Jan. 8—From Asheville’s River Arts District to Black Mountain’s grocery stores, from Frog Level in Waynesville to Main Street in Clyde, Helene’s crippling economic effects continue to echo.
They will for a long while yet — making it that much harder for our beleaguered region’s residents to get back on their feet.
And if you make your living guiding others through the woods or peeping into Appalachian streams for brookies, then chances are your financial situation is just as dire. Business is sluggish; trips slow to book. A lot of public lands are still closed. Waiter or woodsman, you’ve got to work to eat, and if your place of business is closed, that’s pretty difficult.
“There’s a lot of recreational and public lands that are somebody’s office that they can’t use right now,” said Steve Yocom, an outdoor guide and former resident of Haywood County. “There’s a lot of guides that are really hurting.”
Tall and rangy in a weather-beaten jacket layered over a wool sweater, Yocom lowers himself into a rocking chair and pops open a glass-bottled Coke. We’re camped in front of the fireplace at The Swag, a rustic Haywood County resort hotel perched on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Yocom spends several weeks a year as a resident hiking and outdoor photography guide here. Although he recently moved to Maine, Yocom lived for almost 15 years in Haywood, and he thinks of it as home.
“It’s where I feel like I found myself,” said Yocum, glancing out the window at the rhododendron swaying in the mountain breeze.
Yocom’s deep connection to the area is what led him, along with fellow guides Cassie Spurling and Katie Cahn, to create Guides Giving — an initiative aimed at helping the outdoor guides just barely hanging on in Helene-affected regions.
The program will work like this: guests book a trip with a guide, and then, instead of keeping the money, the guide donates it to Dirt Road Aid, a 501©(3) Cahn created in Helene’s immediate aftermath. From there, Cahn will distribute aid to a guide in need. Trips currently on the docket include fly fishing, whitewater rafting, and outdoor photography lessons.
It’s an elegant idea that works out well for everybody. Guides in the Helene-affected Blue Ridge get help, guides outside of it get the satisfaction of helping, and clients get an amazing nature experience.
“One trip in the mountains is a pretty life-changing time with a guide. It’s the fast pass to getting to know the secrets of that region,” Yocom said. “And if you can take that process and also tie it to giving back, then damn, that’s a pretty good deal, I think.”
Minimalism
The program is still in its infancy, with Yocom, Spurling, and Cahn tapping their private networks to rustle up guides willing to lend a hand and guests willing to book a trip.
It’s all Google docs and word of mouth right now. Guides Giving doesn’t even have a website at the moment because Yocom is loath to spend a cent of donated cash that could go to a needy guide instead.
There’s something charmingly on-brand about the shoe-string nature of the project; it’s exactly what you’d expect from a group of people with a professional interest in minimalism, economy of motion, and light backpacks.
But Guides Giving is gaining traction all the same, with guides from states like Virginia, West Virginia, and Georgia donating trips.
“It’s been great,” Cahn said. “There’s just so many people out there that are so generous.”
Because most outdoor guides have working relationships with outfitters and lodges, guests participating in the program will also be entered in a raffle — with some pretty sweet gear and accommodation prizes up for grabs.
Airport miracles
So, how do three semi-dirtbags come together on a project that demands more time staring at a spreadsheet than any self-respecting outdoorsperson would ever want? The simple answer is necessity.
Watching Helene hit Western North Carolina from his new home in Maine, Yocom couldn’t stand by.
“I was originally going to load up my truck, my saws, and go help however I could,” he said. “Then my friend Josh, who is a bush plane pilot, called and said, ‘Hey bud, I can get you there a lot faster,'”
The two men ended up at the Foothills Airport outside of Morganton, east of Asheville, where they got in on the ground floor of a swelling volunteer aid operation.
“What was like four or five pilots and a couple of pallets of water when we showed up turned into something crazy. Whole hangers were full. People showed up with commercial scales and forklifts, and we had a command center with people taking calls, and volunteers managing what needed to get dropped where. It wasn’t just us. At every airport, there was a group doing this, and it was really cool.”
Yocom spent the next week tagging along on supply drops. Then, as more and more supplies and volunteers showed up, he turned to logistics management. He watched an old army vet make homemade supply parachutes with a Tyvac tarp. Saw organizational systems created in the moment, tweaked, perfected, and then re-created as needs changed.
“It was wild. It was intense. The entire thing was civilian. The skies were just full of all kinds of private planes,” he remembered.
It was a valuable lesson in the power of community, in the ability of regular folks to just up and decide to do a thing. In the midst of all this creative chaos, Yocom bumped into Spurling and Cahn. The pair brought crucial gear — lightweight generators, solar panels for Starlinks, and battery packs — in from Georgia, where such items were still in stock. They also made land-based supply deliveries.
The three were already casual online friends connected through the fly fishing world. But Helene’s damage and the subsequent community response brought them closer together. And as they wrapped up their volunteer work at the airport, the three got to talking about how the local guide community might be affected in the weeks and months to come.
“It was hard to go back to Maine,” Yocom said. “It was hard to be away from everything. So we kind of got brewing on what could do.”
Taking a leap
Cahn already created Back Road Aid as a way to manage the funds flowing into her Venmo from concerned people all across the country. When the three came up with Guides Giving, it was a natural fit to loop the 501©(3) into their idea. Now, with a plan and a safe place to store funds, the three set about gathering guides willing to donate their time to the project.
That’s where things stand at the moment. The next big task is spreading the word and involving more guides and clients.
Because “the help is needed, sooner rather than later,” Yocom noted. “Guides are hurting.”
Yocom, Cahn, and Spurling don’t know how much money they’ll raise or if Guides Giving will survive past the spring guiding season. There’s a lot up in the air.
“We’re just trying to do something to help. What comes of it? I don’t know,” Yocom said, finishing his Coke and staring into the fire. But the three aren’t forgetting the lessons they learned at that tiny Morganton airport — or the knowledge they picked up in careers that keep them outdoors in dynamic situations.
Uncertainty isn’t a reason for inaction. Doing something — doing anything — is better than standing by.
“Sometimes you just gotta step out there, take a leap, and see where it takes you,” Yocom said.
If you are interested in booking a trip or donating your services to Guides Giving, email Steven.e.yocom@gmail.com, flyfishingwithcassie@gmail.com, or Dirtroadwares@gmail.com. You can also donate directly to the project at https://chattoogariver.org/dirtroadaid/.