A Trip by Raft through Grand CanyonSeptember 2000
"This is the part of the canyon where we are shown how this continent was formed; how every continent was formed."
We were paddling through the inner gorge, still burning off the adrenaline of Sockdolager rapid. Our necks were craning at the black schist inlaid with rose granite dikes. Sam was speaking of the distant past. By someone’s best reckoning, the rocks were formed about 2 billion years ago, long before the point were human terms like B.C. had any relevance. When the supercontinent called Pangea was still intact. When this carved gorge was an impossible dream in the unknowable future. With Sockdolager and Hance behind us, we finally had a chance to relax, look around, and consider the past. The present had weighed upon us heavily over the last hour. Jess and I had staged a coup on the paddle boat and then led the crew through the first huge rapids of the trip. But that was 5 days after the put-in at Lee’s Ferry.
On the night before put-in, we ate dinner at Vermillion Cliffs lodge. As we pulled up, a group of people sat on the porch. A blond woman was playing the guitar and singing in a sweet Edie Brickell voice. A man was sitting on the ground playing a banjo. Others were sitting in chairs listening, smoking and talking. River guides? Maybe. They all had a tanned confidence that seemed right. We went inside and ordered. The waitress confirmed that they were guides, and that, in fact, they were our guides, Outdoors Unlimited guides. I went out and introduced myself and was overcome with greetings and enthusiasm. Wow, they seemed a good set of callused hands to toss my care and safety into.
Later, the passengers and guides filtered into an old lodge for the official pre-trip meeting. After a round of introductions, Barb, the unassuming trip leader, went through the expected rules and reg’s. Then she said "There is going to be one unusual feature of the trip that we will be lucky enough to coincide with: the dam will be releasing 30,000 cfs during our time on the river". My heart soared. 30,000 cfs! Real water! All the flows in the Grand Canyon are controlled by Glen Canyon Dam, just upriver from Lee’s Ferry. Typically, the water released from the dam is dependent upon power needs in the Southwest, especially the Phoenix metro area. This summer, the Bureau of Reclamation had been keeping the flows constant and low at 8,000 cfs as an experiment to see if it would help the endangered native fishes. Except for a few similar "pulses" earlier in the year, the Grand Canyon had not seen a flow this high for years. The pulse was designed to flush out non-native fishes from the native fish habitat, and fill backwaters during native fish spawning season. The non-native fishes prey upon the small native ones.
What I have found in my short time on this earth is that if you assemble any group of 20 or so people there will be at least one who really gets under your skin. One that seems to inconvenience you and has habits that conflict with yours and has a voice that is like fingernails on a blackboard to you. One, who, if you let them, really degrades the experience for you. If you are really unlucky, this person turns out to be your boss. But this was a river trip, and on this trip his name was Ben. Except that Ben played this role for everyone on the trip. In fact, he played this role for the people at the raft company office weeks before the trip began. That first night before the trip began, everyone knew. There are those with forgiving hearts. Those who give people the benefit of the doubt and tried to assure themselves that Ben wouldn’t be that bad. The realists among us knew better. He was immediately labeled "Anal Boy", but that name quickly evolved (devolved?) after a few hours on the water. Fortunately, he was on the paddle boat, and I wouldn’t be forced to spend much time with him while floating.
So the trip was composed of six 18-foot oar rafts, one paddle boat which carried only a guide and 6 passengers, a small catamaran raft rowed by a single passenger, 4 senior guides, 3 baggage boatmen, 15-odd adult passengers, four 14 year old boys from one of the southern Carolinas, and one guy named Ben, mental age unknown. Three of the oar rafts were baggage boats, carrying only gear and food, and rowed by unpaid boatmen, two of which were on their first trip through the canyon. When I say boatmen, I also mean boatwomen, since 2 of the senior guides and 2 of the baggage boatmen were women, but as near as I can suss from books and the way they refer to themselves, they all call themselves boatmen.
And suddenly, the next morning, without ceremony, we were in the boats and on the river. The river tugged, the boatmen pulled a few strokes, and the river had caught us. Caught me. A huge grin set itself on my face, not to be broken for hours. Nothing could stop the trip now. If someone shouted and waved from Navajo bridge as we passed we would only wave back and keep floating.
