Riley Olson and her dad with a baby jaguar, moments before it bit her. Photo obtained from Riley Olson
Rebecca Billette, Junior Editor and News Desk Lead to The Powderhorn
When it comes to typical family vacations, most involve a trip to the beach or a mountain cabin. For the Olson family, however, it usually involves riding a wild animal or getting bitten by one.
Riley Olson, a junior, is a member of the Women’s Varsity Golf team, a part-time ski instructor at Sugar Mountain, and Co-Captain of Envirothon. On her days off, though, she’s a regular Indiana Jones.
“My family took a trip down to Mexico when I was about four years old and there was a little exhibit to raise money for jaguar conservation,” Olson said. “If you paid five pesos, you’d get to go pet a jaguar. So my dad took me into the cage- without telling my mom- and we were just playing with it. He was just a cub. His name was Giles, I think, -or -it was Max actually. Anyways, I had a bracelet on, and his paw got stuck under the bracelet and then he bit me. And so I left the thing crying and my mom was very unhappy with my dad.”
Olson’s family has travelled to many countries in the southern hemisphere, allowing her to have unique experiences like these. She’s come face to face with a variety of wild animals and even had the opportunity to zipline with some.
“In Costa Rica, I’ve gone ziplining with the howler monkeys. It was very lowkey, there weren’t really any safety codes there either. They’d be letting me go down the zipline upside down and backwards and stuff, and I still remember it, as you go past, all the howler monkeys would start hooting,” said Olson. Riley was seven at the time, and her younger sister, Lily was only four, “Lily didn’t weigh enough to actually do the zipline so they put a toolbox with her- this huge metal toolbox- so she’d weigh enough to go down.”
Even when she’s not in another country, Riley is always tackling new heights. She is currently working on her pilot's license.
“My dad really inspired me to get my pilot’s license by just telling me how many places I could go privately and at my free will. I started the summer of freshman year and I take a break during the school year,” said Olson. “I also have my scuba certificate so I can recreational scuba dive to 60 feet underwater."
Like most of her other adventures, this one also originated from a trip with her family.
“My family and I went to Colombia, in South America, one year, and they don't have any regulations so we just booked a tour and went,” Olson explained. “My dad’s ex-military so he already knew how to scuba dive, but that trip was just so phenomenal and seeing the coral reefs that for next Christmas my whole family took scuba diving lessons.”
Olson has done and experienced more than most her age, from saving the lives of multiple drowning children to paragliding to riding a water buffalo. She noted that in the United States it can be harder to have interesting animal encounters because of increased regulations and safety codes.
“It’s reasonable, of course, but it’s also a little sad. You don’t get to have as many adventures,” Olson said.
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