“I am afraid of what I can’t see…”

Amanda Rauhauser reports on the surreal experience of rafting on the Snake River during the devastating 2022 Double Creek Fire:

“Back at camp, I pull out my journal, only to be distracted by a slow but steady shower of burnt black pine needles and ash dropping onto the blank pages, stray bits of morbid confetti flung by the restless wind. The evening neon-orange sun sinks at my back, behind a film of smoke from the fire. Suddenly, the heat becomes unbearable–whether because it is actually hot or because of the thought of fire, I don’t know. I can feel the smoke tight in my chest. The only marks in my notebook are black smudges of ash. I set it down and walk to the river for a swim….

“Deep green water laps at the rocks, pulls at my fingers and toes. I walk in deeper. With the water at my waist, I turn in a slow circle. To my right, upriver, canyon walls overlap in jagged layers following the curve of the water, their rich, warm brown softened by the smoke. Behind me, dark orange sky seethes above Hat Point, the highest in Hells Canyon. I’m standing now in the deepest part of the deepest canyon in North America. The cliffs below Hat Point are so stark, so sudden, that I imagine flames billowing over the edge without a moment’s notice, like fire’s version of a flash flood. Larger flakes of ash and even remnants of blackened but still clearly recognizable pine branches float down from above, their calm descent incongruous with the fire that sent them soaring. I’m afraid of what I can’t see. Up there, I imagine, thousands of years of pine hiss into ash, unseen by the river whose water they long for. Even the great heave of the roiling Snake is not enough, trapped at the bottom of the canyon. But down here, at the water’s edge, I can take deep, steadying breaths. I crouch lower in the water, marveling at how its cool embrace around my shoulders feels protective.”

–excerpted from “Deep Breaths,” in the 2024 issue of Deep Wild: Writing from the Backcountry. To read Amanda Rauhauser’s essay in full, visit deepwildjournal.com/subscribe.