By Josh Viers '94

It was spring quarter 1993, and I was staring at shoes piled on the concrete floor of the warehouse of the old Silo. Each shoe was one of a pair, with the other still on the foot of its respective owner—one of the 20-odd new whitewater guides in the room. The idea was to choose a shoe and establish a partnership. Little did I know I would be choosing a friend for life. I ended up picking a boot that fit a tall, lanky young man with a rarely matched passion for the hills and waters—Thomas Toy, a person with whom I would share many adventures and many life events, and who would help me find myself and later my spouse.

The training year of 1993 would be a wild one, we were told. The river was running high, and all of the Outdoor Adventures legends were coming back to make sure this incoming class could handle the challenge of the cold torrent making its way down the Sierra Nevada. These veteran guides—the ghosts of OA past—had nicknames the likes of Grove Dog and Carnage Man and Carla-Knows-Karate; they would be taking us on OA’s milk run down the South Fork of the American River, through rapids with fear-inducing names like Meatgrinder, Trouble-maker and Satan’s Cesspool. Looking back on it, I now have even greater respect for both the trainers, who actually got in the boat with us, and the rapids.

Mornings spent donning cold, damp wetsuits, days spent swimming flood waters and nights spent talking around the campfire produced a team of first-year guides in a matter of days. But we, the “first-years,” would be the pariahs, both on the river and in the warehouse, until we had been tested by paying customers, many of whom could not speak English, let alone swim. There is no feeling like guiding your first commercial whitewater trip and putting that first notch in your paddle.

The first trip came and went with the high-water season. Later we would move on to runs that were exotic and rough: Cherry Creek, Giant Gap and Burnt Ranch. These rivers were the mainstays of the hard-core guides. Other runs were polished jewels: the Rogue and the Tuolumne. The ghosts had all gone on to cut their teeth on more demanding river runs with rafting companies like Sierra Mac, ARTA or Kings River Expeditions. Ultimately, we would too.

In the spring of 1995, the tables were turned. Tom and I were now part of the cadre of trainers teaching that new assortment of shoe owners how to become “first-years.” It was our responsibility to make sure not only that these guide trainees could make it down the river safely, but also that they realized they would be responsible for paddlers in their boats. The cycle of cold, damp wetsuits, swimming and campfires was repeated, and new stories unfolded, only to be retold the following years.

That training class included its share of excitement; it also included Gillian Charles, whom I would later ask to become my wife. There are many reasons why I did and why I value her, but most of them come from our mutual seasoning on the river.

There is a set of common experiences and skills whitewater guides possess that I believe makes them attractive partners: They know the difference between oars and paddles; they have the ability to identify a good landing zone for a med-evac helicopter; they have an appreciation for mechanical advantage and know why pulleys are cool; and they can read water, catching the temperament and nuance of the river, the micro-eddies and the hidden laterals. The river blurs the lines of societal structure, where process and function follow its form—ever changing and without end. I believe that’s why so many of the OA crowd have continued to remain friends, to partner in business and to marry—as Gillian and I did.

I value Gillian because she not only knows what a groover is (it’s a river-trip latrine) but is not afraid to use one. She knows why a bowline is a superior knot. She knows her wildflowers. I think she values me because I can wash a pile of dishes with as little as a bucket of water, a handful of sand and a drop of chlorine. I can bake brownies in a Dutch oven, and I can make a pot of cowboy coffee without wincing. I know my trees, mostly.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Outdoor Adventures at UC Davis, prompting me to consider just what this unique student program provides. For some it is an excuse to spend their summers outdoors; for others, it is a welcome break from their more serious pursuits. I was once introduced to a gentleman who claimed to have started OA with the notion that it would be a way to share gear. Whatever the rationale, OA has provided equipment, expertise and planning to take individuals into the wild. But I believe that most people participate in OA to find other likeminded individuals and to find themselves and to find it all in the wild; sharing the cost of the boat is just a bonus.

Josh Viers ’94 worked for rafting companies in the western United States and Central America, eventu-ally returning to California and a job digitally mapping its rivers. He now continues this digital river pursuit as a doctoral student in ecology at UC Davis. His wife, Gillian ’97, is a trauma nurse at the UC Davis Medical Center and a student at UC San Francisco in the family nurse practitioner program.

Photo by Debbie Aldridge/UC Davis Mediaworks.