"Don’t forget to look around," Barb waved her arm over her head in joy, "You’re in the GRAAAND CANYAAAAHN!"
The canyon deepened from open flatness at Lee’s Ferry to soaring ramparts on either side in just a few miles. The river did not cut, the land on either side levitated. We shrunk down from a group of giants with too much gear to rubber ducks at the bottom of a soaring chasm. John Wesley Powell, on the first expedition into this canyon in 1869, also knew he was someplace different. To him, the new ramparts mounting on either side represented danger because they were harder and harsher than the rocks he had passed through in Glen Canyon, just upriver.
To me, it was the light in Marble Canyon that spun my head. Compared to the Glen Canyon sandstones, the limestones of Marble were more intense, more visceral, as if we were passing through something instead of upon something. From the superficial world into the Abyss.
We passed the Paria River, running muddy. It stained the green water from the bottom of the dam with tones of the earth. A little cream with your coffee sir? Yes, please. A river now true to its name. Running as it should do, red between canyon walls.
After running the first few rapids, we made an early camp at the mouth of North Canyon. We fell asleep naked between dark walls, the hot winds of early September curling through alcoves and over ledges, with only a slash of blazing stars above guiding travelers in this internal world.
We bedded beside a small river and woke to a torrent. 30,000 cfs! The river is alive! Dirty, high and running red. A glimpse of what the river was before the dam during spring floods. It seemed perverse to be able to dial up a flood like this. It’s a fine thing that they are trying to recover endangered native fish, but I suspect that they are missing the point, like on the Columbia River with the salmon. They built fish ladders for the returning fish and barged young smolts around the dams and symbolically wrung their hands over the problem, but somehow cannot conceive that the problem might be the 10 million ton elephant that chokes a canyon and kills a river.
Morning comes early on a river trip. Just as it is light enough to see without a flashlight, the conch is blown and the day begins. A quick breakfast and on the river. The river’s pull is monstrous now. We spun and dashed through the Roaring 20’s, a series of medium sized rapids between 20 and 30 miles down from Lee’s Ferry. The river surges and boils. Eddies form and disappear. Whirlpools clutch. The walls grew taller and sprouted springs, yawned at us with caves. Vasey’s paradise. Redwall cavern. Powell was enchanted here in 1869. He waxed poetic and embraced hyperbole. I was enchanted as well, but the places he made mythical to me seemed smaller and less magical than I expected. I compared them to other places I had seen on the Colorado Plateau, while Powell was writing for a public who would almost certainly never see these places.
One exception: The Bridge of Sighs. On a rainy cold day Powell named the small arch after the bridge to an execution. He caught a small shiver of it’s essence. This is a place of power. Behind the bridge are deep caves, holding mysteries. Towers on either side of the bridge attract lightning. The bridge and walls appear stacked by a gargantuan hand, mashed in place and spat upon with red and dripping varnish. Barb told of climbing to one of the caverns and seeing a Anasazi ladder in another, higher and inaccessible. An expert climber told her it was impossible to get anywhere near the bottom of the ladder. There was another dam planned near this spot, stopped by public outcry and guilt after the loss of Glen Canyon. The builders hoped to suck the river dry and pipe it far downstream where it could generate more precious kilowatts. Had it been built I would fear for the dam raisers and the structure. Here there be razers and things not plugged by buckets of cement.
Barb told stories of dead hikers floating down the river and how boatmen found them and lassoed them. During this discourse we found two beers dislodged by the high water and heading downriver. Partly in the name of garbage patrol and partly out of desire we chased them down and snagged them. Boatmen can quickly distinguish between live ones and ones that have been punctured by the way they float. We popped ‘em open and tried ‘em, not sure of how long they had been in a wild state. They tasted fine. They were quickly slurped by all aboard, rented for a bit, and then returned to the river which accepts all. The beer that is, not the cans. Another boat found a third can to resolve the superstitious triad. Best to not tempt what looked down upon us there.
