions Magazine + NRS Duct Tape Diaries

Paul said it’s vital for communities, specifically Indigenous youth, to not only have access to their homelands and waters but also to have access to the joy that comes from playing in those special places. “That ability to go and play in these places that we hold sacred, it ensures that relationship is still genuine,” he says. “Communities like my own haven’t had access to play. We’ve actively been removed from our lands and waters.”

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River Warriors: Russell Davies — Kayak Sessions Magazine + NRS Duct Tape Diaries

Russell Davies vividly remembers running his first big waterfall, Lower Mesa Falls on the Henry’s Fork, a tributary of the Snake River. It was an experience that changed his life forever.

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Indigenous River Protectors: An Interview with Louis and Devin Reuben on the Lower Snake River — American Rivers, Medium

Louis and Devin are canoe carvers, and their sense of place and belonging goes beyond sentiment. It’s in their DNA. As they bring back their canoe culture, they find new momentum for reclaiming their traditional homelands and waters by restoring a free-flowing Lower Snake River. 

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All Forward: Guiding Through a Pandemic — NRS Duct Tape Diaries

All forward. That’s what a river guide commands her crew as their raft plunges into a rapid. With every paddle digging in—and a confident leader steering in the stern—forward momentum drives the boat through turbulence to safety. What we need now, more than ever, are a few good guides to bring willing partners together in shared purpose. This is our mission. To read the current, to steer the boat, to inspire helping—freshly washed—hands into action.

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Are We in a New Era for Dam Removal Projects in the U.S.? — OARS, The Eddy

In essence, movements — environmental and otherwise — are celebrations of the possibility of change. Many crucial touchstones have happened as people gathered, spontaneously or by design, and took things to the next level — even, and especially when, those things are hard. Dam removal is just one example of how with every success, momentum builds to reconnect our communities and our country. So just like a river, let’s keep moving.

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The Last Wild River — OARS, The Eddy

The value of the Yampa is simply that it exists, it is a celebration, a beacon of hope. It flows defiantly in a dammed Colorado watershed and in the face of a threatened American West. The Yampa embodies the wildness, the perseverance and the fight that beats in the heart of every American. 

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Living Valhalla: Exploring What it Means to be Free — National Geographic Adventure

Not a week after arriving in Nelson, I was standing atop the Hume Hotel. It was raining, it was cold, and I was naked. “How did I get here?” I asked myself as I shivered and took a pull from a bottle of my friend’s homemade wine.

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On an Open-Ended World Tour, Couple Uses Specialized Skills to Giveback — National Geographic Adventure

When Kathleen Egan told John Fiddler on their first date that she was planning on taking an indefinite leave of absence from work to take a trip around the world, he immediately said, “I’d quit my job to go do that.”

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Wild Love #4 Sara Close: Love, Loss, and the Resiliency of the Human Heart — National Geographic Adventure

“Never once have I felt like I live in a snapshot of a moment. We’re meant to move, we’re meant to dance, and we’re meant to fall over. Humans have some amazing resiliency.”

 

Wild Love Film #3 – Climber Timmy O’Neill’s Boomerang of Love — National Geographic Adventure

I first met Timmy O’Neill in the packed aisle of a trade show. I was wearing a salmon suit and we chest-bumped our way onto the cover of the trade show’s daily newspaper. It was a pretty ridiculous way to meet someone, but I have a feeling a lot of people have an equally ridiculous story of how they met Timmy.

 

Wild Love Film #2: Ultra Trail Runner Krissy Moehl – “Life’s Better Shared” — National Geographic Adventure

“When life takes you down and it’s hard and you feel really weak, you know that you can come back through it and find something to lift you up again—sometimes that’s another person, sometimes that’s something within.”

 

Wild Love Film #1: Jake Norton and Wende Valentine on Love, Hardship, and Challenge21 — National Geographic Adventure

“I had no idea how profound the experience would be as we delved into the layers of our relationship and our everyday challenges and joys. Having the opportunity to reflect on why we do what we do, how we do it and what it ultimately means in the end was a gift.”

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American Rivers Announces America’s Most Endangered River for 2012 — Patagonia's The Cleanest Line

Sometimes destruction is a good thing. Last year, we watched bulldozers and jackhammers break apart and remove massive chunks of concrete from the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams on the Elwha River in Washington, and we cheered as the first flows of water broke through the cracks. We had been waiting for this moment for more than 20 years. The Elwha and its wild salmon and steelhead had been waiting for more than a century.

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A Different Kind of Skiing: Naked — Outdoor Research Verticulture Blog

I caught my friend’s eye, we both laughed out loud, which set our shivers to shaking again… sure, standing on a ridge, preparing to drop down a fresh line isn’t all that funny, but today we were all naked—and that makes pretty much everything hilarious.

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Kids Get It: Salmon, Wildlife and Connecting the Dots in the Sawtooth Valley — Elephant Journal

Not since I was little, have I searched for wildlife so hard. When you’re out there stalking a moose in the woods, or hiding behind sagebrush to get the perfect shot of a pronghorn, or staring for hours staring at the river hoping for a glimpse of the first salmon runs, it’s really not that difficult to see how all of these animals are connected.

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