followed, braving the rough terrain to stake mining claims
downstream. True to its cognomen as the River of No Return, the
river accommodated one-way traffic only. The miners built huge
wooden boats laden with supplies and ventured down the rapids. If
man and boat survived the passage, the boat would get cannibalized
for a cabin and the miner would lay in for a long, long while.
The steep country that hemmed in the river was never ideal for
human habitation. In 1980, Congress made the isolation official,
designating the river and its surrounding mountains the largest chunk
of the wilderness system in the Lower 48. The Frank Church–River of
No Return Wilderness, sometimes just called “the Frank,” stretches
across 2.3 million acres in the part of Idaho that starts to get skinny.
The river running through it carves a long, forested gorge deeper than
the Grand Canyon.
It was through that gorge that another group of American veterans
—all women, all scarred emotionally and physically by their service
—descended in the summer of 2014. Like Clark, they were also on a
voyage of discovery in the American wilds. I wanted to witness it. If
one minute of gazing up at a eucalyptus tree makes people more
generous, and three days makes them more socially connected, calm
and inspired, what could a week unleash? Were the inverse-PTSD
effects of awe real and if so, would they show up in the brains that
needed them most?
YOU HAVE TO be brave to venture down the Salmon, and a little bit
addled. This group of women, sponsored by an Idaho-based nonprofit
called Higher Ground, was both. Participants had to be former or
current members of the military who suffer from PTSD,
posttraumatic stress disorder. When I learned the organization was
willing to invite a journalist, I signed on.
This was Higher Ground’s first all-women’s river trip. The plan
was to float eighty-one miles of the river, try our skills at kayaking,