Colorado River Journeys
Season by season, year by year, I gained experience rowing and guiding western rivers. From the Middle Fork Salmon, River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho, to the saguaro lined desert landscape of the Salt River in Arizona, and on wilderness streams too numerous to count in between, I learned and experienced the lure, and the discipline, as well as the complexities, of navigating a small rubber raft through every variety of whitewater. In the vernacular of the community of boatmen, who loved and above all respected the beauty of a wild stream, I learned to “read water.”
Accompanied on multi-day journeys by my river rat colleagues, we followed the now less dangerous path blazed by Major John Wesley Powell on his descent of the Colorado. Camping on silky white sand beaches, sipping gin and tonics, we took day hikes on paths first trod by the Lakota, Cheyenne, Navaho, and Apache. When the sun dropped below distant mountains and the last shadows faded to a sable midnight shimmer, lying snugly in a sleeping bag bracing against the chill arid air of a desert night, a weary sated band of intrepid wanderers could gaze in wonder at a jet black sky opening to the Milky Way.
With the help of a little cannabis, magic mushrooms, or other mind altering substance, or just a vivid imagination, it was easy to imagine that those myriad stars were staring down at us, winking sarcastically on the bleached bones of 150 million year old Jurassic era allosauruses and sauropods, as if to say, “here lies your future, you insignificant minuscule carbon based life forms, if you do not experience a profound sense of humility, I would question the makeup of your soul.”
We traversed the main tributary of the Colorado, where in May 1869, Major Powell, a union army veteran who lost his right arm at the Battle of Shiloh, set off from Green River Wyoming to explore terra incognita, a blank spot still on North American maps. Rowing the Green River, in heavily laden wooden dories, Powell guided his expedition through a sandstone canyon painted in multi-colored hues, which he named Flaming Gorge. The expedition followed the Green downstream through the Gates of Lodore, past Disaster Falls, an easily runnable Class III today, where Powell watched helplessly from shore as one of his 20 foot boats was smashed to pieces.
The Powell expedition was the first to complete a descent of the Colorado. It pushed off in Wyoming territory, in 1869, initially consisting of 4 wooden boats, 3 of sturdy oak and Powell’s craft, the Emma Dean, a 16 foot pine boat, rigged specially for the major. Powell, strapped to a captain’s chair, guided the unwieldy vessel with his one arm, through Desolation, Gray, Labyrinth, and Stillwater Canyons and into the great unknown.
Following Powell, separated by nearly 150 years, we navigated Hell’s Half Mile, into Dinosaur National Monument, at the southeast flank of the Uinta Mountains in Utah, a paleontologist's dreamscape. Here lay a fossil trove ignored by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation, targeted in the 1960s for a second extinction, this time to be inundated hundreds of feet beneath the waters of a dead reservoir created by a massive dam, for the benefit of a few wealthy politically connected welfare ranchers.
Our gear, perfected since river running graduated from dangerous wilderness exploration to recreational hobby, had little similarity to the crude trappings of a 19th century expedition. Powell’s dories were heavy and rigid. We traversed the river
with modern synthetic flexible rubber, hypalon rafts, swathed in warm capilene, dry suits, and fleece. We held Powell and company with their primitive boats and gear in awe. While Powell and his hardy explorers lived on whatever game they could shoot, dried apples, and for most of the voyage, moldy, worm eaten flour, we gorged on salmon, steak, pasta, and anything else we could carry in massive coolers packed with dry ice.
Riding the Green to the confluence of the main stem Colorado, we rowed past the Dirty Devil and on through Cataract Canyon, the pink and salmon colored sandstone walls glowing in the magic time just after the sun dipped below the horizon. Lake Powell signals the end of wilderness for modern day outfitters, though in Powell’s day, the drowned landscape of the Lake, named for this founder of the Smithsonian, presented some of the most iconic images of the river. I still wonder if the Bureau’s engineers had any reservations or even were capable of grasping the irony of naming the dead desert reservoir after the hero who reveled in its very wildness.
For today’s river runners the Grand Canyon of the Colorado is the ultimate test of a boater’s skills. Wallace Stegner estimated that a mere 5,000 Americans alive in the 1930s had ever floated a whitewater river. Fewer still had ever seen what would be lost after the gates of Glen Canyon Dam were closed in 1963, drowning 186 miles of river beneath nearly six hundred feet of Colorado runoff.
