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Maggie Slepian | Longreads | April 2, 2024 | 5,423 words
Spring in Montana is a season of waiting, trapped in a limbo of rotten snow and inaccessible trails. It makes me feel desperate: a rare warm day followed by another sleet storm, the high-octane days of summer still impossibly far away.
In May 2019, I was crawling out of my skin. The high-elevation north-facing trails were still sheets of ice and the south-facing trails were shoe-sucking mud. I was so sick of my gym routine that I’d sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes, willing myself to go inside.
I’d moved to Montana from the northeast nearly a decade before, drawn to lofty mountains to reinvent my tame life in suburban New Hampshire. I immediately began compiling a résumé of outdoor activities: I learned to mountain bike, became a strong climber, checked peaks off my list, and worked as a horseback guide. Backcountry recreation was the social currency and my value hinged on accepting every invitation, so I did my best to learn everything.
But no matter how many skills I picked up, my struggles with asthma meant I often fell behind. I was the last one to the top of the switchbacks, watching my lean, muscled friends vanish over the ridge as I sucked air through a windpipe that felt like a crumpled straw.
I made up for those cardio challenges with an uncanny ability to reject fear. I volunteered to go first on intimidating climbing routes, humming to stay calm as I gripped miniscule edges and pressed my feet against glassy slabs of rock. I fell often, once catching my leg behind the rope and flipping upside down, my head ringing as I smashed into the wall. My belayer called up in a panic and offered to lower me, but I was already pulling myself up the rope before I’d stopped swinging. My self-worth banked on being the most fearless, camping in winter storms, grabbing the reins of the horse who had thrown me, pulling pebbles out of my knees and joking about how hard I’d hit the ground.
That frenetic activity level of summer and winter made spring’s dullness harder to bear. I craved movement in the backcountry and the social life that came with it. Kadin texted me one of those afternoons when I was flopping around the climbing gym mats delaying my workout. He was a climbing partner, decently good friend, river guide, and enough of an enigma that I wasn’t sure whether I had a crush or he just had enough mystique to seem appealing.
He asked if I had a kayak.
I responded right away. Yeah, an old river runner. You looking to get out this week?
My kayak was a 15-year-old Wave Sport Frankenstein I’d picked up at a pawn shop the year before. I’d spent that summer paddling the reservoir south of town, occasionally running a calm section of the Madison River. The boat was narrow and prone to tipping. I planned to take a roll clinic the following summer, as I was determined to gain aptitude in yet another outdoor sport—just enough to feel confident on beginner whitewater.
The section of the Gallatin River that Kadin wanted to run was near my house, easily accessible and less intimidating than anything in the canyon. Despite being an open section of water, it was still technically early-season conditions, ice cold and scattered with hazardous deadfall. I accepted the invitation immediately.
Despite being an open section of water, it was still technically early-season conditions, ice cold and scattered with hazardous deadfall. I accepted the invitation immediately.
I didn’t consider whether or not I was comfortable paddling that stretch. Along with the desire to keep up with my peers, my ability to assess risk was skewed after years of narrow backcountry escapes, a well-documented phenomenon where your risk perception shifts after successfully navigating unpredictable situations. From outrunning lightning storms to losing the trail to tackling climbs well above my grade, I’d encountered plenty of tenuous scenarios and always figured it out, scraping by without too much damage.
The Adventure Experience Paradigm describes this well; it uses a simple line graphic to show the interplay of risk and competence. When the risk is low and the skills are high, the person is toward the bottom of the chart in the “realm of exploration and experimentation.” When competence and risk are balanced, the participant is in the middle, and when risk exceeds competence, the outcome can be catastrophic. The more experience someone has with navigating risky situations, the more confident they become, skewing the variables. My boating experience was minimal and that section of river was not for beginners, but I had scraped by enough times that my risk assessment was dangerously off-kilter. It was a really, really bad combination.
My boating experience was minimal and that section of river was not for beginners, but I had scraped by enough times that my risk assessment was dangerously off-kilter. It was a really, really bad combination.
None of this was on my mind a few days later as I grabbed my kayaking gloves and neoprene booties and dragged my boat out of the garage. I raked a finger through the cobwebs stretching across the seat as Kadin’s truck rumbled into my driveway. We crammed both boats in the bed of my truck, shuttled his truck to the takeout, and I drove us back to the start.
