Well, I never expected this little rafting forum to go beyond boating stories, but friends, I’ve got a game-changer here. Yessirree, I’m about to pass on some pure, un-cut, grade A insight that’s already made my life easier.

Sounds like I’m selling Tupperware or 5 Steps To A Better Whatever. But no. This is something else. Something marvelous. It’s the answer.

Or two answers, really. But they work for nearly all occasions. I learned them from two kayak instructors, Andy and Joanne from Wet Planet.

River guides are asked questions. And that’s good. Ask away. That’s what we’re there for. But every now and again – I’ll speak for myself here, and leave others out of it – every once in a while I simply don’t know. Or I’m not sure. And I’ll fess up. There are some stretches of river where I wish I did, but I just don’t know for certain sure how deep it is.

And that’s when these magic responses from Andy and Joanne really shine. Turns out you can sidle around not knowing by deploying one, or both, of these handy comments.

Ready? Here’s the first one:

“It varies.”

So simple. So succinct. So vague, and yet so exact. And you can follow it up with this gem:

“You’d be surprised.”

Let’s try it out, shall we. The last trip I was on, I was asked how big sturgeon get. I’ve personally seen an 11-footer come up from the depths of the Snake River, and heard accounts or seen pictures of much bigger monsters. But offhand, I just don’t know what the record size for a sturgeon is.

“You’d be surprised,” works well in this case. I’d be surprised myself, since I don’t know the answer.

I often get asked how heavy the gearboat is when fully loaded. Frankly, I don’t even want to guess, as it wouldn’t make it any easier to row and I’m happier in the dark. But in this case I’d go with the combo of, “It varies . . . you’d be surprised.”

Try it out yourself. Next time you’re at work and all eyes around the conference table turn to you, expecting an answer on when the Johnson account will be finalized or what the quarterly predictions indicate, you can at least buy some time with those two handy answers.

These here photos, for your viewing pleasure, show the view from Suicide Point on the Snake, across from Hominy Bar. A nice short hike with big, expansive views. How long does the hike take? Well, it varies.

Other photo shows one of the pictographs on a rock face just downstream from Granite Creek, also on the Snake River. I was asked how old they are. I could have given the range in thousands of years on estimates on when they may have been made, but it just seemed easier to respond truthfully that you’d be surprised.

Just got back from a great trip on the Salmon. Kayak school with Wet Planet. Winding Waters set up camp and had the big boats . . . great folks, great time, great everything.

Not great weather, however, on day four out of five. And with the rain drizzling down, like it had since the night before . . . we were eating breakfast . . . it’s raining . . .still . .. and somebody said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just stay here.”

And so we did. Took a vote. Figured the river miles for the last day and it all made sense. Everyone was in favor and so we stayed right there below Wapshilla Rapid. And it was great.

Layovers are so nice.

Clouds eventually burned out. Sun showed itself. There was leisurely coffee. Epic yoga session. Dance class led by Shannon, one of our guides who works as a ballet and dance instructor . . . one-on-one kayak lessons from Andy and Joanne from Wet Planet. I went for a big long hike up toward Rattlesnake Ridge – that’s a picture there of camp from up high.

Other folks took a similar hike. Andy put on a swiftwater rescue lesson. There was napping, reading, geology lessons from Barbara, a college geology instructor on the trip who interpreted rocks we all brought back from our wanderings. Lots of laughing. Layover days are great. We get them once in a while. Depends on the trip. The times I’ve been along when there’s a layover day and we don’t move camp, things still get done – exploring, rock-skipping, reading, eating, kicking back, story-telling, sand castle building, etc. -- and you’re still on the river, we’re just not moving downstream that day and the relaxing picks up the pace.

Yeah. It’s nice.

On this same trip we kept running into a group that had this crazy, small, sweep boat. Instead of oars, sweeps boats have rudders both fore and aft. That was the norm on the Salmon back in the day. I’ve seen them before, but not like this. This was the genuine article. And I caught up with them at the scout for Snowhole Rapid.

Patrick and I were running gear. Pulled into the scout and there was the sweep boat. We took a peek at the run, then headed back to our rafts and ran into the older guy who was running the sweep boat.

Mr. Hatch. Bought this raft in the 1950s for 50 bucks. It’s a 1940s war surplus model he came across. The sweeps are made from two-by-fours and plywood. Not self-bailing. He built the spray skirts to keep water out. I asked how it handled, if it was easy enough to eddy out and get to camp, or pull over. No, he said. It doesn’t handle all that well. But, hell, it still works, and if it ever gives out he guesses he’ll buy a boat with oars, but until then this works fine. He’s a badass, that Mr. Hatch, and I wish I’d had more time talking with that guy.

So I met an old-school river guy running a World War II surplus raft, then hit camp and spent some time talking with Andy, the lead kayak instructor for Wet Planet, who’s on the other end of things. This guy kayaks all over the place. He’s very reserved, very modest. But reading between the lines of the things he’s done in whitewater will make your hair turn white.

I watched Mr. Hatch in his sweep boat pass by our camp after having my hair turn white talking to Andy, and realized they’re not at all different. Old guy, young guy. Antique boat, other end of the spectrum. But talking with both, they’ve got the same reasons. Same attachment to water.

Let me just say this: I like my job. It’s good folks, good times, good stuff.

I know a gal who hauls her bed into the backyard for the summer months. Sheets, pillows, comforter, the whole works. I asked about the occasional summer rain squall. Does she pull a tarp over things? She’s not big on tarps, she says. She just dries things out afterwards and claims there are few things in the world that smell better than sun-dried sheets after a rainstorm.

That’s maybe going above and beyond for sleeping under the stars, but getting your shut-eye out in the open is worth trying. And the river is premiere ground for doing it.