The Colorado River rises high on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, trickling forth from Long’s Peak, before traveling fifteen hundred miles, and dropping 12,00 feet along its journey to the Gulf of California. Along the way, it captures numerous desert streams, eventually becoming a wild, coffee-colored maelstrom churning violently through red walled canyons and obsidian like schist as it rumbles to the sea. Mainly cutting south and west, it captures the runoff from a region the size of Iraq. The Gunnison, Green, Yampa, Dirty Devil, White, Little Colorado, Escalante, San Juan, and the Virgin, all runnable by experienced boaters today, add to its volume.
Crossing from Utah into Arizona it then picks up the Gila and its tributaries the Salt and Verde. Eventually after passing through Lakes Mojave and Havasu, the remaining third trickles, fully tamed, into California where much of it irrigates the Imperial Valley and the remainder makes a small dent in water deficient San Diego and LA. A tiny portion dribbles across the border to Mexico and the Gulf of California, though much of that once fecund delta is today dried and all but dead.
Over eons, volcanic eruptions, combined with tectonic upheaval, wind, and water has created a breathtaking landscape of sharp and blunt edges, soaring buttes, spires, cliffs seemingly balanced in air, and great castles in the sky.
After 5 years increasing my skill levels, I was ready (or so I hoped) to try myself against the mighty Colorado through the Grand Canyon. With several friends, veteran boatmen all, I left Sacramento on a clear mid September morning driving south through the withered orchards and heavily laden grape vines of the Sacramento Delta. Past the decaying port city of Stockton, my friend Courtney pointed out the Mars-like detritus of the salt encrusted fields to the west of the Interstate. The selenium crystalized on the surface was just the most obvious example of the hubris exhibited by humans in the face of nature’s limitations. Like every irrigation based civilization from ancient Mesopotamia to modern California, the farmers ignored history and science, continuing to apply water and draw immense profits from land that was slowly dying as a result of the very practices that were creating their wealth.
The road to Grand Canyon Village was a straight shot south through the San Joaquin Valley to Bakersfield, before turning east on Ca State Highway 58, where the future, in the form of massive wind turbines, beat the air furiously high above the Tehachapi Pass. Emerging from the Pass, gear laden SUVs pulling rough-hewn bespoke trailers behind, arrived at the late summer bleakness of the Mojave Desert. Gale force winds whipped the trailers before we pulled off at Barstow on the Motherload Hwy, Route 66, to spend the night in that scenic little pit stop. Up at dawn, we crossed the pathetic remains of the once great Colorado at Needles, all of us now tired, but alive with anticipation, climbing gently through the ponderosa forests of the Mogollon Rim as we made our way to the Bright Angel Lodge in Grand Canyon Village at the Canyon’s southern edge.
Arriving an hour before sunset, we hiked along the canyon rim. Below us we could spy cottonwoods, just beginning their autumn makeover hugging the bottomlands thousands of feet below the twisted conifers clinging to the heavily fissured, fractionated, and cavitated canyon walls. We could barely make out the thin trickle of the river ¾ of a mile down in the depths of the earth deep in the inner gorge. The sweet smell of pinon burning colluded with a spectacular sunset and lovely meal of barbecued ribs, served up at the Lodge, readied our group for the morning shuttle to Lee’s Ferry to rig the 6 boats for the 20 day sojourn downriver.
3 hours later, sitting on the banks of the Colorado, 15 river miles below Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell, we were gathered for a safety talk by a park ranger, who admonished all to, “pee in the river, not on the fragile banks. “For those of you more accustomed to peeing away from the river, remember, the desert is fragile, the flow carries it away, and they will be soon drinking it in Vegas and LA - so put aside your guilt and have at it!”
Nervous laughter combined with friendly remembrances of past flips, wraps, and tube stands passed back and forth while the last bags were secured and lines tied down. The oarsmen shoved off at noon steadying ourselves for the more than 150 named constipation relieving rapids we would navigate over the coming weeks.
