SALT LAKE CITY — For 24-year-old Aubrey Barton, the Salmon River is a highway.
It’s the only way in and out of her home in Idaho’s Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness — one of the most remote places in the Lower 48 states.
Any outside supplies have to brave the river’s class 5 rapids via jet boat. Barton then loads the supplies onto her horses and hikes 4 miles to her ranch.
The river is her lifeline. And when the river freezes, she’ll be snowed in for three or four months. During that time, her mail gets “airdropped” — and we’re not talking about the iPhone feature.
“They throw it out of the airplane, but I’m not getting Amazon packages or anything,” Barton joked during her first media interview, using a satellite phone to chat with the Deseret News from her 110-year-old trapper cabin.
“But it’s no joke living out here.”
Barton has lived in this secluded wilderness — a vast 2.3 million acres — for five years now. Two of those years have been in the remote cabin. Her latest responsibility here is overseeing an 82-acre homestead, where she tends to animals and takes care of the land.
Starting Oct. 6, Barton and the handful of homesteaders who live in the Frank Church Wilderness year-round will be featured on the Discovery Channel’s new series, “River of No Return.” Instead of being a “silly Hollywood drama,” Barton said the show offers a genuine glimpse into backcountry life. A couple of producers lived with her for a month during the spring, following her around and filming her as she bounced back from the harsh winter.
“They just kind of had to keep up because there’s a lot to do around here,” she said with a laugh.
Long before Barton started flipping hay, trimming horses’ hooves and hunting for meat in the Frank Church Wilderness, she was a self-described “bona fide city girl.”
She grew up in Ogden, the second-oldest of six kids. She went to Ogden High School and did a year at Weber State University, where she ran track and field for the 2013-14 season. After her freshman year, she spent the summer working on a cattle ranch in Salmon, Idaho.
She never left.
“I didn’t want to go back to school, and I don’t know, I heard a job came up and I just jumped at it. I think that college isn’t for me, but if my dad’s going to read this, I’d have to say ‘yes,’” she joked. “But I think I’d be more interested in getting a certificate for a trade. That to me seems more realistic, especially for my skill set.”
Barton is self-sufficient, but she does have the help of other homesteaders in her community — including her boyfriend, Pete, who will also be on the Discovery Channel show. But they haven’t seen each other for a couple of months since a 9-mile trail separates them, and in the wintertime, it takes 12 hours of snowshoeing to get to his ranch.
“We might as well live in different states, really,” Barton said, adding that the two mostly communicate via email and backcountry radio.
Barton also has limited internet access in her cabin — enough to use Facebook and pull up a YouTube tutorial on soldering, but not enough to watch the premiere of the Discovery Channel show. She’ll have to hike a ways and raft across the river to see that.
Her dad recently made the trek across the Salmon River to visit for the first time, and one of Barton’s younger brothers is visiting during his fall break.
“When they realized how far out I am out here, I mean, my mom and dad, they got really nervous. They couldn’t even wrap their minds around it,” Barton said. “But I’m hoping to provide a sanctuary for them to come visit.”
She has a support system, but when she’s out and about in the wilderness, she’s on her own.
“I don’t know if this is really a good career path for anyone. It’s the perfect mix of heaven and hell living out here,” she said. “It’s pretty idealistic, but when stuff goes wrong, there’s a lot of pretty severe consequences.”
There have been countless challenges during Barton’s five years in the Frank Church Wilderness: She almost lost a hand while baling hay, and she’s gotten lost in a blizzard. Putting down animals is always hard, and filling a freezer with enough meat to last a winter can be stressful.
But above all, the greatest challenge is proving she belongs.
“I’m making a name for myself as a female in the backcountry,” she said. “This is a man’s world, and a lot of people have told me I can’t do it. But I am going to make this last as long as I can.”
Note: The Discovery Channel’s “River of No Return” will premiere on Oct. 6 during the 8 p.m. episode of “Alaska: The Last Frontier” and airs Sundays nights.