Wine in a Box - Chris Callaghan

I buy my wine in a box, a nice Chardonnay from Franzia. I didn’t even know that these things existed until I began running white water rivers in 1991. The first time I rowed the Green River in Utah I learned more than just how to get my rubber raft downstream right side up.

There are no 7-11’s on the Green, so anything you will need in the next ten days after you launch had better be in your waterproof boat box. Since big rapids are notorious for snatching things off your body or your boat, make sure everything has a strap or lanyard and is secured. Always carry spares. For instance, if you can’t see without your glasses, tie them onto your face, ditto your hat.

Lost your hat in that last rapid? Check the boat box for another. Did the batteries die in your flashlight? There’s more in the box. Lost your sunscreen overboard in the last water gun fight? More in there.

Another practical rule on rivers is that everything you carry in, you must carry out, including trash and human waste.

This is an important factor to keep in mind when provisioning for a trip. Rule # 1 is: no glass containers. We compact our trash using foot power into old army duffels, after every meal. Plastic containers can be smashed flat, we cut the ends out of metal cans and stomp on them, extraneous paper can be burnt in the camp fire. But glass is heavy, can’t be compacted and might shatter. This is not something you’d want on your inflatable rubber raft.

On that first trip, I never saw the ‘box’ of box wine, those got left at home, too bulky. What I saw was the naked Mylar bags that are inside the box. Each bag has it’s own attached spigot and they are so malleable, they’ll fit in any boat box or cooler. We label them with magic markers as to color and flavor. And when they’re empty, they smash up into a compact ball as small as your fist. Very practical. Also each bag holds the equivalent of three bottles of wine, which is a good thing for me as I love wine and hate to run out.

In the seventeen years that I’ve been running rivers, I haven’t made one trip without box wine, so as well as being practical, they hold a lot of memories for me. I row the Green almost every year and have floated and rowed down many of the rivers of my dreams, including two spectacular eighteen day trips on the Grand Canyon. They don’t call it the Grand for nothing.

Every night, on every river, we had box wine with dinner and around the camp fire later.

So tonight when I turn the spigot on the box of wine in my refrigerator maybe I’ll think of some of those camps and hear the roar of the rapid just above it. And maybe I’ll lift my glass in a toast to all the rivers I’ve known.