When I first arranged myself at the 1 foot oak oars and dipped them in the river, I quickly realized I was to be riding something far more powerful than anything I had previously experienced. My oar blades literally quivered against the force of the current, the great river dashing its indignant waves against the ancient walls, the rafts mere pygmies, bouncing between the antediluvian bedrock. Downstream we encountered the fabulous coloration of Marble Canyon. Kaibab Limestone at the upper levels, light pink and white, topped with massive rounded domes and bluffs. Iron oxide coatings, with varying mixtures of hematite, goethite, and limonite, combined with local variations within the permeability, porosity, fracturing and other variations in the rock, result in a veritable rainbow of black, brown, crimson, vermilion, orange, salmon, pink, gold,and yellow colors, playing out on the walls as we made our way downstream.
Rowing the ever deepening canyon one bears witness to an amphitheater of orange sandstone, fading to a dusky red infinity sunset before terminating in a chiaroscuro desert sky at night. The ritual and rhythm of long river voyages establishes itself quickly on the first evening. Boats are deconstructed. A kitchen is set up on a tamarisk covered sand spit after which the 16 travellers separate to set up tents scattered across the camp sites. We change into dry and warm fleece to brace against the cool Coconino evening breezes. I was on the kitchen crew, preparing fresh salmon steaks for the voracious boaters. Uncle Claude set about preparing his specialty - gin and tonic over ice, chipped violently from a large block sequestered for this sole purpose in a 100 gallon Igloo on his raft. This was the time to enjoy such bracing adult beverages as two weeks hence, when the ice was down to remnants, river beer, dragged behind the boats in mesh bags would be the only vaguely cool refreshments.
Repeating the ritual that we would follow, settling into “river time,” we breakfasted early and pushed off. The walls clinched down. The canyon ramparts closing like giant rust colored jaws with scissoring waves opening into boat swallowing holes appearing suddenly in the rapids. Vertical walls trapped a cocoa colored river of roaring mud driving the puny rafts along. Above, spectacular white cliffs of Coconino sandstone, and Permian Kaibab limestone gave way to the red Kayenta formation.
Each evening the routine would repeat, with only the kitchen and clean-up crews changing - rotating among the merry band, old friendships renewed, and new ones were made during the magical twilight hours over roaring campfires blazing away at the mesquite and driftwood, gathered from soft sand beaches. The group ranged in age from 16 to 60, though age mattered little. Conversations bounced back and forth ranging from discussions of tantric Buddhism, extraterrestrial life, neurosurgeons search for self in the brain, black holes, and quarks, to Israeli kibbutzim, and whether they might be a model for addressing poverty and ghettos in the US.
I particularly enjoyed the evenings when I sat quietly among the 6 younger members of the group. 5 female cousins, from two families, and the 20 year old son of Uncle Claude, Luke, a champion debater at Harvard, who enjoyed nothing more than teasing, squabbling, arguing - just being contradictory, to anything the young women might opine as they engaged in friendly verbal combat over many evenings.
Only the 16 year old among the ardently liberal and feminist protagonists seemed to understand what their tormentor was up to. While her sister and cousins responded to every viva voce provocation, the sly referrals to emasculating feminazis, the use of facts and data, slightly adjusted to score irrefutable points, Malina refused to take the bait. Luke could easily get under the skin of the older girls, but Malina kept her powder dry, only interjecting when Luke would make some outlandish claim based on “facts” not in evidence. I enjoyed feeding Malina data and debate points that the high school junior clearly relished. As the trip progressed Malina spent a little time each day on my raft collecting ammunition for the verbal jousting to come.
Boating the Colorado as it enters the Grand Canyon is akin to traveling downward into geologic time. Entire mountain ranges once as vast and high as the Rockies themselves protrude from the upthrusting metamorphic rock as little more than inch thick striping embedded in the canyon’s facing. The great western naturalist writer John McPhee wrote that “the river has worked its way down to the stillness of original time.”
Individual features in the canyon are like nothing that can be experienced elsewhere. The great amphitheater at Redwall Cavern, where we stopped for lunch, contains a space so vast that Powell believed it could comfortably hold as many as 50,000. It has acoustics rivaling the Prince Albert Hall in London, as Olav Gustaffson, Buddhist father to three of the young women first proved when he serenaded all on an Andean flute, and then as the entire group belted out what was to be our theme song, an off tune, horrendous, tone deaf cover of Janice Joplin’s iconic, “Mercedes Benz,” shouted joyfully into the enormous interior of the cave.