Next day. Unsettled weather. Short floats and two long hikes, one to the top of the Redwall formation and one down deep into a slot canyon. Waterfalls and people splashing. The float ended in Nankoweap valley, a wide expanse after the close walls upriver. The valley where eagles rest. The sky was deep flushed blue with filament clouds. The sunset floating up the shelved monuments, yellow light and red walls spinning umber and gold. Half moon peeking from behind a high tower. Square windowed granaries emplaced in a far cliff. Not a magic place, but place for freedom, humility, sustenance. Eagles winter there, feeding on trout in Nankoweap creek. Dawn light comes there to linger a bit, collect grace and majesty, and then move on to its duties elsewhere.
We hiked to the granaries while it was still dark the next morning. The clouds remained. The light spun around and lit Nankoweap another way.
One of the baggage boatmen got started late on the hike and did not follow the trail up to the granaries. He went instead up Nankoweap creek. When he didn’t come upon us, he set himself an 8 AM turn-around-time. Trouble is, we are usually on the river by 7:30. Jonathon, the paddle boat guide, went jogging off in search of him. They eventually returned, with the baggage boatman panting and apologetic. One of the senior guides was heard to mutter "I hope he brought a good camera, because he will never row a boat through here again". Harsh, but probably accurate given how competitive rowing slots are in Grand Canyon.
We hopped in the boats, fought our way out of the big Nankoweap eddy, and soon came to 60 mile Rapid, a minor drop. During the paddle boat run, Jonathon’s knee popped out of joint. His knee had been injured skiing, and the scars from its repair were obvious. In a paddle boat, the guide sits in a twisted position at the back of the raft, feet wedged at odd angles in the seams of the raft. With injured knee ligaments, and possibly stressed from his "rescue" running earlier, the torque was sufficient to dislocate it.
Just below 60 mile rapid is the confluence of the Colorado with the Little Colorado. We stopped and the guides assembled for conference. One of the passengers was a cardiologist, and was able to get the knee back into joint. The ease of this procedure, and the quick disappearance of pain likely pointed to the ease with which it might reseparate.
Barb, the trip leader, was presented with a difficult situation. There were several options, all of them involving somehow getting to Phantom Ranch where a new guide could meet the trip. She could deflate and stow the paddle raft, and distribute the paddlers amongst the oarboats. She could swap Jonathon with one of the oarboat guides (rowing is much less stressful on the knees than paddle boat guiding). She could let him captain the paddle boat again, but there were 3 big rapids between the Little Colorado and Phantom Ranch. She chose to swap guides, and recommended that Jonathon take a mule ride out at Phantom Ranch.
The decision was not easy. The best man for the swap, Sam, had been captaining the paddle boat all summer was finally able on this trip to row his own boat. Making the swap certainly created some resentment. But Sam is the kind of guy who does the best thing for the group and smiles while doing it. Jonathon, given that his knee soon seemed no worse off, did not want to opt out of the trip. Trip leaders only have so much authority in a somewhat ambiguous situation like that. It would have been difficult to round up a new guide and get them to the river in 2 days. Bad blood versus possible trip disruption. Jonathon ended up staying for the whole trip, swapping boats with Jonathon and for a few days, with Barb too.
We didn’t stay long at the confluence. The Little Colorado was running like thick chocolate, and added a huge new dose of colorado for the Colorado.
The next day was a big water day. Below waited Hance, Sockdolager, and Grapvine rapids, all of them huge in the sustained 30,000 cfs pouring through them. The paddle boat had only 3 reserved passengers on the first half of the trip. The passengers hiking in at Phantom Ranch the next day had all 6 paddle boat slots reserved. This could be our last chance to run big water in the paddle boat. Typically, the oar rafts took conservative paths through the rapids, while the paddle boat is meant for those who want to steer FOR the big waves. We jumped at the chance. Except. Except. Anal Boy Ben was on the paddle boat. I thought he might be diluted. I was wrong.
