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Live To Eat: What River Guides are Really Made Of

— Trecia Ehrlich / Monday, January 20, 2014

If you've been on the Middle Fork of the Salmon with ECHO, you may have met Trey. Trey and his granddad Big come on a Middle Fork trip with us every year. Trey is what we call an ECHO guide in training. He has almost all of the key components of being a fantastic future river guide: He’s an athlete (track and football), he’s musical (taking guitar lessons), and at the ripe age of 14 he can totally hang in the wilderness with a bunch of us geezers for a week without any kids or electronics to entertain him. Trey, to say the very least, is one rad and unique young dude, however, he has one major issue, and it’s a big one; food.

Trey with an appetizer tray

Trey with an appetizer tray

Trey is a "eat to live" kind of guy, but being a river guide requires a "live to eat" kind of mentality. One year, our manager Zach, who is equally as ruthless as I am, challenged Trey to eat two cheeseburgers in exchange for a free ECHO trip. Trey took on the challenge and won (which is why I have great faith in his future) - but the fact that Zach was willing to make this wager only furthers my point. When you row big boats in the sun for 20+ miles a day, followed by rigging and unrigging gear, topping it off with a side hike - you need to like food, and you need to like it a lot. Not only do you have to like it, but you have to be able to cook it, with style, for 30 people, in the wilderness.

Trey rowing a boat on the Middle Fork

Trey rowing a boat on the Middle Fork

So this year, we put Trey on the cook crew for our final night. I can’t say he was a willing participant, in fact, I may or may not have forced him to do it. But seeing as it was Trey, he joined us with a smile on while I taught him about chopping roasted root vegetables, grilling pork, and making a cobbler all at the same time. I did this all while aggressively asking him about life as a 14 year old (I’m brutal). We let Trey leave the line so he could prepare to eat his dinner, at which time I coached him on why he should eat more (he never really got a break), but I have faith that with a few more years of age, and a few more Middle Fork trips, we will make a live to eat out of this future river guide.

Author

Trecia Ehrlich

Treesh has been working for ECHO since 2010. When she's not rowing a boat, you can find her climbing, playing guitar, cooking, or writing in Truckee, CA.

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