Olav deserves an introduction. I met this gentle giant of a man years before on an icy cold run down the North Fork American, located just down the slope from Olav’s ram earth home, he personally built into a hill above Forest Hill, where he raised his alternative organic brood with his charming wife, Marguerite, also a member of the river crew. Olav had grown up on a farm in southern Indiana, the son of Norwegian immigrants, and made his way to California to attend Stanford in the early 60s on a full ride with nothing in his VW microvan but the clothes on his back and a jar of lutefisk, just as VietNam was riling elite universities across the country.
Olav was a campus leader of the anti-war movement, and an active participant in the underground railroad spiriting draftees to British Columbia to avoid service in that undeclared and increasingly unpopular police action. Not surprisingly, his conscientious objector status was revoked and one course short of graduation, already engaged to his future wife, his number came up and he was “kindly requested” to report to the Oakland office of the Selective Service for his draft interview.
Like numerous others under similar circumstances, Olav, all 6 '6 and 270 ripped pounds of him, stayed awake for a week, staying drunk and high on as many reds, greens, quaaludes, and blotters of first rate LSD as he could get his massive hands on. The night before his scheduled interview he downed a good 5th of smuggled Mexican mezcal, while blasting Hendrix, the Stones, and the Beatles Revolution #9 at ear splitting levels, bouncing the primordial youthful protests off rooftops from Palo Alto to the Berkeley hills. In the morning he hitched a ride with a buddy across the Dumbarton Bridge and headed north on the Nimitz Freeway for his interview, dressed in the same dirty “Fuck the Pigs,” wife beater tee, ripped Levis and huarache sandals, topped with a black Che Guevara beret complete with red army star that he had worn for the last week.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Olav did not claim homosexuality, chronic bed wetting, or opposition to all warfare. Nope, he went with a different approach as befitting a man of his wide ranging intellect and need to stand out among his peers. When the intense gung ho sergeant at the recruitment center saw this long haired disheveled refugee from the zombie apocalypse shuffle in and sprawl his full length across the tiny chair and promptly place his long legs atop the metal government issue desk he thought he was ready for one more disrespectful ungrateful commie influenced hippie just trying to dodge his duty to protect the greatest country ever from the ravenous yellow hordes toppling dominoes from Saigon to his god fearing hometown of Fort Worth.
What he was not prepared for was the treacherous monologue this fourth column fellow traveler calmly espoused. Sergeant Strangelove, having already filled out the necessary paperwork for induction BEFORE recruit Gustafsson had even entered, wearily went through the obligatory questions the pointy headed bureaucrats demanded be asked, before packing this large pansy boy off to basic training. “Why do you claim you are exempt from service to your country, you mollycoddled faggot,” the sergeant nearly spat, slightly amending the written form 250/x questionaire before him, as the current exigencies required.
Olav slowly leaned forward, his head swiveling side to side, still fading blotter acid running dragon headed unicorns at his periphery, and almost whispered to the crewcut ramrod stiff soldier, “you have me confused with someone else. I want to join the motherfuckin army. Growin up on the farm I am well familiar with standard issue civilian firearms and small explosive devices we occasionally used to remove roots and other problems on the back fourty. What I am lacking is training in military style assault weapons, plastique, and the proper use of grenades so as to inflict maximum casualties and the like.”
Sergeant Strangelove was momentarily taken aback. Maybe you couldn’t judge this particular book by its unwashed smelly cover. But then potential draftee Gustafsson continued. “Now understand, I consider the US government an illegitimate nature destroying fascist oligarchy. I would hope to be drafted to more thoroughly prepare for the revolution to surely come, and while I consider the officers of the US Army to be enemy combatants and legitimate targets I think the least it can do is train me in the use of the weapons my tax dollars help pay for. So please, where do I sign?”
