Running Water

The next day was a Wednesday—I remember because the local ice cream store in Jackson had cones for $1 on Wednesdays. We were back in Jackson and getting ready for a five-day river float and camping trip down the Big Hole River. It was the part of the program they call “Running Water.”

Mike and Nina said that Layla and I had not been promoted to the next level, so the entire team wasn’t technically promoted. But they would let us all participate in the next level and then decide if we would get credit later.

I tried not to think of what it would mean if after all this we didn’t get credit for the program. I decided to focus, instead, on how nice it was to be in normal June weather again. It was almost 70º and really sunny that day. It was so nice, in fact, that it was hard to understand why Nina and Mike were making such a big deal about having the right gear for the river trip.

I started getting the drift when they told us we would have to learn how to fly fish for this trip. That would involve standing in the river for hours at a time. “The river that started at the Continental Divide?” asked Layla.

“Right, Layla” said Mike. “A lot of the water in the Big Hole River comes from streams like the big one you saw coming down from Darkhorse Lake. Darkhorse and some other lakes up there are considered the headwaters for the Big Hole River.”

I had a flashback to that freezing cold water on my hands while I was panning for gold. We were going to be standing in water like that for hours?!