Hot and Cold
On the opposite shore of this river, slightly discernible on the right-hand side of this photo, is a lovely and welcoming cabin set within the forest. It’s filled with natural light and is of multiple levels, each of which provides a unique view of the river below. Twenty paces from the front door of the cabin is a very small stream whose flow is supplied, in part, by an underground hot spring. The hot spring is also lovely and welcoming; I know this because, I sat in the cedar-planked hot tub filled with its water. The hot spring runs at a temperature that I’ll go ahead and say is ideal: just hot enough to want to mix it with some cooler water but not too hot to be unbearable on its own.
I can peer over the edge of the hot tub while sitting inside and, in doing so, am also able to peer over the edge of the bluff into the river. It is as inviting as the hot tub itself, though standing in it is an inverted experience. A couple hundred paces from the front door of the cabin and I’m on the other side of the river, a calm, shallow eddy ushering me in. Even after insulating myself with baselayers and midlayers underneath waders, the river is so cold that it’s surprisingly shocking. Without sarcasm, I think to myself, “Wow, that is cold.”
The water is quintessentially aquamarine; an unmatchable mixture of blue and green that increases in intensity with river depth and yet retains transparency throughout. Between the water clarity and the constantly changing surface currents, gauging the measure of depth is impossible. Windows of clarity through the water column appear and drift downstream before dissipating, revealing boulders, stones, and even gravel on the river bottom. They come into and out of focus as the the river passes and from one moment to the next they may appear as potentially reachable or well over my head.
After working my way up the length of the pool, I turn around and fish it downstream. In the seam on the outside of a giant boulder, I catch a whitefish. After doing so, I give the boulder some extra consideration and, contrary to my initial estimate, it turns out that I can indeed wade to it. It’s a fine place to fish from, though I don’t hook any others. So maybe that makes it less fine?
That afternoon, shivering in the bow of the raft that is one easily-avoidable rapid away from the takeout, again I imagine sitting in the hot tub. “Hit it!” we tell our guide, and a blanket of aquamarine, winter river water is thrown over us.
That evening, from the comfort of the hot tub, we remember that last rapid. And both agree that we’d hit it again.
That is, assuming there’s a hot tub waiting for us afterward.