And with that, Sergeant Strangelove, late of Fort Worth in the immortal Republic of Texas, classified potential army draftee Olav Gustaffson, 4F, “unfit for service,” reporting to his superiors that he had saved the army from a serious potential threat. As a postscript, Olav had somewhat mixed emotions when he read the Sergeant’s obituary several months later, fragged by his own men while he slept at a facility in Da Nang.
Deeper and deeper into the canyon we traveled. We took a long hike at Nankoweap Overlook to view ancient Anasazi granaries high on the canyon walls. Past Phantom Ranch where hikers on the South Kaibab or Bright Angel Trail can find refreshment and lodging and rafters on half trips can leave or join voyages headed downriver. Ice cream and a cold lemonade are never as refreshing as those obtained here. Into the black metamorphic basalt of the Vishnu schist we were now committed. There was no turning back and no relief was coming. Diamond hard, the rock here had been worn to bedrock, forcing the raging river into the narrowing inner gorge.
Unlike technical west coast rivers where rocks create numerous rapids, obstacles in narrow streams, on the Colorado, rapids form when violent storms create flash floods that roll house size boulders down normally quiescent side streams into the main channel of the river. The natural dams formed by these floods can back up the river for miles of calm water before the next cataract clogs the river. Hance, Sockdolager, Unkar, Crystal, Hermit, Granite, Lava Falls - these are some of the 161 named rapids formed and reformed season by season as storms push debris into the river.
On a clear night, camping above Crystal Rapid, with a full moon rising, we marveled at the bats diving and darting overhead. There are 22 bat species within the National Park, using their echolocation to hunt. Even small ones, the size of a golf ball can eat up to 600 insects in an hour, as many as 5,000 in a single evening. The healthy population explains why even in the creek side locations there are few mosquito problems - a lesson that urban planners might consider.
In the morning, casting off down river, we soon found ourselves boulder hopping and scrambling up the Royal Arch Creek drainage, slipping, slithering, and climbing slightly more than a mile from the river. Olav led the way to the magical world of Elves Chasm, where arched stone formations give way to arcadian glens - maidenhair firms creating an opalescent green grotto hidden among secret springs bursting from the fractionated rock. The hike ended in an enchanting waterfall where we all submerged ourselves in the cool blue water after the semi-strenuous hike. The more adventurous among us climbed behind the falls to a rock from which they could jump into the deep pool below.
Completely relaxed and rejuvenated by the cool waters we walked slowly back down to the rafts, marveling at the breathtaking beauty of our surroundings. Back on the river after lunch, we made our way to Deer Creek, where a stunning desert spring breaks through the sheer rock facing far above the river and plunges 180 feet from the north wall of the canyon into the Colorado below.
After securing the boats and luxuriating in the spray from the dramatic outpouring, the whole crew began ascending the trail, climbing to a point just above the extraordinary waterfall to play in the slickrock carved by the winding brook and explore the side canyons, covered in agave, Mormon tea, and sacred Datura, psychedelic and poisonous. Though I have visited numerous desert rivers since, the sight of the clear blue water in a desert creek cutting its way through the redrock making life possible for the hardy flora and fauna of these otherwise unforgiving dry barren lands is no less moving regardless of how many times I witness it.
Sprawled out, gazing at the clear indigo sky, feet dangling in Deer Creek, partially shielded under the shade of Fremont cottonwoods, above a small pool studying the Navajo limestone and the Stygian striping created by the desert varnish painting Rohrschach patterns on the outcroppings, I realized that this may be the closest I would ever get to viewing heaven. Lying here, while one might debate whether God or the Gods, actually created a paradise on earth, in a few special locations, and this was clearly one of them, a person might actually believe it was possible!
We stayed and played for hours, camping near the falls. A hike in the morning a short distance downriver up Matkatamiba canyon put us all in a state of exhausted revelry. A narrow slot canyon, we were able to crab our way through narrow winding passages in a dry creek bed. While there is, even among non sentient beings a barrier, an inseparable wall if you will, between non corporeal entities, spirits, souls, energy sources, and rock, just as there is between carbon based lifeforms and inorganic minerals, in crawling up Matkat, attached by arms and legs, chin and chest to the rocks themselves, it is possible to imagine these ancient avatars breathing as if alive with the very spirit of the initial creation.
