word watch
Co-op members on a 1981 trip on the Colorado River. Photo courtesy former CFF communications secretary William Rodarmor (back left), whose first trip with the group was on the same river in 1972. “It was a hell of beginning,” he says. “Some people’s first car is a Maserati.”
At the height of its activity in the 1980s, the cooperative boasted
nearly 50 members and ran up to 15 river trips a year—from U.S. classics like Oregon’s Rogue River and Idaho’s Salmon to adventures abroad, like the Rio Usumacinta in Guatemala. But as the rafters’ commitments to career and family grew, trips
became less and less frequent. This year, the last remaining members decided to officially disband the co-op, selling off the gear and donating the proceeds to charities whose work reflected the CFF spirit. “The [environmental] movement has changed,” says David Moyal.
As the group’s last president, he helped facilitate the discussion of distributing the funds. “It used to be that eco-activism was small orga- nizations, often issue-dependent, very local. Nowadays it’s also about national policy: fuel and energy and transportation.” CFF members saw that balance well reflected in The Trust for Public
Land, which works to apply national conservation expertise to local challenges—including the protection of several of the group’s best- loved whitewater spots. Despite closing the books on the collective, Dahl, Moyal, and many
other former members remain active in the outdoors—still prone to occasional bouts of that same river fever. “It goes through stages,” says Moyal. “When you start rafting, you
tend to think in metaphors: ‘This is how I want to live my life, flowing like a river.’ Then you get into the technical aspects: trip-planning, the gear. You do it for the sense of accomplishment. Eventually it becomes a social thing, something you do with your best friends.” “But it always comes back to that initial thought,” he adds. “Rafting is a metaphor for a life well lived.”
Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak takes a spin with the city’s Nice Ride program. Read more about this park-friendly city on page 40.
bike·share /bık'·shər'/
(n.) Short-term bicycle rental from an automated station, often open 24 hours a day. Although the concept has existed for decades and has been widely adopted abroad, 2013 was a boom year for bike sharing stateside: new programs launched in more than a dozen U.S. cities, from New York to San Francisco.
FIRST LOOK · 23
nice ride mn
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