As a young boy growing up in the outdoors and on a family ranch with 6 brothers and sisters, I was always looking for things to do that held an element of adventure and excitement. Winters were cold and the creek was frozen over, the same place we would swim in the summer. A place we called the cow hole.
The creek flowed through the back forty of the ranch into town, about 2 miles. I didn’t dare tell mom what I was about to do and I was getting bored skating on the pond so I laced up my old hockey skates dad got at Salvation Army for all us kids and all our 4H friends. Yep, I ice skated two miles to town on the frozen creek, jumped two barbed wire fences that kept the cows out of the neighbors pasture and thought I invented a new sport and skill.
When the ice melted it opened up and about June we would all go swim at the cow hole.
As an adult I realized how special a creek or a stream and rivers are for recreation as we fished, swam, floated every time we could in the little paradise called Rock Creek .
For the last 50 years I have experienced rafting and kayaking all over the west, from the Grand Canyon to Alaska in a raft, canoe, or kayak. I had a career as a Park Ranger and also was a river guide, naturalist and adventurer and all the best times were on a river, somehow, somewhere, someplace.