A Journey Down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon


Downstream View
Downstream from the first campsite

First posted in the WELL's Outdoors Conference.

outdoors.159.10 (gail) posted Fri 19 Jul 96


The first day on the river was relaxed, a gradual descent into the emerging Canyon. Our little dory held five, a quiet eighteen-year-old on his high school graduation gift trip, my mom Laurie, my partner Steve, and, standing in his custom-made footwell like an Arabian Gondolier, the boatman called the Factor, his head covered by a bandana-draped baseball cap. I watched him making great time, leaning into the oars, leading the other three dories and the two baggage rafts on the strong smooth currents into a slight headwind. He looked to be a few years older than me, a baby-boomer oarsman who'd fallen in love with this river a long time ago and simply got too good at what he did to dream of stopping. He wore mirrored shades and had a great grin.

Factor's boat was gorgeous but a little weird. It was his own boat, personally designed to make the most of his short, wiry build and reduce the neck and back strain that can plague boatmen. The dory was a lovely natural wood and cream in color, with the name of the vessel in lighter wood grain, almost ghostly and thoroughly elegant. It was called "The Grand Canyon".

He told us about the cliffs as they deepened. The names of the formations seemed a little academic at first, but they already felt unusually evocative. Kaibab, the crown... Toroweap... the golden retriever colored Coconino Sandstone.

We talked about Krazy Kat, that strange national craze of a cartoon that was Teddy Roosevelt's favorite, and that featured the curious cat, mouse and dog who lived in Coconino County. Wondered about T.R.'s trip to the Canyon and its influence on the history of American cartoons. Wondered if, unlike Teddy, Clinton *can't* go down any whitewater rapids to avoid ironic captions... and made other stray cultural associations. My mom told about trips on the Yampa and Green Rivers, farther upstream and decades ago. The canyon deepened to respectable cliffs, which looked to be several hundred feet above on each side, with the even and colorful horizontal swaths of colored rock continuing.

We probably did hear the first Canyon Wren in this stretch, that series of tweets descending in a melodic but slightly comical cascade. I got to love the sound, but it still made me smile every time, sounding like the falling notes should be followed with a splash or a feathery kaboom. The wrens, which I didn't actually see for days, are tiny round grey beings, and it's hard to believe such a small creature can fill that huge river canyon with sound.

Lunch was at the first of dozens of beaches that would be our beds and breakfast nooks for the next two weeks. The planned floods of last March had build deep and in some cases quite steep beaches in both new and old locations. We formed a line and passed the supplies up from the kitchen boat, a lovely red white and green dory called the Hidden Passage, rowed by a smiling woman named Elena. As the supplies reached shore, the galley responsibility shifted to Kim and Cynthia, the kichen crew, who got to work making a sandwich buffet table while diverting us with peanut butter and cracker appetizers. So far it seemed like just a scenic picnic, and it was hard to grasp the journey we'd started. One small clue that we were in wilderness was that we were warned not to drop any crumbs on the sand, in hopes of discouraging the vigorous red ants who were bustling around in the heat. The ants (I think they are called "Forager Ants") are known for a troublesome bite which can cause swelling and pain in the affected limb for days. We dutifully tossed crumbs into the trash bag or into the cold green river, and kept a strategic eye on our river-sandaled feet.

We passengers circled around, saying hello to the folks who'd climbed off other dories, and ice-broke about the usual subjects, settling for a few minutes on "where are you from," and a tall fellow in a blue hat said he was a fourth generation Californian.

"Wow," I said, "so am I. Pretty unusual!"

"My ancestor was in the first graduating class of the University of California," he said.

"Whoa! So was mine! That's incredible, there were only twelve of them."

This was too peculiar. I didn't believe it at first, but Rodger finally convinced me. He was a second cousin I'd never known, as surprised as I was. My mom had known his mom as a child, but it is a large family, and we'd never met before. He and his wife were the only other passenges booked through for the entire 16 day trip. He seemed like a nice guy, and I certainly hoped so.

A few minutes later, down by the luggage raft, it became obvious that the man rowing one of the yellow neoprene beasties was the photographer John Blaustein, who'd done the book that had inspired my mom to talk me into taking this trip. She'd guessed this at the put-in at Lee's Ferry, but Rodger was the passenger who had confirmed it, and he was telling JB how much he loved that book. Curious connections were being made, and we'd barely started.

We ran two easy rapids that day,in fairly high and smooth water. Factor told us that some rapids are easier in high water and some are tougher. He made a reference to '83 as the highest water of modern times, since the construction of The Dam. This spring there was a high controlled release, but in '83 they goofed, and had to release water as quickly as possible while raising the height of the entire dam six feet with plywood, an incredible predicament. So nature hasn't been licked, exactly.

But we had the carefully negociated, contracted water levels, in the curious "tides" of the below-Glenn-Canyon-Dam Colorado, rising with the air conditioning demands in downtown Phoenix, and as sure as the lunar tides if you had the Department of Reclamation's schedule. About 20,000 cubic feet per second is what we were running on. Badger and Soap Creek didn't seem that different to me than the unnamed splashy places Factor called riffles, and much of the stretch was quiet, swift and smooth. And quite cold. The idea of going overboard did not appeal at all.

We sliced though the crumbly Hermit Shale, and went into the pretty red Supai limestone, in the 300 hundred million year old range. And we camped under a gap in the cliff just above House Rapid, at a place called Hot Na Na Wash.

Sand blew all night, but it was cool enough to climb into tents at that altitude. In the morning I shook my duffle to find tiny sand colored scorpions scurrying about. These creatures were dismissed by the guides; the dangerous ones are a little larger, evidently. After we left in the morning, a pair of glorious ravens fussed on a ledge, waiting to see if we'd violated the "nothing for the ants" rule as soon as we got back on the river.

At that altitude, something above 3,000 feet, some of us put on rain gear to stay warmer while running House Rock Rapids in the shade of morning. The bunch of us wore a mixture of bathing suits and bright colored goretex head-to-toe rain suits, all pulling garish orange live-vests on to accessorize. We were dressed to meet the first rapid anyone seemed to take very seriously, and we could hear it rumbling in the near distance. We knew we wouldn't run it "open" like we'd dropped into the rapids of the previous day. The guides would stop to scout it.

This time we four passengers of the prior day climbed in with Elena of the dory with the kichen gear in its hatches, and set off around the bend to House Rock.



Skip ahead, to another magical day on the Grand!



Jump over to my personal home page. | About the WELL outdoors conference.