We dare you to take the river swimming challenge in 2022. Can you beat Tierra Curry’s record of swimming in 108 rivers? EACH SUMMER, TIERRA CURRY AND HER
IN IT TO WIN IT BY WILL HARLAN
friends have a fun competition to see who can swim in the most rivers. This year, Tierra went all in to win. She swam in 108 rivers across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic. From her home near the Cumberland River in Kentucky, she traveled from Pennsylvania to Georgia, west to the Mississippi River and east to the Shenandoah River, to swim in every river she could reach. Curry didn’t wear a wetsuit—just a swimsuit and sandals. She was hoping to see a diversity of aquatic life. Instead, what she found was a lot of mud, pollution, and plastic.
“Wild, beautiful rivers are still out there, but they are few and far between,” Curry wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in September. “Most of the rivers I swam in were varying degrees of disgusting.” “Wild, beautiful rivers are still out there, but they are few and far between,” Curry wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in September. “Most of the rivers I swam in were varying degrees of disgusting.” Curry’s river swimming challenge also revealed the realities of our changing climate. Some rivers were bone-dry; others were swollen from so much rainfall that they washed out roads. Curry shared some of her most memorable moments from the swimming challenge and the 108 Southeastern rivers she visited.
Most beautiful river?
I’m in love with the Cranberry River in West Virginia. Summer or winter, it’s a beautiful place to sit on huge
CURRY IN THE BIG SOUTH FORK, ONE OF THE 108 RIVERS SHE VISITED IN 2021.