After a short float to a day hike up 75 Mile Creek there were some danger signs. Us paddlers weren’t paddling together. After the hike, we floated Nevill’s Rapid with Ben and another guy leading the paddling crew in front. Neither Jess nor I were happy with the way Ben was paddling. He was slow to start paddling, and when the guide called "stop paddling" he would let go his paddle and relax instead of keeping it at the ready, even when there was obviously more paddling to be done soon. So when we stopped to scout Hance Rapid, and saw the size of it, Jess and I expressed our worries to each other. Unknown to us at the time of the Hance scout, things had not been well in the paddle boat the day before. Not only was Ben a poor paddler, he had been openly defiant toward the paddle boat guide, ignoring paddling instructions and generally playing childish passive-aggressive games toward him. Not the kind of guy we wanted leading the boat through one of the 5 biggest rapids in the canyon. So I kindly (hopefully) suggested to the other leader that I take the lead position on my side of the boat. Jess as much demanded that Ben swap with her under the justification that since we are together, that Jess and I might better synchronize the boat paddling. Fortunately, they both agreed.
We ran Hance well. That is, the raft didn’t flip and no one fell out. The others on the boat seemed much happier with the seating arrangement, and for the next day, over and over, the paddlers (sans Ben) told me how great it was that Jess and I took the lead in the boat. "Glad we could save the day Ma’am, now do you have a cat that needs rescuing from a tree?"
Thunderstorms built and bloomed. Lightening crackled as we ran Sockdolager and Grapevine in quick succession, everyone cheering when we broke through the monstrous waves. Then finally calmer waters and a chance to look around.
Sometime soon after Hance we crossed into the Vinshu Schists and Zoraster Granites of the Inner Gorge. Rock almost half as old as the Solar System. Hard and polished, it closed in about us, fractured and diked. Black and speckled pink. The river boiled and surged in great twisting eddies.
Powell and his men were terribly frightened here. They knew the hard rock meant rapids. They knew the fast water gave them little control. They could see that the steep walls meant a high risk of not being able to stop before plunging into a foaming maw. Their wooden craft were fragile against big water and unforgiving rocks, so they portaged most of the rapids in this section of the river and let their empty boats through these drops with lines. Trouble is, in order to portage gear and line boats, there needed to be shelves and paths around the rapids. These were in short supply in this cramped groove where the river slops side to side like heavy rain in a steel roof gutter.
The possibility of a huge waterfall hung heavy in their minds. They imagined a crushing drop come upon suddenly with no shelves, no eddies and no escape up a sheer polished rock wall. They would hold the boats with fingers in a crack in the black schist, the river tugging them toward the chaos with no way to row back. They would have no choice but to let go and hope that the boats and their bodies would flush through downstream intact. I thought about how harrowing this must have been. They came upon Grapevine Rapid late one rainy day and spent the night huddled on a narrow ledge above the roar and spit of the water. What cold horrors must have passed through their shallow dreams that night.
For us, the rain was clearing, making a hike up Clear Creek possible with a lesser risk of flash floods. The waters in Clear Creek were warm and sweet after a day of frigid muddy waves splashing over the bow. Just up the narrow canyon is a two-streamed waterfall flowing around a huge chockstone. One of the streams falls vertical, but the other courses through scooped stone to jet horizontally and recombine with the other stream. Delightful. Delicious. Delovely. A place magical and begging for clothes to be shed and laughter to echo. There was splashing and laughter, but the 14-year-olds meant that the frolicking was kept to a minimum. Society is carried on the rafts as surely as the shit cans.
The next day is mostly consumed at Phantom Ranch exchanging one group of passengers for another. Apparently Ben, before he hiked out, waited an hour on one of the footbridges to moon certain continuing members of the trip in contempt. The lightning the day before had knocked out phone service, and I was inwardly happy to have no outside world worries to burden Jess’ or the other’s minds. Even the new passengers said little of the state of society and silliness of the State. A few of us hiked up Bright Angel Creek toward the North Rim. A huffing and puffing couple passed us, all clanking ski poles, thumping boots and furrowed brows. They sounded like giant harried insects escaping an animated can of Raid. They were hiking Grand Canyon, rim to rim, in a single day. They made me think that perhaps the modern world needs more visceral everyday challenges: parasites in the gut, locusts in the field, a cold stove and an empty woodpile, Visigoths sighted on a near ridge and similar such. They are enough of the outside world to make me happy that the trip is less than half over. The new passengers hiking in were on time, and after short introductory lectures, we were back on the water.