Leaving Matkat at mile 148 of our 225 mile journey we carefully navigated Upset rapid before pulling in 9 miles downstream. Tying off the boats at the mouth of Havasu Creek, the second largest tributary of the Colorado within the National Park, we packed light daypacks and sufficient drinking water for the all day hike upstream.
Flowing through Havasupai reservation lands, the gorgeous aquamarine runoff, draining over 3000 square meandering miles, cuts down through Cataract Canyon creating a series of stunning ever changing water features including the 100 foot high drop at Havasu Falls. The travertine formations, resulting from the large amounts of calcium carbonate in the water, forms limestone that lines the creek bed reflecting its color intensely. Olav, who had run the river 5 years previously, marveled at the differences since last time he had hiked the ever changing creek.
The numerous travertine dams create luxurious swimming holes, a needed respite from the scorching midday sun. Making our way upstream we came to a series of small closely connected drops named on the map as Beaver Falls. Breathtaking. Most of the group decided to have lunch here while several headed further upstream to explore Mooney and eventually Havasu Falls, each more spectacular than the one before. We passed a few hardy backpackers making their way downstream, who had hiked down from the native Supai village. Slowly descending back to the river we reached the boats late in the afternoon, quickly pushed off and made camp several miles downstream.
That night, a nasty storm kicked up, heaving rain down upon us and kicking up a vicious windstorm that blasted the tents making sleep near impossible. It felt as if the ancient Anasazzi, long gone from these lands, were having a little too much fun at our expense! Taking a quick dinner under an ingenious tarp Olav strung overhead, secured by some mystical Norwegian alchemy on four upright oars situated in the sand, Uncle Claude, an engineer by training, walked slowly around the contraption scratching his head trying to determine exactly why it remained upright. The humor turned morbid as boaters discussed Lava Falls, the biggest baddest drop on the river, awaiting us the next morning.
After a restless night in the wind battered tents, the cranky sleep deprived oarsmen drifted to the boats to double down on existing cam straps, cinching drybags and coolers and any loose objects as securely as humanly possible for the Class 10 cataract awaiting downstream. How to describe this nefarious hydra-headed beast? Guinness lists it as North America’s fastest navigable rapid. Created by a basalt dam, it is steep, dropping 13 feet over a distance of less than 35 yards, a full 30 foot drop from top to bottom.
Stories from Emiliano Zefferelli, the trip doctor and Malina’s dad, and Dr. Dom Ruff, geology professor and a rugged and experienced outdoorsman, both of whom had run Lava on several occasions were certainly not life affirming. Both had run it successfully - and both had been washed from their oar seats, their minuscule rafts battered like pinatas in the maelstrom. I had never seen Emilio pray before, but having been raised in the bosom arm of the Church he could still apparently turn in that direction for salvation at times of great peril. When I asked him whether making the sign of the cross was helpful, he said, ever so softly, “yes, if you are lucky and a skilled boatman.” The irreverent Dr. Ruff opined that Lava reminded him of the Catholic Church in one significant way, “sometimes the priest can be forgiving, grant absolution even, and sometimes the nasty bastard will bend you over a chair and have its way with you.” Showing his healthy respect for what was to come, Emilio, a little ominously requested Malina ride with me, keeping his older daughter and wife in his boat. Not wishing the whole family, “god forbid,” go over the falls together.
You can first hear Lava Falls, a half mile upriver. A quarter mile away it begins to roar, like a thousand jet engines riding shotgun in the sky, low and directly overhead. A few hundred yards above the falls, Vulcan’s Anvil appears, announcing the violent cataract below, set down in the river like some giant beacon from extraterrestrials sent as a warning to those foolish enough to attempt passage. The Anvil is a 50 foot tall vertical plug spit from an ancient volcano, protruding innocently enough from the placid pool backed up by the downstream dam. Named after the Roman God Vulcan, a blacksmith who forged swords, spears, and other metallic objects in a shop below Mt Etna, this Colorado River anvil and the rapid below was created by massive lava flows that poured through this portion of the canyon over 400,000 years ago, damming the river and depositing the black rocks that mark the landscape.
