{"id":1364,"date":"2013-08-08T19:44:26","date_gmt":"2013-08-08T19:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nikwax.wordpress.com\/?p=1364"},"modified":"2024-10-24T09:48:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T08:48:18","slug":"the-trip-of-a-lifetime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nikwax.com\/en-us\/posts\/the-trip-of-a-lifetime\/","title":{"rendered":"The trip of a lifetime"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nikwax.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/dscf0385.jpg?w=650\" alt=\"Image\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I married a fly fisherman, despite having no interest in fly-fishing. I even managed to avoid the sport despite spending the last 18 years on a river in Colorado and working as a professional raft guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For 40-some years on the planet, I maintained a sterling 0-for-0 record in the fish department. The Selway River would prove my undoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Located in Central Idaho in the midst of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, the Upper Selway River is a 47-mile stretch of crystalline water, cedar-scented shorelines and impossibly steep and green hillsides.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nikwax.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/dscf0434.jpg?w=650\" alt=\"Image\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most forest fires there are allowed to burn because they are simply too remote to reach. Only 63 permits are given out each year, making it tougher to snag a trip on this northern beauty than just about anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My husband and I accepted the invitation before the words were fully out of the trip leader\u2019s mouth. We\u2019d been trying to get a permit for 18 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But when we were a week away from departure, I was hesitant. Though I\u2019m a competent rower, I\u2019d spent more time recently pushing keys on the computer than pushing oars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I blame Pam Houston for my lack of enthusiasm. She ruined me for the Selway in her instant classic \u201cCowboys are my Weakness.\u201d I read her harrowing story in 1995, the same year I started guiding commercially. She misguidedly ran the river at particularly high water \u2013 all in the name of love or lust or something like it. I don\u2019t remember the details other than the endless string of boat-flipping holes and back-to-back, boulder-choked rapids. In 1995, I was intrigued. In 2013, I was not feeling at my most confident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thanks in large part to a friendly water level, the rapids on the Selway were long on fun and short on scary. We all had clean runs and the people, most of whom I\u2019d never met, proved an amiable and competent crew. My husband and I were enjoying more laughs than we\u2019d shared in months.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nikwax.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/08\/dscf0343.jpg?w=650\" alt=\"Image\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Selway corridor is at once intimate and imposing. It\u2019s a narrow river flanked by towering, steep slopes smothered in lush, green trees. I was attuned for sightings of bears and rattlesnakes. The only land animals we saw were a few eagles and osprey, plus a butterfly that took up residence on my bare arm for nearly three hours one day. The water is so clear you find yourself pointing it out multiple times a day, as if to confirm what you\u2019re seeing is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, of course, there were the fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019d been studying them for days. As I pushed out of an eddy, I sheepishly asked my husband if he would row so I could try out his fly rod. Barely concealing a pleased smile, he dutifully tied on the appropriate fly and I was sunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it happened, it happened fast and I squealed like a little girl. \u201cI got one! What do I do? Am I hurting it? I don\u2019t want to hurt it.\u201d Whereas fishing brings out the Zen in most people, apparently it brings out my bossy and high-pitched side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it is remarkably fun. In an instant, I fell in love with this surprisingly graceful dance of gently touching the fly on the water and playfully tempting the fish to bite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I couldn\u2019t NOT catch a fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One after another, I would reel them in and my husband \u2013 the saint that he is \u2013 would carefully release them off the barbless hooks. I must have caught 20 fish that first half hour without touching a single one with my hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though I wouldn\u2019t stop casting, I was conflicted. Every time I\u2019d feel the tug of the line, instant remorse washed over me. I would reel in the little guys and become overwhelmed with the cruelty of snagging them with a hook purely for my own sick pleasure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then again, every time I\u2019d reel one in, the little devil sitting on my other shoulder would whisper, \u201cNow I want a bigger one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I think of the Selway in the future, I\u2019ll be grateful that we weren\u2019t running it high water. I\u2019ll talk about the middle line in Ladle, saut\u00e9ing fresh morel mushrooms scavenged from the hillside, and maybe plan to run the 50-mile trail that parallels the length of the stretch. I\u2019ll have to mention the clarity of the water, which could easily be transplanted to a pristine cove in the Caribbean if the colors were more tropical. And I\u2019ll talk about fishing, but not too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was an instant connection with the fish on the Selway. It\u2019s one that I\u2019m a bit ashamed of because I\u2019m not sure I want to risk ruining the experience by ever fishing again. Maybe my childhood belief that I could communicate with animals isn\u2019t that far-fetched. Maybe those fish opened my eyes to a glorious river I hadn\u2019t fully been appreciating. Against all logic and contrary to all my guilt, I like the thought that I may just be a natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ahh, probably not. Those fish on the Selway River will strike for anyone.&nbsp; \u2014Brook Sutton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I married a fly fisherman, despite having no interest in fly-fishing. I even managed to avoid the sport despite spending the last 18 years on a river in Colorado and working as a professional raft guide. For 40-some years on the planet, I maintained a sterling 0-for-0 record in the fish department. The Selway River&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[393,2651,2652,105,2653,2649,2654],"class_list":["post-1364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories","tag-adventure","tag-fly-fishing","tag-idaho","tag-nikwax","tag-river-trip","tag-road-trip","tag-selway-river"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The trip of a lifetime - Nikwax NA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nikwax.com\/en-us\/posts\/the-trip-of-a-lifetime\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The trip of a lifetime - Nikwax NA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I married a fly fisherman, despite having no interest in fly-fishing. 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