We scouted only four rapids on the trip. Two I expected, Hance and Lava, and two I did not. One of the unexpected was Horn Creek Rapid; unexpected only because it is less mythical to me than the better known drops. Horn Creek was by far the most beautiful of all Grand Canyon rapids. Its entry wave is a mesmerizing double curl of viscous water, shaped like a ram’s horn seen from the front. I could have sat and watched it until it became too dark to see, but we had river miles to make. I came to the canyon hoping to be impressed by the things that I knew of, and came away dazzled by that which was unknown to me.
August 19, 1869 Rain again this morning. We are in our
granite prison still, and the time until noon is occupied in
making a long, bad portage – John Wesley PowellThe portage was likely around Horn Creek Rapid. His party did not have the wherewithal to admire the magnificent forewaves of the rapids, or maybe he did not feel such things were worthy of praise because of the ease with which they might flip his boats.
With a few exceptions, big Grand Canyon rapids have similar characteristics. Most of them are formed where boulders and debris from flash floods in side canyons spill into the main river channel and create a shallow pool and a drop. The water slows somewhat preceding the drop. On the big rapids, there is a horizon line where the known world disappears and spouts of spray and foam gush above in foreboding. The central tongue of faster water is usually the chosen path of entry for the rafts. On this smooth apron a wind perpetually blows upriver, snatching hats from wide-eyed heads. The water accelerates, still polished and hypnotizing. A first smooth wave forms and breaks upon itself and into it the raft bashes. Then more waves bigger smaller bigger. The water still rushing faster. Lateral waves eat from the edges and sometimes come together in a tall sharp cuspid tooth straight in your path. The boatman fights to keep the raft pointing into the curling foam coming at you from left, from right, from above. Water washing over large boulders not flushed through the central channel create deep, boat-flipping holes at the margins of the main flow. Then suddenly the boat is in the tailwaves, dipsey-doodle humps and drops. More fun than frightening.
This is how the rapids are mostly. Mostly. Unless. Unless there is a huge slab in the middle of the channel (Bedrock), or the river curves during the rapid (Hance), or a tall drop at the beginning forces you and the water toward monstrous waves against a sharp basalt asteroid (Lava Falls), or there’s a bend AND a slab (House Rock). And don’t forget just too darn many boulders for one rapids’ good (Crystal).
The next day was nothing but big water. Just a lunch stop and a rapid scout. The drops ring like worry stones strung and clutched: Granite, Hermit, Crystal, Sapphire, Ruby and a nasty rocky one called Rancid Tuna by the boatmen. That moniker doesn’t make the official maps, but it stays true to its name. In the flatwater between the big water, I got to try rowing one of the oar rafts. I did a lot of rowing as a child and teen, but I didn’t ever row a boat as big as an 18-foot oar rig. It took a bit to get in the swing, but it all came back. The oarmen make swinging the big oars and moving the heavy boats look easy. It was harder than I thought.
At the end of the day we stopped near the bottom of Shinumo Creek and the North Bass Trail. Most of the gang took a sweaty hike over a ridge for a soak in Shinumo Creek. Some other folks did Arts and Crafts with Jonathon. In a small tamarisk eradication project, they pulled tamarisk rhizomes from the sand and made bracelets. The rhizomes look like wicker when dry. The bracelets stayed on the wrists that made them and were still worn on take-out day a week later, albeit frayed a bit. Tenacious plant, that.
I got to row flatwater again the next day on Hilde’s boat. One of the passengers jokingly suggested that I row the next rapid. "Not!" came the reply from Hilde behind me. She’s the best in the business, and has been through the canyon every year for at least the last 25. She runs a tight ship and floats rapids flawlessly. I jumped out of the way to let her have the row seat.
We stop at Elves’ Chasm. Everything you have heard about it is true. If you have been there before, it is more exotic than you remember. Travertine layers and ferns. Dripping boulders wedged in a slot canyon. A deep warm pool to drop into from a ledge above. Blue sky over rust red walls above. A hop-skip-and-a-jump from the river.
We finished the day with Bedrock Rapid, the most technical one yet. Several of the baggage boatmen had some difficulty with the move around the "bedrock" slab in the middle of the river. One bounced, but did not wrap. Several horror stories were told about the rapid while we were waiting for the bouncer to work his way out of the strong eddy into which the rapid dumps wayward boats.
Then we rafted for a bunch more days. It was fun. The End.