The wind was brisk as we unloaded the boats, whipping my hair against my face and pushing puffy white clouds across the sky. I inched down the embankment toward the blown-out river, swollen from snowmelt and moving faster than I thought. Icy water splashed my toes and I slipped in the slick mud.
“I’m glad I brought the booties,” I shouted over the water. Kadin gave me a thumbs up and tossed his spare spray skirt in my direction.
The river at this time would have been around 40 degrees, frigid with snowmelt and choked with trees and other obstacles lodged in the current. These lodged obstacles, called “strainers,” make normally moderate sections extremely dangerous, allowing water through but not a boat. Getting pinned underwater against a wall of debris is just one of the ways you can die on a river. It didn’t occur to me to be scared.
To a casual observer, the fact that I owned a boat and a few kayaking accessories gave the appearance I knew what I was doing. But technical boating is a far cry from my mellow paddling experience. I lacked the reflexes and skills to navigate faster water, plus my boat was outdated and difficult to stabilize. But the excitement of finally getting outside, the relative rarity of an invitation from Kadin, plus my other narrow escapes pushed out any seed of doubt. I lowered myself into my kayak.
Kadin’s spare spray skirt barely fit over the cockpit and I couldn’t get enough leverage to secure it. He crouched over my boat, wrestling with the neoprene until it strained across the opening.
“Can you pull that off if you have to?” He secured his own spray skirt and pushed himself toward the water.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “It’s kind of tight.”
He paused. “Do you want to practice?”
His hesitancy annoyed me.
I knew I should make sure I could release it, but my brain raced through two scenarios: if I couldn’t pull the spray skirt, it would be clear we shouldn’t run this section—I’d be trapped underwater if I flipped my boat and couldn’t roll. But if I pulled it on shore and couldn’t put it back on, Kadin would have to help me again and I’d look silly and inexperienced. I shook my head and dug my paddle into the embankment.
“It’s fine, let’s go. I’m not going to flip my boat.”
My boat wasn’t cooperating the instant I dropped into the river. The water was too fast and unpredictable. Every time I tried to adjust course, I was buffeted by the current. I scolded myself to paddle like I knew how, but this wasn’t the type of kayaking I was used to—my reflexes were slow and instincts incorrect. My boat’s slim bow dipped and rose, and I flexed my legs against the thigh braces in an attempt to stabilize. An icy splash of water streamed down my jacket. I knew I shouldn’t be on the water.
I knew I shouldn’t be on the water.
I was desperate to be off the river but I also wasn’t in control. That realization turned into panic as I was catapulted forward in the current, glancing sidelong at the bank rushing by and knowing I didn’t have the skills to eddy out. Too much was happening too quickly. The spray skirt felt like a vise around my waist.
A wave hit me in the face and I gasped, swiping a hand across my eyes as I heard Kadin yell behind me.
“Stay to the left! Maggie, the left!” he shouted.
I turned to hear him better, and when I looked forward I had dropped into a trough and the current swept me to the right.
I blinked to clear water from my eyes and saw why Kadin had yelled to stay left. I was heading right toward a massive strainer, topped by a downed tree at head height. It was as thick as my torso, the gnarled root ball creating a dam for a jagged pile of broken logs.
I threw my arm out and collided with the tree with a sickening whack. Before I could take a breath, my boat flipped and I was underwater.
Oh no, I thought. I am in so much trouble.
It was silent underwater, yellowish-green and brighter than I would have thought. Fist-sized rocks bouncing next to my head were the only indication of how fast I was moving.
You’re moving, which means you’re not pinned against the strainer. Get air. You have to roll.
I’d never practiced rolling a kayak—the roll clinic was still on my long list of goals—but I knew to snap my hips into the side of the boat and leverage with the paddle. My boat was built to roll, but I had no muscle memory to draw from to actually execute the move. I also had no paddle—it had been ripped from my hands when I hit the tree.
I threw my hips into the side of my boat. It rocked a few inches, then settled back.
I fought panic. Try again, you need to get air.
I threw my hips harder into the side of the boat. Nothing. The effort took energy and energy took oxygen. A countdown started in my head. I only had a few minutes to get out of the boat. How long had I been underwater?
Wet exit. Pull the spray skirt.
