An interview with…
Darcy Gaechter
Photos:
Matt Power,
Don Beveridge
For the month of International Women’s Day, we are honoured to interview Darcy Gaechter, the first and only woman to kayak the Amazon River from source to sea. A hugely influential figure in the world of white water kayaking and an ever-present inspiration to women across the planet, she has now taken on the mantle of environmental awareness, writing and public speaking.
Amazon Woman
An interview with… Darcy Gaechter
Darcy grew up in Colorado. Playing outdoors was a big part of her childhood, though she didn’t get into whitewater until she was 18. When Darcy was a kid, her dream was to become a ski patroller at the Aspen Highlands ski area just like her dad had been, but her life took a different turn! She still loves skiing, but loves kayaking more.
When did you first start kayaking?
Right out of high school, I got a summer job as a raft guide in Colorado. I was 18, and all the other raft guides were in their 20s, and I looked up to all of them. Many of them went kayaking after work, so I decided I better learn how to kayak so I could hang out with them.
Another woman raft guide lent me all of her kayaking gear because she’d had a bad experience and was taking a break from the sport. I had a rough learning curve. I jumped right into the class III run that my fellow guides were paddling without learning any skills – I didn’t even know how to wet exit the first time I went and ended up bashing my knees through the spray deck when I had to swim.
I kind of hated the sport at first because I was so bad at it, but that also made it elusive and intriguing to me. I stuck with it and slowly built up some actual kayaking skills, which were extremely helpful!
After my first full year of kayaking, I ended up going to Nepal with a friend. That experience of travelling with a kayak (it was my first time outside of North America), doing multi-day river trips, and seeing Nepal as not many other tourists got to is what hooked me on the sport. It was a challenging trip because I still wasn’t a very good kayaker, and we were running some more challenging rivers.
Still, the experience stuck with me and motivated me to improve my kayaking skills and seek out more opportunities to travel with my kayak.
You’ve recently become an author; how did you get involved with writing, and what was your inspiration?
I’ve enjoyed writing since I was young. I used to love Stephen King when I was a kid and even tried to write a horror story – haha! After the Amazon, I guess I felt that I had finally done something worth writing a book about, so I set out to try.
I figured it would take me 8-12 months. Well, 6.5 years later, I had a book, a literary agent, and a publisher! It was incredibly challenging, but I learned so much along the way and am so grateful for the process.
I would write a totally different book if I set out to do it again today, but I suppose we are constantly evolving, so you can never write the same book twice 😉
Can you tell us about one stand out moment during your expedition on the Amazon?
Playing volleyball with the local Peruvian women. One night when we pulled into a small town to camp, I went walking around and discovered an intense volleyball match. It took me a while to muster up the courage to ask if I could join because the women were such good players and were pretty serious about the game. When I finally did ask, they were sceptical, and I could tell they didn’t want to let me join, but I persisted and told them I knew how to play. They relented, and I took my place with one of the teams. I played volleyball in college, and it was all I could do to keep up with them. These women are amazing – they are incredibly strong players, and I still think about them all the time. I got to play in four games before we hit the Brazilian border, where they didn’t play volleyball. Getting to share this time with the local women created some of the most memorable trip moments for me.
You’re passionate about healthy river environments – what do you see as the biggest threat to rivers?
Greed, corruption, and overconsumption of resources.
Here in the UK, a lot of work by British Canoeing is being done to bring more women into the sport. What’s being done in the US, and by whom?
As far as I know, we don’t have a single unified force or organization (like BC) to bring more women into the sport. Still, there are lots of individual companies, organizations, and people working towards this goal. A few that immediately come to my mind are Cali Collective, run by Melissa DeMarie; Mind, Body, Paddle run by Anna Levesque; and The Green River Takeover, organized by Laura Farrell. But many others are working towards this goal, like Diversify Whitewater, run by Antoinette Toscano and Lily Durkee. I feel bad as I know I’m leaving many folks out, but there are too many to mention!
What first drew you to Ecuador and keeps you returning?
Random luck brought me there first. I had a ticket for a solo trip to Nepal (I wanted to return after building up some more kayaking skills), but it was when the Maoist insurgency was getting quite strong, and I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea to go.
A group of friends said they were going kayaking in Ecuador, so I changed my plane ticket and went with them. I had to look up Ecuador on a map, and I was pretty clueless about it. I did, however, immediately fall in love with the country. The people are incredibly friendly; the landscape is varied and amazing – from sea level to 6,263 metres – and, of course, the rivers are amazing.
Now it’s our local staff – guides, drivers, and cooks – that keep me coming back year after year. We have such a solid team it feels like going home to family. We all still have the fire for showing people the rivers of Ecuador, getting them excited about South America, about kayaking, and hopefully about river conservation.
How has Covid affected you and your business?
We chose to cancel our Ecuador winter season for 2020/2021. Ecuador was allowing tourists to come, but we felt that cancelling the season was the most responsible thing for Small World Adventures (SWA) to do as to not encourage international travel ‘just’ for the sake of kayaking.
