‘A good paddling’: It’s easy to find Idaho’s simple joys from a paddle board on the river

In a nod to this local-rich and socially distanced summer, I got a stand-up paddle board for my birthday. Today I took it out for the first time, on a wide, slow stretch of Idaho’s Payette River as it winds toward Black Canyon Reservoir.

At the put-in, I kneeled on the board, less in prayer and more to get my bearings, as the glide out was not glide-like. After several minutes, I slipped each sandal off — painstaking process, this — and tucked it beneath bungee cords at the top of the board. Set the paddle crossways and, inch-by-inch, got my feet beneath my hips. Crouching there, I began a wobbled ascent, knees bent and locked as I retrieved the paddle. River water lapped gently over my bare feet as the board mocked and rocked me. A jet ski droned, way too close. Still hunched, I steered into the swell of the river.

I began to straighten my knees, looking as though the board had a poked an invisible stick up my backside. No matter. My goal for this maiden voyage was to stand while on the water ... which I was doing. I paddled an hour or so, learning to turn, moving — against all instinct — into waves from motor boats and jet skis rather than letting them swamp me.

Soon a sheriff’s skiff pulled alongside. I felt justly proud to be recognized as a fellow boater, though, it turned out, a noncompliant one: no life jacket aboard, no invasive species sticker (it pays, among other things, this very sheriff’s wages), no whistle in the probable event of amateur mishap. The uniformed man took down my name, address, serial number. Clicked his pen and said to have a good day — warning, no ticket — and off he motored, bubbling a wake that nearly knocked me into the drink. I remembered to breathe and paddled back to the dock, where Pat stood, trying not to laugh.

Going home we drove past a shady campground and alongside small farms. Golden country here ... pretty, tended properties mixed with hardscrabble trailers and shacks. Alfalfa fields nearly done in by weeds, hay cut in tidy rows of green, isolationist cabins obscured by trees and rusty junk, placid horses standing in pairs and twitching their tails. Between road and river stood an abandoned stretch of railroad track, blazoned with yellow weeds and piles of gravel. Committees of black cows blinked and grazed, insects sang, and sunflowers nodded as crows and hawks circled overhead.

We reached a disused pair of bridges, fenced off to traffic, where we parked and picked our way down to a cascading portion of river, narrow and bubbling, lots of rock and sandbar. Rabbit brush, sage, Russian olive, Indian paintbrush, thistle. A couple in their 70s dipped into and out of the water. They made us happy. Their skins were slack and tan, wrinkled like overripe mangos. They laughed, frolicked — it is really the word — and slapped the water gently. She climbed out, wringing water from the wide legs of her shorts; retrieved a Tupperware container from behind a boulder and set out their lunch. I think I saw a red-checked cloth.

Before long, eight or nine teenaged boys and a couple of girls showed up. Their objective was to jump into the river, where it narrowed and pooled beneath the bridges.

“How deep is it there?”

“About 15 feet.”

It was a truss bridge, and we could barely manage to watch as three of the boys climbed its pylons and steel girders. We guessed the height at the top to be 60 feet. The ascent looked terrifying: one slip, and you’d hit the concrete deck or splat onto river boulders. But they skittered up in tennis shoes; crouched at first, and stood easily on the top chord. Then jumped, waving arms in the air, hitting the water feet first with a deep ka-jonnggg. One after another.

The third boy stepped to the far edge of the bridge to climb the inclined endpost, walking breezily along the top chord over the river’s pool. He hesitated the briefest moment and then delivered a flipping, twisting dive, feet first into the water.

As they pulled out near us on the rocks, laughing, shaking water out of their eyes, we chatted about the hot day, their ease and skill. To be young again! But even at their age, I was never so brave about such things. Where does it come from, this nonchalance, this security in a body and what it can do?

We’re paddle boarding an evening this week. If I practice, I believe I’ll stand up, pop down, sit, kneel, spin, navigate a current. I plan an eventual downward, if demented, yoga dog, hop to the top of the board. Quick, twisting backflip.

Maybe not the backflip. Okay, and not the hop.

But truly, to someday become one of those 75-year olds. Laughing with my love, splashing in the 15-foot swirl of an Idaho river on a perfect August day. I can’t promise a jump from the bridge. But I’ll be in the water.

Heidi Naylor lives in Idaho and teaches at Boise State University.