I frantically felt for the grab loop, but I was upside down and disoriented. When I found it after wasting more precious seconds, I leaned back and pulled as hard as I could. It didn’t budge. More seconds went by. My heart started thudding more rapidly and I felt that familiar aching burn when you stay underwater too long.
A thought came into my head, momentarily paralyzing me: these might be your last few minutes.
My clumsy gloved hands scrabbled uselessly at the edges of the neoprene trapping me in the boat. As I realized I couldn’t release the spray skirt that way either, panic, regret, and sorrow flooded my brain.
As I realized I couldn’t release the spray skirt that way either, panic, regret, and sorrow flooded my brain.
Please no. Please don’t let it end like this.
This is where my brain split into two tracks running at the same time: a sadness track and an action track.
The sadness track focused on my family. My parents and three younger siblings all still lived in the Northeast. They supported me but didn’t understand my drive to keep pushing, and they continuously begged me to be careful. I thought about my mother, wracked with nerves whenever I’d casually recount another close call. I thought about my dad. His cancer had just relapsed; my family was already suffering. My drowning would destroy them.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for my family, I made a mistake and I wish I hadn’t come here and I’m sorry.
The action track said: keep trying until it’s over.
I smashed my hip into the side of my boat again, and this time I rocked it enough to hear the roar of the water and feel air on one side of my face. I sucked in a half-breath, half-mouthful-of-water before rolling under again, buying myself incrementally more time. I wondered if Kadin had seen me roll, if he knew what was happening.
My heart sped up even more and I felt a new sensation in my chest: a dark hole with a deep burn around the edges. Still being pulled downriver, I watched my hourglass run out as I tried one last time to roll, but I was too tired and barely moved the boat.
I knew then that I didn’t want my last few minutes to be full of sadness and regret. If I wasn’t going to survive this, I didn’t want my final thoughts to be berating myself for a bad choice.
It’s OK, I thought. You didn’t mean for this to happen. You are going to die and you should just be grateful for the time you had.
The heavy, black ache in my chest fully replaced the burn. I forced myself to keep my eyes open and watch the sunbeams like I’d seen a thousand times before, when I’d been underwater by choice and could come up for air when I wanted.
My vision spotted and wavered. I thought about my family one more time, trying to send a message through the river and into the air I couldn’t reach: I’m so sorry, I love you, I didn’t mean to hurt you.
I read somewhere that we’re all unreliable narrators, even for our own stories. It’s impossible to remember fully accurate details and our brain fills the gaps where our memories fail.
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This means I can’t tell you what order in which things happened: whether I felt Kadin collide with my boat or whether I was still unconscious when he dragged me to the surface. I just know I opened my eyes to the blue sky studded with clouds I thought I’d never see again, and that I felt the spring air whipping against my face. He told me I made a noise, a choking moan that sounded like a dying animal. He thought: she still might not make it.
Things came into focus one at a time: Kadin’s arm across my chest, the bruising strike of his legs as he lifeguard-dragged me to an eddy, my head propped out of the water on his shoulder.
Once I fully came to, I thrashed away from him, swimming an adrenaline-fueled freestyle to the bank and digging my hands into the mud to pull myself out. I collapsed in a heap, threw up river water, tried to stand, fell down. Kadin leaned over me and pressed my shoulders down, his eyes darting over my face, his own hollow with fear.
“I’m OK, I’m fine.” My voice sounded like it was run through a grater. Once I started shivering, I couldn’t stop.
“Mags, I thought you were a goner.”
“What happened,” I asked, “how did you get to me?”
He told it like this: he saw me collide with the strainer and flip my boat. He paddled after me as fast as possible, watching my upside-down kayak, waiting for me to roll. He kept a countdown in his head, and when I didn’t surface, he beached his boat on a sandbar, ripped off his spray skirt, and dove into the current, swimming as hard as he could until he reached me.
He grabbed my boat as it flew downriver with my unconscious body dangling underneath. He tried to roll me, but my dead weight made it impossible, so he hung on the rounded hull until he found the grab loop to release the spray skirt and rip me out upside down.
I didn’t know how long I was underwater. You can suffer irreversible brain damage after five minutes without oxygen, but my half-breath had bought me more time. If Kadin hadn’t seen me flip, missed my boat in the current, or taken another minute to reach me, it would have been over.
