Response #13: (gail)  Jul 20 '96

 Rapids in a river are strange things.  The colorado runs cold and deep and
 swift through its deep gorge unless it hits something it hasn't scoured
 away.  After a day on the water it became obvious that almost all rapids are
 at the junction of a side canyon where boulders and rocks have been swept in
 in some side flash flood.  The turbulence is erosion in action, the sculptor
 at work.
 
 House Rapid was named for a canyon with a shelter somewhere high above in
 its drainage, long ago.  And Elena said it was probably misnamed, that the
 rock shelter was really upstream in another tributary, but such is the way
 of Western placenames.
 
 The Grand has enough rapids that even the poetic one-armed explorer, Major
 Powell, didn't name them all.  He was responsible for all kinds of evocative
 description, sprinkling placenames like "Zoroaster," "Vishnu," "Bright
 Angel" and "Brama Temple" on the awe-inspiring landscape.  But in 240 miles
 of spectacular vistas and impressive rapids, there were quite a few places
 left to be referred to by how many miles down-river they are from the
 crossing and put-in site at Lee's Ferry.
 
 The twenties are a set of rapids which are mostly unnamed.  North Canyon,
 Indian Dick, 23 and a half, 24 Mile, 24 and a half Mile, 25 Mile...  you
 get the picture.  If the side canyons had been mapped and named before the
 first river expedition, the naming would have been different, but many of
 the fine rapids and steep gorges of the Grand are still named after famous
 numbers to this day.
 
 Elena's boat was swamped repeatedly in this section.  We filled up again and
 again to our knees, managing to catch a surge and bathtub worth of icewater
 on our laps over and over.
 
 Oh, by the way.  Indian Dick Rapid.  Probably not named for a Native
 American called Richard, judging by the enormous anatomically evocative
 red pinnacle above the river.   Gads, if Sigmund Freud had explored this
 place, we'd have an orgy of genital, oral and anal names in this canyon.
 There are older sacred places where older spirits gave birth in this land,
 too, so the associations have been obvious back into mythic times, but
 "Indian Dick" is a grand overstatement of the obvious.
 
 Later I came to appreciate that luck has something more to do with a
 particular run than I'd realized.  The most skilled dory guide can flip  --
 two of our oarsmen had flipped boats on the trip before, and Elena's trip
 had been "golden," with no dings, flips, or repairs.  But this was a wet and
 somewhat sobering day for us.
 
 Fortunately, every time you got wet and serious the sun and scenery and
 comraderie would pull you right back.
 
 We camped at a beautiful site called Shinumo Wash.  One of several names
 which sound Japanese to my ear, and are Paiute, Havasupai, or Walapai.
 
 Competition for campsites can be fierce, and the guides talk with any other
 party that goes by, by paddle or motor, to arrange where the group will
 camp.  We had excellent sites most nights, and a few adventures in marginal
 beaches.
  

Website Feedback