Lochsa River, Idaho, USA

By Tom
Missoula, MT

I had many reasons for attending grad school at University of Montana: the world-class professors, excellent research resources, international reputation for its biology program...and proximity to the Lochsa River. The Lochsa is famous among boaters as one of the best whitewater rivers in North America. Huge stomping class IV rapids on a teal-green river rush down among giant, old-growth cedar and hemlock trees. When I chose Colby as my undergraduate locale, it's proximity to the Kennebec, Dead, and Penobscot Rivers factored heavily into my decision. Similarly, I was psyched to head to UM because of the Lochsa was only 90 minutes away.

Unfortunately, the Lochsa doesn't run during the Fall. And last year, it didn't run in the Spring until I was only days away from leaving for my field site in Jackson for the Summer. So now, only weeks before graduating and leaving Missoula, I ran it for the first time ever. I chose to first take a look at it in my kayak. I drove over on a rainy Saturday and followed two local paddlers I met at the put-in. The river lived up to it's name; big and stompy and fun and beautiful.

Two weeks later, we rented out a raft and paddling gear (with a lot of borrowed stuff from Karl and Tara!) and the Missoula crew set off down the river again. We followed the crew of a local raft guide named Bob, a man whose intensity in describing every detail of every rapid for me seemed to rival Keanu Reeves from Speed describing that there was a BOMB on the BUS. Despite Bob's warnings that every single rapid had to potential to kill us without mercy, we somehow made it down safely and with smiles on our faces.

After spending the day in freezing cold water, we stopped at some of the local thermal springs to enjoy a soak in bubbling hot water. It was a fitting end to a fun day!