Author Event & Book Signing with Bridget Crocker "The River's Daughter"

Recalling memoirs like Wild and Educated, an internationally renowned whitewater rafting guide offers a gripping and inspiring memoir about overcoming hardship and coming into her own through her relationship with the rivers she has known.

After Bridget Crocker’s parents split in a volatile divorce, she moved with her mother from California to Wyoming, to a trailer park on the banks of the Snake River. Her childhood was nearly idyllic, with a stepfather she loved and a new baby brother, and with the river as her companion. When her mother underwent a drastic personality change seemingly overnight and left her stepfather for an eco-warrior and radical new lifestyle, Bridget’s world upended. She returned to California to live with her explosive father—until his violence sent her back to Wyoming.

The river was the most constant and nurturing influence in Bridget’s life; it helped instill in her the resilience she needed to overcome sexual assault and betrayals by those close to her and taught her to trust her intuition and embrace her strength as a woman. She became a world-class whitewater rafting guide, leading expeditions on the Snake, the Kern, the Salmon, and Zambia’s Zambezi rivers. Ultimately, her relationship with the rivers she came to know led her to reunite with her family and work with them to transform multi-generational cycles of poverty, trauma, and abuse.

In this propulsive story of finding hope and belonging in a life outdoors, Bridget Crocker not only takes us on exhilarating, and at times terrifying, adventures on the water but opens up a new way of experiencing the world—through its rivers, which can guide us, just as we can navigate them—and introduces a bold and vibrant new voice in adventure writing.

“In The River’s Daughter, renowned whitewater rafting guide Crocker delivers a powerful narrative of resilience and self-discovery, navigating the tumult of family upheaval and personal trauma. With courage and insight, Crocker reveals how the rivers she braved also guided her toward healing and strength. This unforgettable odyssey is a testament to nature’s power to transform and inspire. A remarkable debut.”—Adrienne Brodeur, author of Little Monsters

“The River’s Daughter is poignant and absorbing, vividly transporting the reader along Bridget’s journey to heal from abuse and betrayal, where the power and grace of the world’s rivers inspire her passion for life and offer her a place to channel her pain.”—Norman Ollestad, author of Crazy for the Storm

“An exciting, entertaining, fast-paced adventure travel memoir.”—Catherine Raven, author of Fox and I




“This memoir by legendary river guide Bridget Crocker runs fast and deep. Whitewater scenes are electrifying and precise. But there are also profound personal matters here—pockets of fear or joy and even love—that add a shimmering depth to this fast-paced and nuanced read.”

—Tim Cahill, author of Jaguars Ripped My Flesh

“No one writes with more conviction and heart about the outdoor world, rivers, and family than Bridget Crocker, who has been to the river's edge, both literal and metaphorical, navigated its rapids, and drawn strength from it in many more ways than one. This fast-paced but deeply insightful book about a woman harnessing the power to confront her past and surge into her future will steal readers' breath from the first scene—when Crocker first hears the river's voice—to the last.”—Tracy Ross, author of The Source of All Things

Explorer. Storyteller. Guide.

A leading whitewater explorer and river guide, Bridget Crocker writes adventure memoir for life travelers forging new directions in their relationships and lives. Crocker's writing transports readers to far-flung locations filled with flawed characters overcoming incredible adversity. A trauma survivor, Crocker explores themes of recovery and overcoming multi-generational cycles as well as sexism and racism in the outdoor industry. In her work as an author, speaker and leader of women's empowerment river workshops, Crocker helps others strengthen their connection with the natural world and find the courage to navigate harrowing obstacles both on and off the river.

Writing Background

Crocker’s adventure travel background combined with formal studies in Anthropology and Native American Studies have shaped her ability to integrate the natural and cultural spirit of varying landscapes into her writing. She attended the University of Montana in Missoula and holds a degree in English Literature from Montana State University, Bozeman. She's an alum of Book Passage Travel Writing and Photography Conference and the Livingston Writer's Workshop. Her work has been featured in magazines including Westways, Men’s Journal, National Geographic Adventure, Outside, Trail Runner, Paddler and Vela among others, and she worked as a writer for the outdoor clothing company, Patagonia, for nineteen years. She is a contributing author to Lonely Planet guidebooks and Travel Anthology and The Best Women’s Travel Writing series from Travelers’ Tales.

River Explorer

As a young girl growing up on the banks of the Snake River in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Crocker developed a relationship with water and nature that is at the heart of her writing. Crocker began guiding on the Snake and has guided remote river expeditions down many of the world’s greatest river canyons in far-flung regions of Zambia, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, India and the Western United States.

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