Brooke Hess

Brooke joined Western Rivers Conservancy in 2023 and is the organization’s Senior Writer. Growing up in Missoula, Montana, Brooke learned how to whitewater kayak on the Clark Fork and Lochsa Rivers and has been chasing whitewater ever since. She earned a B.S. in Geoscience from the University of Montana before qualifying for the U.S. Freestyle Kayak Team, which began nearly a decade of traveling and competing internationally as a professional whitewater kayaker. She supported her kayaking career by freelance writing for outdoor industry publications and later earned a M.A. in Journalism with a focus on science writing from University of Nevada, Reno. Brooke spent two years working on a salmon conservation project in the Snake River Basin, which culminated in a 1,000-mile kayaking expedition from the source of the Salmon River to the Pacific Ocean. When she isn’t writing or kayaking, you can find her skiing and climbing in the mountains around Lake Tahoe, CA, where she currently resides.