At around midnight after 12 long hours in the car, I finally arrived at the famous "center of the world" of Banks, Idaho. Exhausted from four days of driving and hours of imagining what life would be like on the Payette river system, a tall wooden sign loomed above me reading "BANKS store and cafe" and just below in bold yellow letters "Bear Valley River Co." the company that I would be working for in the coming months. The parking lot in front of the cafe was scattered with old cars, trucks, vans, and various other shuttle rigs in which I knew rested the kayakers and dirtbags native to the area. Lining the fence around the cafe were boats, gear hanging in various places, and paddles that had taken quite the beating from the famous North Fork blast rock. My first night in Idaho was spent camping in a pull off on Banks Grade Rd, just a half a mile away from the abandon railroad station referred to as "camp" by the employees of Bear Valley (BV).
In the morning after returning to the Cafe parking lot, I was underwhelmed by how empty and quiet Banks seemed in the morning hours and overwhelmed by the possibility of living in this new place on my own. My first day of riding along on rafting trips down the main Payette with BV, made me feel a bit more at home and throughout the next week, I began to meet the most welcoming and high stoke community that I have experienced in the kayaking world.
Beyond excited for my first taste of big water after my Southeast creek upbringing, following my second day of work I put on to the South Fork of the Payette with two other close friends. Despite this being the smaller and calmer sister to the raging North Fork, for the first time in years, I can say I was scared by a class three rapid. Adapting to the sensation of big water is a challenge that is even harder to describe than it is to achieve. Everything I thought I knew about reading whitewater was lost. Glancing at the Southfork from the car window while driving to the put in, the rapids had seemed juvenile, but in the trough of a wave looking up at a wall of water looming over me and desperately trying to keep eyes on the paddler in front of me, my hasty judgment seemed foolish. This feeling would be replicated in the coming weeks with each step up I took in my small big water career. After a few rapids got me more accustomed to the sensory overload of this style of whitewater, I could could take in the clear sage green water and the dusky evening sky. This was the first time I felt like I truly belonged in Banks.
Ur new home away from home!