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Outside Magazine March 2003

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DESTINATIONS SPECIAL: The Scouting Expedition
A Trip is Born (Cont.)


	An elephant lurks outside a village in the reserve. (Joshua Paul)

Day 9, mile 228
"THAT'S THE CLOSEST I've ever come to dying," said Steve quietly.

He looked shaken and waterlogged. He'd dragged himself to shore after tumbling through several rapids. His head was poking through the armhole of his life jacket. I helped him straighten it out and cinch it down hard. I'd angrily berated Clinton about going too fast without scouting better, especially with Steve and me in this boat, and Clinton had chastised Cherri for screaming orders at him in the rapids. "Whitewater rescue is what I signed on for," he told her. "Don't tell me how to do my job."

Clinton now paddled across a calm patch of river. We followed, silent. I felt a rising sense of dread, like a prisoner led across the courtyard to an unknown fate. Within 200 yards we neared another chute of big waves.

"How do you feel about this one?" Clinton asked.

"Maybe I'll walk it," I said, not trusting him anymore. "I'll go take a look on my own."

"Would you feel better if I gave you the single and I paddled the tandem with Steve?" he asked, gazing at me with those penetrating blue eyes.

"Do you think I'm being a crybaby?" I blurted out.

The word had arisen unbidden from my childhood—the term my grandfather used on my first wilderness canoe trips, so many years ago.

"I think you've done just fine," Clinton replied kindly. "I don't think any less of you than I did before."

I hadn't wanted this to be a test. I hated that old notion that wilderness was a test of your manhood. But somehow in my mind it had become a test. Now Clinton had given me a passing mark.

"OK," I said, nodding toward his boat. "I'll take it."3

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