Just kidding. Don’t you want to know what happened on the fourth rapid we scouted?
We hiked the next morning up Stone Creek. The guides remembered the canyon to be choked with lush vegetation interrupted by a series of 5 waterfalls. The farthest waterfall was and is unclimbable, and was only reached by wading a chest-deep pool and bushwacking through thick brush. Grand Canyon’s tributaries, however, are steep and storm-washed. Heavy monsoon rains flash canyons every year. Stone Creek’s turn was in the summer of 1999. The guides hardly recognized it. It was scoured clean of all vegetation. The pools were filled with gravel. The streamcourse, once almost lost in plantlife, was a bare creek upon sterile cobbles. Giant boulders from far up the canyon lay scattered in repose. The going was much easier, they said. It was hard to imagine the flat rocky creekbed to be thick and green. It would all grow back eventually. And then in a hundred years, or five hundred, or perhaps next summer Stone Creek would flash again and start the cycle again.
The next days were separated into two distinct periods: When I Was Rowing and everything else. Somewhere in there we stopped at Deer Creek, a wonderful waterfall spilling over the Tapeats Sandstone into a deep blue pool. The mist means a perpetual rainbow hovers over the roar. Above the falls is a cool slot canyon complete with a natural Jacuzzi at the end of a soaring red-walled canyon. A place to spend a week, but we stayed for only a few hours. One of the passengers slipped and injured his arm on the climb above the falls. The protruding bone looked gruesome, but the lack of excruciating pain pointed to a dislocated elbow. Hilde popped it back in this time. The trip was turning out to be hard on the joints. I didn’t know that elbows could be dislocated.
I was rowing the boat that Jonathon was guiding over flatwater. A rapids was coming up. I asked if he wanted to take over. He said "Naw, go ahead." I asked the other passengers what they thought. They shrugged. I shrugged too, and turned the boat into position. As we ran it, he sat behind me and coached me through it. He let me row Tapeats Rapid and Kanab Rapid, both of them medium sized but not particularly dangerous, and numerous riffles. He probably shouldn’t have. I didn’t think Barb was comfortable with a novice rowing through medium water. When I asked her later she said "It’s his boat, he can do what he wants." She paused, then said "Wait a minute, it’s not his boat, it’s MY boat!" She changed the subject. She had taken the paddle raft for a few days to give Sam some time on his oar boat.
Rowing changed the trip for me. I began to watch the oarsmen instead of the canyon walls. How they positioned the boat entering the rapids. When they dipped the oars in the uneven water to keep the boat straight into the waves. I listened closely to the coaching. I especially watched Hilde, Master Boatwoman. How she approached a curve that pushed the water against a wall. I was feeling more comfortable at the oars, not thinking about how to move the boat, just deciding what to do or hearing a coaching command and feeling the boat do it. I was still a beginner, way out of my league, but it felt GOOD. The rapids and riffles were serious business now, not fun. Actually, the boat could probably have gone through these small ones any which way and still have been fine. I bumped rocks and made mistakes. I got sucked in by giant eddies. But over a few days, this happened less.
Havasu was disappointing for me due the crowds from other float trips and the long hurried hike we took up to Beaver Falls. Another place that a week could be spent. Sigh. If only for a month on the river. All these places are accessible on foot, I reminded myself.
Before and after Havasu, the walls are close and tall again. We travel along the unconformity between the deeply ancient schists and newer sediments. When the river flow was scaled back to 8000 cfs, it left damp sand beaches. The beaches exposed to sunlight dried in a day or two. We camped that night on river left, a beach where the mid-September noonday sun did not reach. The sand was still damp, and the night almost chilled.
I watched the stars before I slept, at the waking times to turn, and before the dawn. In all of the twisted gulches and roaring gorges on the Colorado Plateau, there is one wash of stone where earth and sky are shaped the same. Here the canyon meander above fit perfectly the curve of the sky; the path of the stars in their great scrawl across the firmament. The star Altair skirting just above the serrations of the rim. Later, the full moon rolling, a marble upon the break of stone and sky. And before dawn, the Pleiades hovering around the curve of rock as if the spin that turns this menagerie of time and stone and water were centered here were my dreaming head lies.