Our top concerns were causing a COVID outbreak in the small town we operate out of, as most people there don’t have many resources to deal with a serious illness, and we worried about the health of our clients while travelling internationally. We were devastated to cancel the season, but we were able to keep our Ecuadorian staff on the payroll for most of the winter thanks to generous donations from SWA’ clients and some internal funding. To be sure, the entire SWA team is extremely fired up to get back to running trips in Ecuador this October!
SWA added more domestic trips in the USA for our clients who live here. Many of them were looking for river adventures they could access by car rather than by plane.
On a personal level, it’s meant more time in Colorado exploring my backyard. I’ve also dived head-first into the world of Zoom, webinars, and virtual speaking gigs, which has been fun and new, but I am certainly excited to get back to the point where I can do all these things in person.
What type of training do you do for expeditions?
Prior to the Amazon Expedition, I attacked most challenges in life very physically. I’d train for both strength and cardiovascular – you know, if you are getting worked in some giant hydraulic, being very cardiovascularly fit is helpful! Before paddling the Stikine, for example, I was lifting weights to get stronger and swimming laps underwater to work on how long I could hold my breath. I was also trail running in the mountains, and I kayaked as much as I possibly could.
But the Amazon taught me that the mental and emotional challenges are just as strong as the physical challenges on most expeditions. So now I spend a lot of time working on my mental space. I’ve been studying a lot on the Flow State – seeking it both in my kayaking and everyday life. I’ve found that working on my mindset, specifically having a positive mental outlook, really helps my attitude on expeditions.
I’m more patient, more expectant and ready to improvise when things don’t go as planned. I spend a lot of time practising what I like to call the ‘adventure mindset’, which is an attitude that expects the unexpected and is prepared for on-the-fly problem-solving. A mindset that accepts that there will always be obstacles to anything we try to do, and is ready and willing to tackle each problem as it comes.
If you could head anywhere in the world to paddle, where would it be?
Ecuador, of course! But besides Ecuador, northern British Columbia! I love this part of the world. There are opportunities to lose yourself in wild places for weeks at a time, see amazing animals, and generally, drop out of civilization for a while. Oh yeah, and the whitewater is world-class! Colombia (the country) is also high on my list. But the last two years have been pretty light on paddling for me because of shoulder surgery, the pandemic, and some family issues, so I’m just excited to go paddling anywhere at the moment!
What’s the one piece of advice you would give to somebody thinking of becoming an adventurer?
Adventuring as a way of life can be many things: exciting, eye-opening, educational, challenging, rewarding, and so much more. However, I feel (and I think a lot of others who have pursued this lifestyle feel) that, in the end, you need something more in your life to have a good feeling of fulfilment. This ‘something more’ could be human relationships, volunteer work, community service – some kind of higher purpose besides kayaking and adventuring. So, I enthusiastically say, do it! But don’t make it the sole focus of your life; make sure to leave a little room for projects and moments that will leave you feeling like you contribute to something larger than yourself. This is where I’ve found a deeper level of meaning and satisfaction.
What qualities do you look for in a fellow expedition kayaker?
Patience, a good sense of humour, good improvisation skills, and someone who can deal with things going wrong and still maintain a good attitude. When problems arise, I want someone who will dive into those problems and find solutions. Of course, good kayaking skills, rescue skills, and the ability to work as a team are all super important, but having a good attitude is #1.
What’s the most enjoyable encounter with wildlife that you’ve had whilst paddling?
Seeing Pink Amazonian River dolphins on the Amazon River. I read Joe Kane’s book Running the Amazon about his 1985 expedition down the Amazon. He mentions that they saw the dolphins, but infrequently, and he wrote about how they were going extinct. I went into the expedition desperately hoping we’d see one. We saw our first dolphin on day 30 of the expedition, and then we saw them every day from then until last week of the trip, around day 140 or so, when we got into the brackish water. Whenever morale was low, watching the pink dolphins swim around us always lifted our spirits!
What projects are you currently working on?
A few! Don and I are in the early stages of creating a youth group for the Quijos Valley in Ecuador. Kayaking will be about 40% of the focus. We also plan to incorporate life skills, health and first aid training, and community projects (mainly focused on animal welfare as this is my other passion). I’m also working on expanding my business Amazon Woman, LLC, but it’s so early in the development phase that I’m not ready to talk much about that yet.
Kayaking-wise, when the Canadian border opens to Americans, Don and I plan to head north to start on our project of kayaking the Stikine, Skeena, and Nass Rivers (the three main rivers that come off of the Spatsizi Plateau) from source to sea. This river project isn’t ‘new’ or overly epic, but it’s a part of the world that we want to immerse ourselves in for a little while, and this seemed like an excellent way to do it.
And, of course, there is the on-going project of fundraising for the Ecuadorian Rivers Institute. The ERI has several legal challenges to hydro projects on Ecuador’s rivers in the national court system. Keeping up with paying the lawyers presents a constant test of our fundraising capabilities.
