60 percent of the human body is water. 71 percent of the earths surface is water.
Water is more a part of us than anything else. It keeps our bodies alive. It helps feed and nourish our cells.
As a child and young adult, rivers were an integral part of my life. When I was five we moved our first house in to Aspen, Colorado on Castle Creek. My first memories are of camping in Aspen along Castle Creek and playing in its waters. I remember many days spent with in that rocky mountain snow melt fishing and playing.
The next house my dad built a house south of Aspen on the Roaring Fork River with our back porch overlooking the water. Swimming, fishing, and just sitting by the river were daily activities. When my family left Aspen for Crested Butte, my mother purchased a house right on Coal Creek. And again my back deck sat next to water.
The hours I played in these creeks and rivers taught me to respect them and trust them. On hot summer days, my brothers and I cooled off, fished, and sent toy boats made from branches floating off to wild adventures.
My sleep was always lulled by the sounds of the river running by.
The San Juan River me on my first rafting trip in high school. The week we spent on the water hooked me. I knew when I left high school I would follow the rivers calling.
After senior year, I joined a rafting company. Spring training was a rush. We spent three weeks training. We ran the Dolores, The Taos Box on the Rio Grande, and multiple trips on the Amimas River in Durango. I spent two summers as a river guide working both day and multi-day trips.
A career in computer information systems pulled me away from the wild water.
Paddling across our other border collie to a hike in Southwest Colorado.
I didn’t come back to the rivers until 2015 as an adventure resort guide in Southwest Colorado. Back on the river, I was struck by how much I missed it.
The last few years, I dabbled with rivers but did not fully commit to them. This summer, I will be truly returning to these rivers.
This trip is a return to water, to a huge part of the fabric of my being and of all humans’ existence. Once the rivers enter your life, they course through your veins forever.
I am returning once again to the waterways that cut through our lands. I am returning to the one thing that has always been home: a river.
I am returning to nature to find healing and solace.