Then the big day. Lava Day. Tense boatmen. Quiet breakfast. Subdued lunch. This one is the climax of the rapids in the canyon. Lava Falls. Novices and experts alike flip in this one. Straps are cinched tight and double-checked. Life jackets tightened like anacondas about chests. We stop to scout. The river is back down to 8000 cfs, and at low water, there is only one path through for rafts. Enter right of the ledge hole and then try to stay left. There’s no avoiding the haystack from the converging laterals, but the idea is to bounce off to the left. The entry must be perfect. The boat must be kept straight into the waves. You must count on some measure of luck. If the boat goes sideways or the grip on an oar is lost, more often than not, we are told, the raft is gonna flip. Too far left and you get sucked into the big ledge hole. Too far right and you bounce off the asteroid. The guides add an extra passenger to the front of the rafts. We are told to hang on and lean into every wave, then look up and watch for the next. Did they mention that we need to hang on? This is final exam time for the baggage boatmen. Not making it through doesn’t necessarily count badly against you, but making it through unscathed gets you a lot of points. The passenger rowing her own small catamaran boat decides to ride an oar boat through. Sam volunteers to guide the paddle raft through and then walk back around to run her raft through again. Running Lava twice on the same day…a good job if you can get it…and if you have the courage to do it.
We are on Hilde’s boat, second in line behind Barb. We push off. The rafts are in position long before the drop. Hilde makes one small correction then lets it drift. Barb enters and drops away, cascades up and into the haystack. Her raft bends and twists off. She disappears and rises again on the next huge wave almost sideways. Her raft seems to pause at the top and then ride over and down again. She struggles to straighten the boat and on the next wave has mostly succeeded. At that point our attention is drawn to our own slow drift into the maw. And down. We didn’t seem to ride over the haystack as much as dive through it. We were underwater but somehow still afloat. I shake my head to clear the water from my eyes. We bounced to the left. Good deal. Hilde is a river goddess, I thought. And the next big wave like rafting through heavy surf. I shake my head again and see that they remaining waves are only monstrous in size. We know that we are through safely. We whoop and cheer and ride the tailwaves. Hilde pulls hard to grab an eddy, ready to run safety on the following rafts. "Bail!" she yells. The raft is awash. One by one, the others negotiate the rapid safely, if not cleanly. With a grin on his face, Sam jogs back around to run the second boat. He almost flips the tiny catamaran raft in the tailwaves, but gets through right side up. He said that the raft stopped and surfed a bit on the first couple big waves.
Below Lava Rapid the canyon widens again. Old lava flows spilled down from the low rims around us. There are no noon shadows from towering walls there, and the air is profoundly hot. Relief comes on the still cold river, but frequent hot winds blow upriver like furnace blasts. The river days were long. There is little to interest river floaters in that section, although it looks a geologist’s playground.
It is also a playground for novice oarsman, and I take turns on Barb’s boat and Hilde’s boat despite the crick in my neck. There are numerous minor riffles as well as long flat sections. Barb readily let me and others row the riffles, but Hilde was more cautious. Besides that, Hilde now rows only one or two trips a summer, and wants to spend as much time at the oars as possible. Late one day I was rowing a flat section on Hilde’s boat, and a riffle on a curve was making noises ahead. I imagined I could just hear the gears in Hilde’s head churning over the noise of the water. I started to push the boat toward the deeper water on river left, the best place to pass through. This seemed make the decision for her. "Push!" she coached. I pushed. "Push harder!" she urged, "push with the right oar." I pushed harder. "That should do it," she said. I turned the boat into the position that I learned from the guides. I adjusted our entry, and we made a good run down the proper path. I kept out of the strong eddies on either side. "Take his license away," one of the other passengers joked. "No, no he did good," Hilde said. I took it as a profound compliment, coming from her. Heck, just her letting me row her raft through something other than flatwater was a compliment.
