BY KAREN BOSSICK

Hayley Stuart is just out of college. But she already has zeroed in on a lofty mission.

The young Ketchum woman wants to save a river and a national park in the Bolivian Amazon.

Stuart, daughter of Charles and Mimi Stuart, has planned a 10-day female-led whitewater kayaking expedition down the remote Tuichi River in May. She plans to film the trip through GoPro, a drone and video camera to bring attention to the river and the national Madidi National Park, both of which are being threatened by a dam-building proposal.

She’s already set up a Go Fund Me account to help raise money. And she will be at Ketchum’s Sawtooth Brewery on Thursday evening to tell her story. And the Brewery has organized a Beer Social and Silent Auction to help raise money for her cause, with a variety of incentives for donations.

“Madidi National Park is one of the most biologically diverse parks in the world,” said Stuart, who speaks Spanish fluently. “It has 140,000 different species of wildlife and 170,000 species of flora and fauna. And they’re still discovering new species—just a couple months ago they found a new monkey. Half our pharmacology comes from South America and there’s so much left to be explored so we don’t know what we’ll miss out on if we put this underwater.”

Growing up in New York, Stuart didn’t know where her water came from. And she didn’t care.

That changed during a month-long study program in Bolivia in 2014 with the West Va.-based New River Academy. 

She and her fellow students learned of a hydroelectric power proposal that would erase the Maipo River, which supplies not only water for farming and rafting but the area’s drinking water. Without it, the valley will die, the people told Stuart.

“If you go to Costco, you’ll find that that’s where a lot of our wine and produce comes from. To see them so ready to fight for it was an amazing thing,” said Stuart, who just returned from an International Women’s Gather in Chiapas, Mexico, that attracted between 6,000 and 8,000 women, many of them wearing traditional Zapatista balaklava headgear.

A few months later in Uganda, she became one of the last to paddle the Nile’s famous Silverback Rapid before that river was damned, turning the famed Silverback Rapid into a lake.

“It was an amazing canyon rapid—huge wave train, whirlpools. It could swallow you whole,” she said.

Now, having studied environmental science at the University of Denver, Stuart is determined to try to keep other important river stretches from being damned.

The proposed dam that would flood Madidi National Park would also flood Filon Lajas National Park.

Like Madidi, Filon Lajas is biologically diverse. It also is indigenous territory and 53 communities would have to be relocated if the area was flooded.

“Basically, you’d be disintegrating those communities because they would be dispersed,” said Stuart. “And these are people who are rooted to the land.”

The river Stuart and her friends will be descending is a remote Class 5 jungle river. It will take two days to get there—Stuart is hoping they can use mules to carry their kayaks, as well as the rice and oats, dried fruit, nuts and Stabilyze Bars that she loads up by the dozens at Costco.

The rafting party will include a male coach from her academy a park guard who will be armed in case of a run in with a jaguar and two Bolivians, one of whom did a first descent of the river.

“The kayaking we’ll be doing is the best way to see the area while leaving no trace,” she said. “We will be filming the whole time and we hope to get some shots of leopards, capybara, monkey, birds.”

Lululemon has furnished some of the clothes those on the expedition will be wearing. They’ll be covered head to toe with a dry suit over all, thanks to the poisonous snakes and spiders in the area.

“It’ll be their winter, their dry season, which means 90s in the day. But the continuous rapids should ensure we stay cool,” Stuart said.

Stuart and her team are trying to raise $30,000, the bulk of which she say would be used to pay for transportation for airline travel from the United States and overland travel to get to the river.

"Few people know that these hydro projects even exist, yet they are just the start of a huge infrastructural undertaking. Local campaigns are just starting to align themselves against these dams but they need help."

For more information, visit www.madidifilm.com.

 IF YOU GO…

Sawtooth Brewery will offer half-price discounts on bar and food from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, March 15, for those making a donation to Hayley Stuart’s expedition of $5 to $49. They’ll throw in a six-pack as well for those making a donation of $50 to $99. Those contributing $100 to $150 will get a growler, as well, with even more offered those who give even larger donations. Sawtooth Brewery is located at 631 Warm Springs Road in Ketchum.