Is there any issue that stops you from sleeping at night?
There’s been more and more lately; where to begin? The state of politics in America. The state of the environment globally-speaking, and the shocking rate of development and destructive industries that continue to push forward despite the science that explicitly lays out how unwise this is.
Social media also keeps me up at night. People are horrible to each other (especially online), and this drives me crazy. The world needs more niceness – I think about this one first thing every morning, and it does help me do my part to be nice to people. The world also needs more women leading the way in all walks of life. I feel this last one is happening and is the one bright spot in my list of worries.
Your most embarrassing moment?
Well… it’s not my most embarrassing, but it’ll do for now: I was hand paddling the Upper Gauley. I didn’t have proper kayaking hand paddles, so I was using some small hand paddles that Speedo makes meant to help swimmers when they are swimming laps. Things were going quite well, and Don suggested that we try to boof over the Energizer hole on Sweets Falls.
I was new to hand paddling and new to the Gauley River, and I had no clue what the Energizer Hole was, but I trusted Don, so I said, “sure, why not?” I managed to get a decent boof, but then I made a mistake. At the end of my boof, I laid on my back deck instead of using proper boofing technique and sitting up straight or leaning forward.
With all my weight on my back deck, the little Jackson Star back-endered into the Energizer hole and I got totally worked. It took me a while to release my fingers from the hand paddles, but I eventually did and pulled my skirt and swam. On any given day on the Gauley, there are hundreds of people hanging out at Sweets Falls, and I put on quite a show!
Now, for the embarrassing part: after I swam, I was having a real struggle trying to get to shore. My hand paddles were dangling around my wrists, flopping around, hitting me in the face, and totally getting in my way. It wasn’t until I finally flailed and flopped and dog-paddled my way to shore that it dawned on me that I should have put my fingers back through the loops and used my Speedo hand paddles for what they were. Meant for – swimming! Duh!
What do you do to relax?
This will sound weird, but when I’m super stressed or am having a lot of anxiety about something, a long trail run sets me straight. 10-20 miles in the mountains never fails to make me happy. It’s not physically relaxing, but it is very mentally relaxing for me. I’m honestly not good at physical relaxation.
Where do you see yourself in 20 years?
This is a tough question. My life has changed somewhat with the publication of Amazon Woman. I’ve gotten a job as a professional speaker with the Leading Authorities Speaker’s Bureau. I’ve been able to use my platform (as tiny as it is) to begin to reach women and young girls to encourage them to follow their dreams, to shrug off suggestions about what they can and can’t do, and to be brave enough to charge forward into leadership roles.
I genuinely hope that I can carry this new momentum forward and keep working in the field of women’s leadership and development. Breaking down ideas of what the world thinks women are capable of has always been something I’ve done. When I was younger, I didn’t consciously realize I was doing it, but now it’s become at the forefront of my consciousness and something I want to continue to pursue.
Quickies
If you could paddle with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be?
Maggy Hurchalla. She’s 80-years-old and still loves to kayak whitewater. The sheer joy she feels on the river is so contagious; it’s impossible not to have the best day ever with her.
Pick two celebrities to be your parents…
Oh boy…I don’t know…how about Tom Hanks for my dad and Gilda Radner for my mom. Hopefully, it’s okay that my celebrity mom isn’t alive anymore!
Which famous person would you most like to see play you in a film?
Oprah! Okay, seriously, this is a tough one too. How about Hannah Gadsby? She’s hilarious and would add some excellent comic relief to my life in a film.
Are you a bathroom/shower singer, and if so, what do you sing?
No, I don’t sing in the shower. I do sing while kayaking, though, mainly in my head, not out loud. The harder the section of the river, the slower the song in my mind. I think it helps calm my mind.
Facebook, or Twitter?
Facebook
An ideal night out for you is?
Ha! I pretty much never go out. My ideal day is to play so hard that I’m totally exhausted by nighttime. After skiing or kayaking or biking, I like to have drinks (bubbly water as I gave up drinking alcohol four years ago) or dinner with the friends I’ve been playing with, but then go home early, read a book for a while and fall into a deep sleep.
What one luxury item would you take with you on a desert island?
A big box of books!
What would I find in your fridge right now?
Blueberries, tofu, carrots, a bottle of hot sauce, flaxseed milk, vegan cheese, all the good stuff!
If we came to your house for dinner, what would you prepare for us?
Burritos! Fried tofu with crushed red peppers and soy sauce, pinto beans, rice, tomatoes, avocados, bell peppers and, of course, hot sauce.
If you could be a superhero for one day, what superpower would you choose and why?
To be able to fly. What freedom to cruise around up in the air and go wherever your wings could take you.
Favourite film?
How about the favourite book instead? I’m constantly changing my favourite book based on what I’ve read most recently, but this week it’s The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. And one that has stuck with me for a long time is Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone by James Baldwin.
What three words would you use to describe yourself?
Determined, stubborn, and extremely shy!