On the last rafting day, we run a number of rapids named only by their mile numbers. Powell and his crew, who named most of the drops, were by that point weary of the river. Their sugar was dissolved and gone. Their remaining bacon, gone rancid, and boiled, went rancid again and had long before been tossed. Their small amount of remaining flour was moldy. Their leavening was long gone. They had a few dried apples. They had plenty of coffee. They stole squashes from Indian gardens. They had run out of bosses, associates, angels and devils and pretty gems to name the interminable rapids. Hunger stifles creativity. Incites mutiny. Just downstream, at Separation Creek, three of Powell’s men had had enough of their river journey. "No more mocha pancakes!" they might have shouted as they stomped off. The three walked out of the canyon hoping to find Mormon settlements, only to be killed by Indians in retribution for Mormon persecution.
We pull to river-right just before a rapid at mile 232 to scout the second-to-last rapid in the canyon. The guides told us to sit tight in the boats; we needed to float many miles that day, and they didn’t want the delay of passengers getting off the rafts. While they were up on the rocks scouting, us passengers caught a little of the lower canyon mutinous spirit. We talked about pushing off the boats and running the rapid with a passenger on each boat grabbing the oars and guiding. We giggled about how their faces would look as we went through below them. How their jaws would drop. Good thing we didn’t.
As at Lava, Barb’s boat went first followed by Hilde’s boat. I was in Hilde’s boat again that day. The rapid is short but difficult because the main path on river-right pushes boats toward rocks that some call "The Fingers". Barb didn’t have problems with the waves, but ended up too far right. This pushed her into a boil next to the rocks. Her raft moved too close to the rocks and she was unable to use one of her oars to pull the boat back out into the main flow. As we started our run, it looked like she would bounce off the rocks and follow us through. Unfortunately, the rocks do not form a wall at the water, but are instead fluted granite "fingers" that exit the water at a shallow angle. As we passed (another perfect Hilde run), Barb’s raft rode up and threatened to flip. Her and the passengers high-sided and kept it from flipping, but the raft wrapped around the higher rocks as the huge hydraulic pressure pushed her raft from behind. The tube that was against the rocks disappeared under the raft frame underwater. It looked like it had popped. Hilde pulled hard for the eddy below her. Barb’s boat kept wrapping farther and farther around the rocks. Her and the passengers looked as if they were having a hard time staying in the boat. The river was going to tear the raft apart. One of the baggage boats ran next and almost followed Barb’s boat onto the rocks. We lost sight of the wrapped boat as we pulled to shore and Hilde started to prepare for rescue operations. Another boat ran the rapid safely. Just then, Barb was able to get her raft off the rocks and it went floating by. I couldn’t believe it! The raft looked totally destroyed on the rocks, but seemed completely unharmed as they rode the tailwaves down the river. It turned out that the boat was no worse for the wear after they bailed it out. No holes or rips or any other sign that it had been impaled on rocks minutes earlier. Amazing stuff, that raft skin. Nervous laughter and chatter bounded from the close canyon walls, none louder than from the raft with a new lease on life.
Soon after, we hit the slackwater of the upper end of Lake Mead. The river lost its pull and most of its magic. The canyon walls were majestic still, but we were then in the grips of a reservoir. The trip was nearly over at that point. We rowed past Separation Canyon and a downriver wind kicked up making rowing unnecessary. Downcanyon! I stood up full of joy, and raised my shirt as a sail. The downcanyon wind was a final gift bestowed upon the already fortunate.
Barb’s words echoed in my head: "Don’t forget to look around, it’s the GRAND CANYON!"
Afterword: On the take-out day we passed the Bridge Canyon damsite. There were two dams planned for the Grand Canyon back during the dam-happy 50’s and 60’s. It was felt that running water was wasted water. Squeezing every kilowatt out of every western waterway was considered progress. If the dams had been built there would have been mostly slackwater from the Mexican border all the way to Cataract Canyon, over 750 miles. The bottom of Grand Canyon would have been two long narrow lakes, the upper waters of each stagnant against the concrete of the next dam upriver. Courageous people stood up and fought to save a free running river in the Grand Canyon. Glen Canyon above, every bit as incredible as Grand Canyon, was already lost. Fortunately, they stopped the dams, but there are many other places in need of protection from the same short-sighted mentality that proposed, and almost converted, the entirety of the lower Colorado river to turbines and slackwater to feed them. Trips like this one remind me that in order to preserve places like Grand Canyon, we need to stand up and be heard. Please join me in raising our voices! Wilderness!
God bless America. Let’s save some of it. – Edward Abbey