鈥淐ome on. Right here,鈥� the trip leader said, tapping his pursed lips. We were in the guide van on the way back to the boat house after guiding our last trip of the day down the Snake River鈥檚 Blind Canyon outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

鈥淜iss me,鈥� he said, veering the van off the highway. 鈥淪how me you鈥檙e not a bitch feminist dyke.鈥�

The long-ago scene was dredged from underneath my breastbone as I watched the hot-mic video of Trump rummaging around for a Tic Tac, claiming, 鈥淚鈥檓 automatically attracted to beautiful鈥擨 just start kissing them, it鈥檚 like a magnet鈥攋ust kiss. I don鈥檛 even wait.鈥�

The senior-guide and trip leader in the van didn鈥檛 wait, either. He just kissed me, spurred on by the complicit background sniggering from another male guide, a laugh almost identical to Billy Bush鈥檚 in the Trump bus video. I reminded my trip leader that I had a serious boyfriend in hopes that he鈥檇 yield, as Trump conceded he didn鈥檛 score only because 鈥渟he was married, that鈥檚 why.鈥� Consent never played into either scene. Consent was irrelevant.

***

During my first season as a commercial river guide, along with ferry angles and highsiding, I learned how to navigate the relentless stream of sexual harassment braided into the culture of guiding. At 20 years old, I was no rookie: I鈥檇 been raised by guiding outfitter parents heavily involved in the environmental movement. At 17, I was sexually assaulted by an environmental activist friend of my parents鈥攈e pressed himself into my bed and grabbed what he wanted while saying he couldn鈥檛 help himself鈥擨 was just 鈥渟o beautiful.鈥�

Like Trump, he used a standard tactic for sexual predators to excuse the inexcusable: victim-blaming. His automatic attraction to 鈥渂eauty鈥� forced him to just start kissing me, without my consent. When I told my mother about the assault, she advised me to 鈥淕et used to it. It鈥檚 just going to keep happening to you.鈥� I took my mother鈥檚 鈥済et used to it鈥� to mean 鈥渇igure out some tools to live with and navigate it.鈥� Like my PFD and ability to read maps, harassment-coping skills were necessary for my survival.

River Guides Have Long Faced Harassment

In January, the Investigative Report of Misconduct at the Grand Canyon River District went public, blowing the lid off the 鈥渓ong-term pattern of sexual harassment and hostile work environment in the GRCA River District.鈥� Soon afterward, I contributed to a story for Men鈥檚 Journal about while working as a commercial river guide for 17 years on rivers throughout the Western U.S. and internationally.

In the story, I revealed how years before, I had faced retaliation for reporting a co-worker for sexual harassment. After his dismissal, I endured months of lecherous language and graphic pornography taped up in the guide van. These were men I considered to be close friends and allies, yet none of them stood up for me or called out the behavior as inappropriate. I understood that this was retaliation for ratting out a comrade, and that I was on my own. Going public with my story in a national magazine felt fraught with uncertainty and adrenaline, not unlike dropping into Lava Falls. Yet, the guiding and outdoor community came forward with tremendous support. I received many encouraging letters and calls thanking me for saying what needed to be said. I also heard from women who experienced similar harassment.聽It had forced some of them to quit guiding altogether. The outfitter I began working for hired three women in 1991 from its guide school (out of 12 new hires): one didn鈥檛 last the season, and one didn鈥檛 return for a second season. Why hadn鈥檛 I quit, too?

I grew up next to the Snake River, just upstream from Blind Canyon where my guiding career began. Since I was little, the river has been my refuge and protection鈥攖he place where I go when I鈥檓 beat up and broken down. It is the place where I am restored to the best version of myself.

Truthfully, this is why most guides are called to rivers and mountains. It鈥檚 our balm for a hierarchical society where many of us feel disenfranchised, anomalous, and unsuccessful. Nature is where we feel most empowered. We flee to the backcountry because it is largely untouched by society鈥檚 constructs, yet, rather than adjust to the ethos of nature, we bring our rank and file rules with us. Power gets abused, dominance plays out and spills into side-canyons and far-flung camps. Predators emerge.

As in nature, the answer to a healthy system is diversity. A quick look around the put-in, boat house or office confirms that guiding鈥攁nd the outdoor industry鈥攊s overly male and overly white, as it has been since Lewis and Clark made their way to the Pacific Ocean. Ads and catalog images targeted at outdoor users are devoid of people of color and often cast women as yoga-hot-pants-clad props.

How the Outdoor Industry Can聽Make the Wilderness Safer

The outdoor industry can make positive changes by being more proactive about inclusion, making diversity in the wilderness the norm. Industry leader Patagonia, for example, regularly sponsors women-specific fly fishing events in partnership with local, grassroots fishing groups. Not only is this cultivating more women anglers, but more women anglers needing gear. Since beginning the clinics in 2013, their women鈥檚 fly fishing program has gone from a negligible percentage to accounting for 18 percent of the company鈥檚 total fly fishing business, according to Chris Gaggia, Patagonia鈥檚 global marketing manager for fly fishing. 鈥淲e鈥檝e included the voice of women anglers since our earliest fly fishing catalogs in 2000-2001,鈥� Gaggia said, 鈥渨hich is right in line with Lynn Hill being such a vanguard of climbing. It鈥檚 just an extension of that.鈥� Forward-thinking companies like Patagonia prove that extending a welcoming hand to women in the wilderness is not just good practice, it鈥檚 good for business.

