Mark Twain once said that “a river has great wisdom and whispers its secrets to the hearts of men.” The truth of this statement helps explain why river trips are always a key component of the outdoor weeks our students undertake during the Fall and Spring semesters.

This week, two separate groups are spending time on rivers: One on the Owyhee River (who we’ll be hearing from later in the week), and one on the Green River, a tributary of the Colorado River that winds its way through Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. Over 700 miles long, the Green River begins in our students’ backyard, Wyoming’s Wind River Range, and flows through Wyoming and Utah for most of its course. This year’s group of a dozen students are working their way through the Labyrinth Canyon area, with an itinerary that has them “putting in” at Crystal Geyser, heading from there to Anvil Bottom, to Trin-Alcove, to Keg Springs, to Bowknot Bend, to Oak Bottom, and ending up at their “take-out” point at Mineral Bottom.

This trip down Labyrinth Canyon is described by frequent travelers as “one of the best opportunities to explore the diversity of the Green River—four to five days of floating through expansive desert canyons and sheer sandstone that showcase much of the section’s best scenery.” The pictures the groups has brought back with them each year would certainly attest to the fact of the location’s beauty and power—its “great wisdom” and “whispered secrets.” Small wonder that the Green River has been a much-desired destination for our students for many years.

As detailed in the trip’s preparatory paperwork, the river provides its own unique challenges to the group: “There isn’t enough wood on the river to build fires,” for example, which means that the famous MSR WhisperLight stove will play a key role. “The water is fairly fast-flowing, and very silty” is also worth of particular note in the trip’s planning materials, which means that the group needs to carry in its own clean water for drinking, cooking, and clean-up.

On the “integration” side, the group plans to discuss “the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog, and how its moral can be seen reflected in Aristotle’s Ethics.” Later, they will read The Quest of the Sons of Tuireann, one of the “Three Sorrowful Tales” sagas considered most foundational to the world of Irish mythology. They will also read excerpts aloud from Dante’s Paradies Lost and from Melville’s Moby Dick, and explore “the ’linked analogies’ between man and nature expressed in Chapter 70 of Melville’s work.” Lastly, in a bit of a departure from the “norm” (but fitting, perhaps, for a trek through such visual splendors), the group with discuss Edward Hopper’s famous painting, Nighthawks.

As always, the schedule includes frequent opportunities for prayer and for private reflection. “Kairos” time will be held at or around 3:00pm most days of the trip, allowing for the group recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, a devotion that is prayed daily by the entire community here in Lander. And the trip’s close proximity to Holy Week makes the discussion of Psalm 50 that will take place later today particularly fitting:

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.

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