No Connection. No Bullshit. Just Real.

How five days on the Smith River in Montana showed me what matters.

In a world where so little feels real anymore, I have just come from a place that showed me what is.

I spent five days floating the Smith River in Montana with a group of fellow veterans through Warriors & Quiet Waters, a nonprofit serving post-9/11 combat veterans.

There was nothing artificial, filtered or performative about it. Certainly nothing you can ever see behind a screen.

The Smith River is considered one of the great fly fishing rivers in the world, but that description somehow still undersells it.

For five days, we floated almost 60 miles through a canyon carved over millions of years between limestone walls that rise at times a thousand feet above the river. The canyon walls were stunning in a way that photographs never fully capture. Deep sections of orange, rust, cream, gray, and red limestone layered through the cliffs with visible erosion lines cut into the rock over immense stretches of time.

You could literally see the history written into the canyon walls as the river moved between them.

There are stretches where the canyon narrows and the walls feel impossibly high above you. Like the world’s greatest natural amphitheater. Pine trees grow straight out of the limestone in places that seem impossible. Trees towering tall on ledges so small you could barely put your own boots there, yet somehow they root into stone and seem to thrive.

The canyon walls would open up into vast valleys with thousands of pine trees and rolling natural meadows.

The river flows around boulders and bends. Runoff from snow capped mountains in the distance changing color and shape as the river moved. Slow ripples, then faster rapids. Quiet at times. Then suddenly the peaceful sound of water over rocks gives way to speed and power through tight canyon turns.

Smith River. May 2026

In true Montana fashion, we experienced all four seasons in five days.

We started in weather that felt appropriately like spring.

Bright skies. Cool mornings. Comfortable afternoons.

Then came summer heat and an intense sun.

That gave way to some fog, an overcast sky and a perfectly fall feeling cold rain.

It made for chilly conditions but great fishing.

Then snow. Actual snow.

At one point we worked down the river casting while snowflakes drifted down around us. Waders on. Hands cold. Breath visible in the air. Doing your best to cast to a stationary point under a canyon wall ledge in a moving river while standing in a bouncing boat.

A moment when you feel completely focused and entirely alive.

At night, away from cities and light pollution, the sky feels almost overwhelming. Stars felt close enough to touch. Too numerous to count. You could make out Venus and Jupiter with the naked eye just after sunset.

One morning before we broke camp, we walked up to some pictographs painted on the canyon walls thousands of years ago. Handprints. Animals. Symbols left behind by people who stood in that same canyon long before any of us arrived there.

They moved in “bands” or small groups. Tight. Family. Looking out for each other.

Long before phones. Before notifications and algorithms and screens filled every quiet moment.

Those people stood beneath the same stars. Looked at the same planets. Watched the same river move through the canyon.

We cannot go back to that world. And honestly, we probably would not want to.

But I do think we are starving for pieces of something we lost along the way.

Something slower.

Something quieter.

Something more connected.

Something more real.

On our trip, we were never alone.

We were surrounded by pairs of Canada geese the entire way. Always pairs. They mate for the duration of their 10 to 25 year lifespan. Our time of year was special as we saw newly hatched goslings (baby geese). Tiny little things scurrying around and playing just like the little kids they are. The mother geese constantly counted and regrouped them along the riverbanks. We have these same geese on our ranch and my wife loves them. I couldn’t help but think about her every time I saw them around us.

Ducks kept pace with us for sections and then took flight from the river.

A handful of bald eagles soared overhead on stretches of the river. And then often posted up on branches of the largest trees. Just keeping watch. Pretty amazing to see.

But the golden eagle was different. I only saw one.

It swept down through that canyon and crashed into some bushes and small trees as it aggressively chased a grouse. A golden eagle appears more like a small aircraft than something natural. Bigger. Faster. More powerful than the bald eagle. It doesn’t seem real or even possible until you see it with your own eyes. The grouse actually survived this round and got away. But I am sure the golden eagle is doing just fine.

