A hiker navigates through the West Little Owyhee

ON a chilly afternoon in late June, we stood contemplating our options in an icy Oregon rain that pricked our skin like needles. The canyon's 300-foot-high walls of chocolate rhyolite had corralled the river into a pool too deep to wade through, too cold to swim in. Turning back would mean a grueling two-day retreat upstream. If we pushed ahead we could be out in a day. The decision was painful but clear: time to strip and swim.