We staggered along a dirt road, cut through a field, then followed another road to where we’d dropped his truck. We didn’t talk.
“Do you need me to go home with you?” he asked when we got back to my truck. His hands trembled on the steering wheel. We were both freezing.
“No, go home. I’m fine,” I said. I was always fine.
It took three tries to get the key into the ignition. The sound of the engine made me jump.
Foot on brake. Reverse. Drive. Gas. My leg trembled so hard on the pedal the truck shuddered.
I drove home with both hands on the wheel; I left my drenched clothes in a heap in the entryway. I turned the shower on, but the sound of the water sent shock waves through my body and I slapped the knob back off. Reeking of river water, I crawled into bed and willed the shaking to stop.
The next few days passed in a blur. I emptied the trash, checked the mail. Fed my cat in the morning and evening, responded to the most basic work emails. Dazedly coordinated an upcoming potluck dinner that I didn’t think to cancel.
When I told friends what happened, I called it “the kayak accident” and kept it flippant. I told them that yes I’d nearly drowned, but no they shouldn’t worry, care, or ask about it. When they did worry, care, and ask about it, I snapped like a cornered dog. No questions. I said I didn’t want to talk about it.
I maintained this barbed facade, but inside I was coming apart. I woke up each night gasping for air. Sometimes my face was buried in my pillow and sometimes I’d been holding my breath. How do our bodies know to keep breathing? I wondered. Is it safe to fall asleep?
Bruises blossomed from my thighs to my shins. My hips ached from slamming into the boat, and I was so tired I had to hold onto the wall walking upstairs. When I showered, I huddled terrified against the wall, trying to wash my hair without the water hitting my face.
I hosted the dinner party a week later. To cancel would have meant I was exhausted and scared, and if I was exhausted and scared, I was weak. If I was weak, I was worthless. So instead of calling Kadin and telling him I wasn’t OK, or asking him if he also wasn’t OK, or talking to my family, or writing in a journal, I opened my front door to a dozen friends and drifted through the warm noise of music and conversation. Where are the serving bowls? Do you want me to put this in the oven? Does Maggie have an ice maker?
Halfway through the night I grabbed a bowl of food scraps to toss in the compost. The din dulled to near-silence as I stepped into my backyard and pulled the slider shut. Loud to quiet. Above water to under water. OK to not OK.
Like dripping wax, the patio and window glow melted together, and a muted thrumming pounded in my ears. I slid down the side of my house as pinpricks spotted my vision and my breathing went ragged and gasping. It was my first panic attack from the accident, but it wouldn’t be my last.
It was my first panic attack from the accident, but it wouldn’t be my last.
It got worse after that. I was haunted by a newfound fear of consequences, made worse by a desperation to maintain my fearlessness, the basis of my self-worth. I still went outside, but I was terrified. A creak overhead meant a branch was about to crush me, clouds gathering over a distant peak meant a lightning strike. I camped at an alpine lake and lie awake in my tent, picturing yellow eyes watching from the trees. I never got back in my kayak.
More distressing than this new timidness were the dissociative episodes that started shortly after the accident. Multiple times each day I would find myself drifting out of reality, wondering how everyone was coping after my death.
My final thought before losing consciousness had been accepting my own death, and part of my brain still existed in the space where I never woke up. I’d stare at my hands in yoga, splayed like pale starfish on the mat, and wonder what flowers my mom had chosen for my memorial. A stab of anguish as I walked to the mailbox: had my little cat been brought back to the animal shelter, or had one of my friends taken him in? Then I’d blink and be back in yoga class or standing in front of my mailbox with the key held limply in my hand.
These flashes of dissociation became more frequent. I had to remind myself every day that I hadn’t died—I still lived in my house with the flowering perennial bed and mismatched thrift-store furniture. My family hadn’t gathered in Montana to sort out the accumulation of debris that made up my life.
It seemed too dramatic to call it PTSD. Was I so fragile that a few minutes underwater had such an impact? I didn’t even know if the accident could be classified as a near-death experience. I hadn’t seen the light at the end of a tunnel or felt myself leaving my body. I hadn’t even needed to be resuscitated—hypoxia caused me to plummet into unconsciousness, but as soon as I reoxygenated, my body started to function and I could breathe on my own. I felt weak and fragile, unable to quantify what was happening and too ashamed to confront the poor decisions that led me there.