As we made our way in drift boats, decked out in waders with rods and flies in hand, doing our best to catch brown and rainbow trout, an osprey bombed down into the river and showed you how to truly catch a fish.

There were deer drinking from the edge of the river. Beavers cutting through the water early in the morning. Our guide pointed out one of the river insects and explained they spend their lives beneath the rocks at the bottom of the river before emerging for a single day above the surface.

One day to fly.

One day to mate.

One day in the sunlight before falling back to the river and dying.

Standing there in a canyon carved over millions of years, it was hard not to think about how differently nature measures time than we do.

A canyon gets millions of years. A mayfly gets one day.

It made me think about what we do with our time.

It feels like we just don’t have the time for nature or for each other.

No time for things to slow down a bit.

But is it time? Or how we use it?

Arthur Brooks writes in The Meaning of Your Life that the average American checks their phone more than two hundred times a day and spends more than five hours looking at it.

Every day.

He points out that most people now spend more time with their device than with anyone else in their life.

That hit me pretty hard reading it while on this trip.

Because out there, nobody reached for their phones.

There was no cell service. No Wi-Fi. No scrolling. No vibrating notification in your pocket pulling your attention away from your own life.

With no connection, I have never felt more connected.

With nature. With myself. With each other.

Long stretches of silence floating downriver with uncluttered thoughts.

Real conversations around campfires.

Laughing with people who understand things you don’t have to explain.

The kind of friendship and love built through shared experience, struggle, service, and loss.

That part matters.

Because the river was powerful on its own.

But sharing it with fellow combat veterans made it something else entirely.

There is a difference between solitude and isolation.

Solitude can reconnect you to yourself.

Isolation cuts you off from the world.

A lot of veterans know that line intimately.

Truthfully, a lot of people do. And make no mistake you can live in isolation while being surrounded by people.

What Warriors & Quiet Waters understands is that healing and growth rarely happen through one thing alone.

This was never just a fishing trip.

Over the past year we worked through conversations, reading and programming centered around purpose, mindfulness, nutrition, sleep, health, connection, and building lives that actually hold together. Exploration and reflection.

The Smith River was the capstone experience.

And it worked.

Not because fly fishing magically fixes people.

Not because Montana is some perfect escape from life.

But because nature quiets the noise enough for people to hear themselves again.

And the slower pace allows you to hear others.

To understand. To feel. To connect.

You do not have to take my word for this.

A 2021 peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that veterans receiving treatment for PTSD showed greater reductions in symptoms when they spent more time outdoors.

The more time outside, the greater the improvement.

But it doesn’t just heal and calm veterans. It works for everyone.

Whatever you believe about how we all got here, there is something deeply restorative about time in nature.

And doing it with your tribe reminds you that you do not have to carry everything alone.

Nature and Tribe. Quiet and connection.

We need more of both.

I understand how fortunate I am to have had this experience. I didn’t take a minute of it for granted.

But the lesson is not that everyone needs Montana.

The lesson is that most of us probably need a little more nature and a little less noise.

A little more tribe and a little less isolation.

A lot less scrolling and a lot more real.

And that can happen almost anywhere.

A park. A beach. A river trail. A lake.

A walk around the block without headphones.

Coffee with a friend where nobody checks their phone every thirty seconds.

Ten quiet minutes outside at sunrise before the day starts pulling at you.

The modern world constantly fights for our attention.

Most of us are guilty of giving it away too easily. I know I am.

Standing in that river reminded me that the best parts of life are usually the ones that pull us back into direct contact with what is real.

Cold water.

Mountain air.

A campfire.

Stars.

Laughter.

Silence.

Friendship.

A river moving through stone older than we can truly comprehend.

In a world where so little feels real anymore, all of that did.

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If you are a post-9/11 combat veteran, I encourage you to look into Warriors & Quiet Waters and apply for one of their programs. And if you are looking for an organization doing real and meaningful work to help veterans reconnect with purpose, tribe, and life after service, I hope you will consider financially supporting them.

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