Debbie Jacobs 2458 River Road Guilford VT 05301 explore@sover.net Word Count: 880 plus bylineRivers & Rapids and Bears, Oh My!
She was easy to spot. On her medical form she had noted that she would not be useful for carrying any canoes,
stick drawing she included showed three people carrying a canoe overhead. Standing in between two of figures, Maxine could not reach high enough to help.
Even if she were not ‘petite’ Maxine would stand out in a crowd. At 71 years old she walks with determined strides and dressed in her outdoor gear, purchased in boy’s department, she doesn’t fit mold of ‘older lady’. Spunky is a word that comes to mind, but only if it makes you think of a Jack Russell terrier, small, with attitude. “How’d you know it was me?” she winked when I approached her as she exited gate at airport.
“I used to be 4’10” until I shrunk two @#$% inches,” Maxine explained to me at dinner our first night together as a group. We were preparing for a 5 day adventure down Oregon’s Rogue River. The group, all women over 40, were being accompanied by three women raft guides, three to four decades their junior. If guides thought they were heading out with ‘little old ladies’ they had a big surprise coming.
Besides our three rafts, we also had 2 inflatable kayaks. Every day we were given option to hop in a guided raft, or captain our own craft. It was late May, and though we had near perfect weather, kayakers wore wetsuits and had they flipped, a swim would have been invigorating, to say least. Maxine was among first to volunteer for experience. Never having been in a kayak did not deter her. I held my breath watching her descend rapids, but she handled boat like a pro. “I love being an active learner,” Maxine explained, “I believe in ‘process’, which includes: acquiring skills that challenge me with physical, mental, and ethical prowess...that’s why these trips are a perfect fit for me.” That’s quite a statement coming from a woman willing to wear a purple helmet and neoprene.
As we traveled down river, our guides had built up our one night camping in bear territory to point that we were nervous, but couldn’t wait. A single electric wire enclosure had been constructed at campsite where our food was to be stored. I doubted effectiveness of system, suspecting that a marauding bear would not be deterred by shock, but I kept my thoughts to myself. When I was a couple of decades younger, I had spent wonderful months backpacking in Yosemite National Park. Black bears were a common visitor at camp and I never ceased to be thrilled by their presence. A black bear in camp would be icing on cake.
At dinner that evening, Wendy, our young snow-boarding raft guide, was in charge of ‘bear talk’. We were warned to put our toiletry bags into electric enclosure. Bears show no reluctance to slicing a hole in your tent with their four inch claws, gobbling your toothpaste and rooting for Snicker bar under your pillow. When talk progressed to include concerns for menstruating women in bear country, a cry rose from group, “Not a problem in this crowd!” they laughed. Poor Wendy, now a lovely shade of crimson, admitted that she’d never rafted with a group of just ‘older’ women. “Don’t worry about it honey,” one woman reassured her, “Estrogen is overrated.”