Despite my denial, what was happening to my brain was a form of dissociation from the traumatic event, and a noted element of PTSD. People who have come close to death report more dissociative responses than other trauma survivors, and while the episodes typically do eventually fade, the more I tried to pretend I was OK, the longer they would last.
It took weeks to tell my family what had happened, and I did it in a rush through the crackly Bluetooth connection on my way to the grocery store.
“I had a close call kayaking a few weeks ago,” I told my mom, rattling through the bullet points before she could interject. Hit a downed log, flipped my boat, trapped underwater, my friend got to me in time, it was fine.
She responded, slowly, but I wasn’t listening. The words I wanted to say felt lodged in my throat, and I ran them through my head like dialogue with the mic cut off.
I don’t know if I’m dead or alive. Every night I wake up feeling like I’m suffocating and if a loud room goes quiet I have a panic attack. I’m sad and scared and I don’t know why I didn’t die or if there’s a reason I survived and why I ignored all of the risk and almost killed myself.
I didn’t say any of that, but I did surprise myself by blurting out an apology before I hung up.
“I’m really sorry,” I said, horrified as I got choked up. “I love you guys and I won’t do anything stupid like that again.”
Kadin was the only one I thought I trusted to talk about it, though when he finally called me one evening a few weeks later, I still couldn’t drop my veneer.
“I just think . . . you know . . . you could have died, and I’m sorry,” he said. “It really scared me seeing you not come up for air, and I don’t know how to talk about it and I’m sorry I brought you out there.” I paced around in my kitchen, holding my phone at arm’s length like I could be electrocuted through the speaker.
I fumbled a response, still managing not to say anything honest or raw. I’ll thank him later, I told myself, when I tell him what’s been going on in my brain. Maybe he’s going through the same thing.
After that conversation we settled into a quiet understanding: two guarded people who had narrowly escaped a serious consequence.
Once we established a different rapport, I saw a lot of Kadin. What would have thrilled me before (acceptance) was now a relief (someone who understood).
We climbed together and took long drives into the mountains. We hiked picnic food up to a remote lake, and once we recovered the kayaks from the river, I stored them both in my garage. I felt deeply connected to him, though I fought the idea since he was still the enigma that kept me chasing the end of a string, picking at the knot to see if it could be unraveled.
No one else heard the noise I made as the air came back into my lungs. No one else had beached their boat and swam toward me as alpine runoff deadened their limbs. No one else kept their eyes on my upside-down boat and no one else risked the current and strainers to drag an unconscious girl out of a kayak. If he’d waited another few beats, missed the sandbar, not connected with my boat as the current carried him past, I would have died.
“You two have some sort of weird bond,” my friend muttered as I slide-tackled Kadin on the gym mats one day that fall.
“Yeah, I mean, he saved my life.” At that point, she knew to nod and not ask me to elaborate.
He was still Kadin, though, trauma bonded or not. He’d disappear for a month at a time, not return my calls, skip our planned yoga classes.
My brain had reached more of an equilibrium by then. I still drifted in and out of reality, wondering who had taken over my house and which one of my friends had my cat. But I’d just smile apologetically to whoever I was with as I startled back to reality.
“Sorry, can you repeat that? I was spacing out.”
Fall rolled into winter and our boats hadn’t left my garage. I brushed off the cobwebs and hung them on hooks, telling myself I’d talk to Kadin in the spring and confront the accident, possibly ask if he wanted to take the roll clinic with me. I’d feel safer with him there. Maybe it would close the gap and allow me to move on.
In the meantime, I spent that winter trying to understand the event from a clinical perspective.
I replayed the accident obsessively in my head, ashamed at my choices while trying to understand where they’d come from. I blamed my personality, I blamed living in a mountain town, I blamed incorrect risk perception after too many close calls, I blamed wanting to impress Kadin. If I could create a flowchart of decisions and personality traits that led me to the river that day, I would guarantee that it never happened again.