Are we in the outdoor community ready to cultivate and realize a different future, one that stands up to the culture of sexual harassment we鈥檝e allowed for too long? Or will we instruct another generation of daughters to get used to being objectified and harassed and another generation of sons to stand by silently while it happens? Our industry is filled with outside-the-box thinkers. If any group can lead the mainstream toward a diversified, healthy alternative to rape culture鈥攖hat is, the culture of dominance and intimidation鈥攊t is us. We are the ones called to live on the edge, to find a line through seemingly impossible maelstrom. The line exists if we have the courage enough to drop-in. Fortunately, courage is something we possess in abundance.

Peter Heller, in his book Hell or High Water which chronicles the first descent of Tibet鈥檚 Tsang Po River, wrote, 鈥淎 river鈥檚 last act is to empty itself of its self. How can you conquer something that only seeks to disappear?鈥�

I would argue that the river doesn鈥檛 disappear, but transforms. She reinvents herself, adapting to the course ahead. When scouting rapids, the time comes when you can鈥檛 theorize and study the route anymore, you have to get in the boat and push away from shore. The moment when the boat leaves the eddy and crosses into the current is the moment of transformation鈥攚e leave what is comfortable in favor of what is possible. It is the moment whitewater guides live for, and it is the moment we must invoke now to heed the call of our highest selves going forward.

In the Trump video, Billy Bush posed the question, 鈥淚f you had to choose, honestly, between us鈥︹�� What do we choose? The systemic denigration of women that comes with 鈥渓ocker room talk鈥� and behavior or a safe working environment where everyone is valued, empowered, and equal?

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PADDLES, PFD’s, AND SPRAY SKIRTS 禄 (1) ADVENTURE TECHNOLOGY’s new carbon-and-nylon AT4 PLAY ($230) is the least expensive bent-shaft paddle on the market, and perhaps the strongest. Its ergonomic grip and stiffness cry out for creeking. A no-creep, internal-foam-padded harness and streamlined shape lend pro-tour cred to the (2) LOTUS DESIGNS LOWRIDER PFD ($120)—it’s the choice of U.S. Freestyle Kayak Team member Tanya Shuman. Don’t fly without the (3) WHITE WATER EXP SPRAY SKIRT ($180) from SNAP DRAGON DESIGN. A reinforced rim and a deck made of Kevlar and expedition-weight neoprene prevent skirt blowouts during big aerials. BODYWEAR AND MORE 禄 The titanium-based material lining the NRS HYDROSKIIN G2 SHORT SLEEVE TOP ($67) and (4) PANTS ($90) preserves heat while in the play hole. The company’s soled (5) DESPERADO SOCKS ($40) keep your piggies toasty in glacial melt and feel like slippers. The LOTUS DESIGNS versatile SHORT STRETCH DRY TOP ($285) is the new warm-weather version of its classic Home Stretch top, with nonbinding, anatomically curved shoulders and stretchy yet strong panels. With a competition cut and super-techy features like an adjustable collar, latex wrist gaskets, and a double skirt, (6) Kokatat’s new Gore-Tex XCR RE-ACTION JACKET ($270) wards off water, windchill, and rivals. Wear the dual-brimmed (7) SHERLOCK HELMET ($110) with 眉ber-adjustable H.O.G. (Hand of God) chin strap ($20), both from Shred Ready, and spend your time cartwheeling, not futzing with your lid. Stash keys and wallet in the compact (8) PELICAN 1120 CARRYING CASE ($33), while safeguarding larger valuables like camera gear inside (9) WATERSHED’s welded OCOEE DRYBAG ($69). Its sealing system and optional padded liner ($27) make other drybags look like glorified Ziplocs.

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WHITEWATER FANATICS CAN ADD a new destination river to their lust list: the Upper Savegre, in perennially popular Costa Rica. Paddlers seeking big spills and spectacular scenery can leave the better-known Pacuare and Reventazon to the turistas and head for the mountain village of El Llano de Savegre, the put-in for this gem.

costa rica, whitewater rafting, upper savegre

BOOF THIS : The author at the Savegre’s Arollo Quebrada waterfall

The Savegre runs through the Cordillera de Talamanca, above the central Pacific coast—the middle of nowhere, and yet just 75 miles from San Jos茅. There’s a dearth of outfitters willing to risk the investment to develop a new trip here. As a result, the 12 miles of continuous Class IV whitewater on the Upper Savegre and its tributary the Division have remained largely unpaddled—until now. As a guide on the first commercial rafting descent last July, I was awestruck when, eddied out midway through the relentless cascade, my paddle raft was overtaken by startled iguanas jumping into the river from overhanging cliffs. Even more unbelievable was a wall of whitewater, served up at the Class V rapids called Malibu (think surf city), that succeeded in flipping the lead raft. “Malibu is ugly at all kinds of levels,” remarked fellow H2O 国产吃瓜黑料s guide Roland Cervilla, 50, an expat American. “You just can’t go for it at all if you want to stay upright.”

Details: H2O 国产吃瓜黑料s (011-506-777-4092, ) offers two-day trips on the Upper and Lower Savegre, with an overnight at Rafiki Safari Lodge. The riverbank bush camp, surrounded by 750 acres of pristine rainforest, marks the end of the Upper Savegre and the start of the 12-mile Class II–III Lower Savegre. Cost is $250 per person, including food, lodging, gear, and transportation from El Llano and back.

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