7:05 p.m. September 9

We explode out of the mist, roaring up River X, careening around skeins of fog snagged on old-growth sentinels, banking hard, skidding through empty air to charge up River Y, rocks, trees, all reality blurring beneath my feet. A mostly gone bottle of Crown clutched between Kate’s knees and the hammering rotor slap tear at our ears. We cut the corner on a sweeping oxbow and rise, the carpet of model-railroad spruce and incandescent yellow cottonwoods zooming past, racing darkness back to camp. I am… I am Superman and I can do anything. Rick in the backseat hunched over his video camera, peering into the playback screen, his voice crackles over headset static—Dude, I double punched it!—followed by rising, maniacal laughter…

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above Stuffing the bird. Kate Taylor loads the helicopter with a stack of long rods in northern British Columbia. Mashing Spey rods, multiple anglers and a pilot in a helicopter requires mad Jenga skills.