I knew my reduced risk inhibition came from too many narrow escapes, and having a more experienced partner had created an “expert halo” that tipped the adventure-experience scale to a dangerous imbalance. At the same time, I hadn’t been looking to push my limits like the sensation-seeking personalities I kept reading about, people who needed big thrills to feel things. Those people often have lower trait anxiety, which means they feel less anxious in day-to-day life. While I loved being outside and did seek certain types of adventure, I have always had high anxiety and didn’t enjoy the feeling of fear. I’d just learned to ignore it.
Eventually I talked to Jerry Johnson, a professor in town who researches backcountry risk assessment. Nothing about my story seemed to surprise him.
“You wonder how these accidents don’t happen more frequently in towns like this, where the bar is so high,” he said. “You’re responding to social cues. How you perform in these sports contributes to your self-worth and value. You want to be able to keep up.”
I nodded, slowly. He was so matter-of-fact. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it was the truth. I wasn’t a thrill seeker; I was someone who wanted to fit in and was scared of being left behind.
The brain split was the other major element I wanted to untangle. The dissociative episodes were still part of my life on a near-daily basis, but that winter, no one I spoke to had any idea what I was talking about.
“I’m sorry,” a counselor said over the phone. “I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
Eventually, long after my initial outreach, I heard back from another counselor I reached out to. Not for therapy, but for more information about this split. Parker Schneider specializes in acute and complex trauma, and has a background in adventure-based programming. They offered precise, pertinent feedback about what I was describing.
“Near-death experiences are almost always traumatic and can be incredibly profound,” Schneider said. “[They leave] the nervous system grappling with processing the intense emotions and sensations involved in the experience.”
Schneider seemed familiar with what I had been experiencing, and told me that dissociation can be a way for someone to get through during the near-death experience (NDE), as well as a way to cope afterward while the brain works to integrate the experience.
“After an NDE, dissociation might manifest as the mind alternating between different perceptions of reality,” Schneider told me. “This could involve oscillating between a reality in which an individual survived the event and one in which they died.”
Between this measured explanation of my lapses in reality, and Johnson’s quiet understanding of my need to keep up, I felt more tethered to reality. I also felt like I could begin to forgive myself.
It was January, eight months after the accident, and Kadin had bailed on another yoga class. I was bristling, tired of his flakiness and though I didn’t want to admit it, stung by the perceived rejection.
I had just gotten home when a mutual friend called.
“Mags, you’re going to want to go to the hospital. It’s Kadin. I thought you’d want to know.”
I wasn’t part of Kadin’s primary friend group, so I wasn’t included in the communications from the past few days. The only thing I knew was that he was in the hospital and he wasn’t going to make it.
I drove across town in a hysterical frenzy, racing through wing after wing until I found the right room. I grabbed his hand in the hospital bed, dissolving into despair and guilt. He was in front of me—his curly sandy-colored hair and climbers’ forearms and calf tattoo—but inaccessible. I sobbed and thanked him and apologized for not saying it enough. I said everything I’d wanted to say since May but it was too late, he couldn’t hear me.
I pictured him swimming the current to my boat, releasing the spray skirt and grabbing me under the arms to pull me out, the countdown clock also running through his head. How long has she been underwater?
I had been inches from him, unconscious in my boat in that liminal space between life and death. And now, here he was in front of me, in between but already gone. There was no current to swim and I couldn’t pull him out of a boat and bring him to the surface. My time stretches into the future but his is over.
This is what he knew: he knew he saved me from drowning, that I cared about him, that we were trauma bonded and that maybe I loved him for saving me. But I was too mired in regret and terror to tell him that when I woke up suffocating in my sleep, then realized I could breathe, the panic gave way to gratitude for being alive.
I am sorry for my choices and grateful for my second chances. I’ve never gone back on that river and I’ve never truly untangled the web of decisions that made me agree to go boating that day. Maybe someday I’ll be able to face it. Until then, I accept that fear helps protect me and I appreciate every day for being one I didn’t think I’d have.
It’s been five years. Both of our boats still hang from hooks in my garage. Every few months I clear off the cobwebs.
Maggie Slepian is a full-time writer based in Montana. Her work focuses on the intersection of the outdoors, culture, and mental health, and has appeared in Outside, Lonely Planet, the Strategist, HuffPo, and elsewhere. If she’s not in the backcountry, she’s probably hanging out with her cat.
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Editor: Krista Stevens
Copyeditor: Cheri Lucas Rowlands
Fact checker: Julie Schwietert Collazo
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