Greetings, river rats.

This afternoon I was on my bike, crankin’ up a long hill alongside a creek not far from my home, soaking up the flaming reds and yellows of the dogwoods and oaks, the waning afternoon light, the chilly and increasingly dense air here in the Sierra foothills. I love the way nature powers down with flamboyance and style. This gradual season-long diminishing of energy is not only a joy to behold, it’s a powerful metaphor.

Hard to believe five months have passed since 18 of us spent a week together on the Colorado River in Utah’s spectacular Cataract Canyon. It was a powerful experience and it has faded only slightly. What a wonderful gift to have had this opportunity to set aside our electronic faux connectedness for a week and rediscover not only a sense of awe and wonder, but what it means to truly live in community.

Although we’ve left our now beloved Colorado River behind for a time, what remains with us is an opportunity to awaken to the beauty and richness that lies all around us—most of it free, the rest of it cheap, all of it slow. The art of friendship, a dunk in the river, the hole-in-the-wall, lunchtime barbecues, first tracks, independent art and artists of all kinds, full moon kayak expeditions, a mindfulness practice, and long meals with family and friends, to name a few. I know of no one who feels they are doing enough of these, and yet these things are inevitably the first casualties when it comes time to choose amongst all of those overblown obligations to commerce and society.

Speaking of long meals with family and friends, it was absolutely great to see a good number of the Northern California members of our floating tribe gather around a local/seasonal/organic meal at the home of WILD permaculture instructor Trathen Heckman (founder of the organization Daily Acts). Fellow instructors Nathaniel Corum (Architecture for Humanity) and Megan Slankard (Bay Area singer/songwriter) were there. We were also joined by Austin singer/songwriter Patrice Pike, who will lend her considerable talents (musical and otherwise) to a WILD trip next June. After a wonderful meal, Megan and Patrice broke out their guitars. Beauty happens! A couple of nights later we reprised the evening here in the Sierra foothills with some of Northern California’s most dedicated and effective environmental activists. These two gatherings were about as close to our time around the campfire in Cataract Canyon as I am likely to come. Until next summer.    

It has become clear to me these past five months that there are few things as important as making time to be with each other in community. The world has a way of subtly isolating us and pushing us apart, and the antidote is to diligently cultivate a posture of openness, trust, receptivity, and compassion. Look past superficial differences and focus on our shared humanity. The aforementioned faux electronic “connectedness” is no substitute for gathering to share meals, ideas, laughter, songs, poems, hopes, vulnerabilities. 

These are lessons from the river that are lingering with me this week.

Many blessings to you beautiful people! 

Pride Wright

Member WILD Board of Directors  

As a veteran of many river trips and other outdoor experiences I can honestly say that my WILD trip this summer was probably the most enlightening and overall fun trips of my life. On previous river trips, I had been apprehensive, bored, a little homesick, and always felt cold and wet. But for some reason this trip was different. When my dad, a huge proponent of rafting in general, first suggested this trip I scoffed at him. Why would I want to spend a weak of my hard earned summer learning about wilderness leadership, when I had just experienced the downward spiral that is junior year in high school. I brushed him off a couple of times when he first mentioned it to me, claiming I couldn’t take the time off work, but the idea of exploring the canyon lands was planted in my head. Finally after months of considering it I finally said to myself, ah what the hell, and asked if there was still room on the trip the week before it left. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of my young life.

Since this essay is supposed to be what I learned from my trip, I won’t bore you with details from the river, besides the fact that the canyon lands are really one of the most beautiful places on earth, and the wonder and awe in which I viewed them have seemed to open up a new place in my life. Before the trip I always view the outdoors with respect, but I was never that close to them, and had really stopped spending long chunks of my time camping or going on trips, besides the occasional day hike or float trip. I think I had really lost interest when I had almost contracted hypothermia camping in the winter up near Boulder a couple of years earlier. But the wild trip has become sort of a reawakening for me. After the trip I spent almost every day of the summer hiking around Colorado and it turned into probably the best summer of my life. I also have recently gotten into mountain biking, and plan to snowshoe and ski a bunch this winter. Looking back on my experience I cannot thank the people who made this trip fun and possible enough. I met some pretty awesome people on the river and I hope to continue exploring with them in the future, wherever their paths in life may take them. I also cannot stress enough how thankful I am for this trip rekindling my love affair with nature. Now I just have to hike every single fourteener in Colorado.