I was a tent guy when I came to work for Winding Waters. I’d done some rough bivouacking before. Froze me lucky charms off one night sleeping out in the sagebrush near Smith Rock in Central Oregon. Seemed a good idea. Nice, clear sky. Grabbed the blanket from my pickup that had been doing duty as a seat cover and wandered out until I found a spot that looked promising. Deserts get cold at night, I noticed, about 2 a.m. And seat cover blankets are not all that warm. I tried draping my dog, Bula, over the top of me, but she wanted to hog her fur all to herself. Giving hypothermia to the hand that feeds you is no way to treat your owner, but she was adamant.

So I was a wee-bit gun shy about not having tent walls around me at night. But there are evenings when you look up and don’t need a meteorology background to know rain is not in the equation. Tents walls are there to keep bad things out, like rain and wind. They also keep out a nice breeze on hot nights when that’s just the ticket.

The stars are bold down in Hells Canyon or the lower Salmon or the Grand Ronde or wherever you happen to be in the wilderness. And sure you can see through net mesh. It’s just not the same to take your last wink before drifting off and beholding them mighty heavens through screen, as it is seeing the Milky Way splayed out with nothing between you and them but a good night’s rest.

Here’s what you do. Bring a sheet. Twin mattress sheets work great. We have these sleeping mats that go by the name Paco Pads. Don’t ask me about the Paco part, I don’t know. What I do know is they’re poofy and comfortable and I may never backpack again with a flimsy mattress after slumbering on these bulky ones.

So you stretch that sheet over the Paco, it fits just about right. Set your water bottle nearby in the sand. Have the sleeping bag at the ready, but these summer months you don’t need to zip in, which is where the sheet comes in handy. Brush your teeth while in bed, turn and spit – not on your neighbor, if you happen to be camping with family and friends near you – this part is optional if you find it uncouth, but I like to tramp off away from the crowd at night, mostly so Morgan has trouble finding me in the morning to wake me up . . . and when you’re off the beaten path like that, I find it a luxury to brush my teeth in bed. I’m pretty well whooped by bedtime after rowing, so one less step seems a timesaver.

This next part is easy. You just sleep. No walls. No hallway light to grope around for if you get up in the wee hours. Maybe you feel around for your flashlight, but in any case, waking up when you’re sleeping out in the open is . . . is . . . well, it’s nice. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s just plain different and kind of nice.

Some guests we take down the river haven’t done much camping, and sometimes have never slept outdoors. It’s these folks who seem to take to sleeping out the strongest. Going from sheetrock enclosures all their lives to nothing but air often doesn’t turn out to be a rough transition at all. I can recall more than a few people who mentioned sleeping under the stars as a highlight of their rafting trip.

We’ve got sturdy tents. There are times when some cloud cover makes setting them up a good fallback plan. But there’s a lot to be said for nodding off and then prying your eyes open in the morning without a tent door between you and the outdoors.

Two graduations in two months. This kid Patrick Baird is piling up the accomplishments.

Young Baird got his mortarboard from high school this year, then won a healthy Ford scholarship that, from the sounds of it, gives him part-ownership in the University of Oregon . . . and just last week he went from apprentice to experienced by getting down Hells Canyon in the gearboat, running the oars the whole way.

I was certainly nervous the first trip I rowed solo. I was shaky, up on the scouting point above Wild Sheep Rapid, the first class IV. The knees especially, I remember my knees being trembly.

We looked at Wild Sheep. Discussed the run. As a morale booster, several people told Patrick they would help him pick up all the gear that washed overboard if he were to mess up. I'm sure he appreciated that.

Walking back to the raft, picking our way over the boulders on the Oregon side of the Snake River, I mentioned that of course if he didn't feel like doing it this trip, I could row.

He chugged an A&W rootbeer to get some sugar in his system and politely declined the easy way out.

Wild Sheep Rapid basically has two rocks down the center that you don't want any part of. Then at the bottom, on the Oregon side, there's more rocks you'd rather not be close to. So with the gearboat you enter the rapid tilted sideways, with your bow pointed toward Oregon. This sets you up to pull when the time comes.

The gearboat is heavy, cumbersome and difficult to move. Pulling on the oars gives more oomph than pushing.

So you enter drifting sideways, trying to graze the wave coming off the top-most rock in the center. Then you take a few strokes. But not too many, because you're pulling toward a big rock with a churning hydraulic. Get past that and start pulling with a vengeance, because now you're getting into the final stretch where being too far left will make for bad things.

Once you're past the final snaggly rock in the center you might get in a few more pulls, but it's time to start swinging the bow toward Idaho to set up for the waves at the bottom. By now you're either clear or you're not. You square up to waves and ride it out.

Our Wild Sheep run wasn't the cleanest, and that was no fault of Patrick's. I was sitting above him, calling out moves. Here's a transcript:

Me: OK, we're looking good, looking good . . . uh, maybe more right. Go right. Go right.

Patrick: (Grunting, going right)

Me: Whoah. That's good. Maybe too much. Go left, go left.

Patrick: (more grunting and rowing)

Me: Excellent. OK, now we're coming up to -- O, dear God, start pulling, start pulling . . . Stop. OK, OK . . . uh . . .

Patrick: What?

Me: Pullpullpullpullpullpullpullpull . . .

Patrick: (sound of veins exploding in his neck, over roar of whitewater)

Me: Swing, Swing, Start swinging your bow . . .

The Raft: I don't want to swing.

Me: Hold on.

We hit the tail waves and took a good one over the side, but for all the drawbacks of rowing a big, heavy raft, the upside is that you can take a hit like that to the side and the big barge just plows on through.

It's a whole new sort of backseat driving for me, perched on a pile of drybags calling out moves and anticipating the response of a boat. We got through fine and the rest of the trip was better than fine. He's got it figured out.