Peering downstream, standing atop the tightly strapped metal box holding the dwindling food supplies, we see nothing, only a small intermittent splash of whitewater tossed skyward from below the site line. The rapid itself is blind, dropping so suddenly that it is invisible before you drop in. The backed up pool of calm water is not at all reassuring with the roar of the rapid dispelling any possible complacency, though it does make for an easy beach on river right from which to climb and scout. Only we oarsmen climb for the 15 minute scout, the others huddling on the boats below, figuring it was better not to see this savage thing.
John Wesley Powell when scouting the area around the falls, wrote, “what a conflict of water and fire there must have been here! Just imagine a river of molten rock running down into a river of melted snow. What seething and boiling of the waters; what clouds of steam rolled into the heavens.”
The first thing you notice when scouting Lava Falls is the huge ledge with a reversal wave taking up the large majority of the river’s width. It is the very last place on this river you would want to take a swim. If the boat were to go over, the hole below is likely to recirculate both human and boat several times before spitting both out, the boat pulled apart, frame bent, straps torn, unfortunate guide and passengers swimming desperately for their lives. To the right is a pour-over, essentially a second if smaller ledge, that can easily flip the boat. Though less dangerous than the river wide ledge, by no means ideal, and a place to avoid if possible. This leaves only a single way through, between the ledgehole and the pour-over, which then leads you to first the hump wave and if you are lucky, the massive V-wave, where two giant laterals meet to form one giant wave. Crash through this successfully and the gods have been kind. But remember, the V-Wave is probably the cause of more flips than any other rapid or wave in the entire length of the river. Below the boat flipping V-Wave (if you are still upright, sometimes euphemistically described as black side down on the gun metal grey Avon rafts), the next obstacle is a 10 foot standing wave veteran canyon guides call the Big Kahuna, which will break over your raft with the force of a curl at Diamond Head.
So how DO you run this thing? What gives you the highest probability of success? From above, scouting the rapid Emilio says to watch the bubble line. There is a large chunk of lava jutting into the river from the right side. It produces a clear set of markers heading into the rapid and disappears exactly at the spot between the ledgehole and the pour-over that is the ideal entry point. Simple. Hah!
I eventually climbed down from the scout, looking for all appearances like Mary Queen of Scots on her way from her cell at Fotheringhay Castle to be shortly separated from her lovely royal head. I slowly untied the bowline from the tree to which it was tethered, coiled it and tied it to the D ring at the bow before climbing aboard the guide’s seat. Nervously, I slowly rotated the oars in their sleeves, checking gloves, hat, and sunglasses, tightening the chin strap on my helmet, before buckling the high float life vest tightly, while waiting for Olav, running as lead boat to shove off. Malina confidently climbed into the bow compartment, grabbed a paddle to help pull through any holes if the boat should stall, and turned around, thumbs up, her face confident, a warm reassuring smile peeking beneath her red helmet.
After what seemed like hours, Olav pushed off. I followed 50 feet behind, standing and peering ahead. I picked up the bubble line as Olav disappeared from view. I set my mark, but gasped audibly when 25 feet above the drop the wind kicked up suddenly and the bubble line disappeared in a flash. It was too late to do anything but hold to what appeared to be the line, though I could feel the butterflies, now a swarm more like a flock of ravenous ravens, beating their wings in my stomach, flailing and silently screaming, “what the fuck do we do now?” Setting my oars above the water, I blindly dropped in. With some skill and much luck the entry was perfect. We crashed down, hit the hump and plowed dead center through the V-Wave riding its crest straight into the Big Kahuna. Malina shouted joyfully and dug her paddle into that mother as it poured liquid fury over us. And then….we piled through and came out the other end upright. Water was still raining down from Malina’s askew helmet, when she let out a warwhoop as we came alongside Olav who also had a successful run. Peering back up stream we watched as the other 4 boats worked their way through, Dr. Ruff running sweep and like the others having a clean run. It was so clean, Malina asked if there was any way to go back upstream and do it again? My hands were still visibly shaking as I had not yet loosened my grip on the oars as I pondered how fleeting this corporeal life was. Ahhh, to be 16 and unaware of pending mortality!
Camp that night was joyous, highlighted by a raucous game of ultimate Frisbee played on a raised spit of sand, the river pooled below serving as the end zone for diving touchdowns off the beach. There are no major rapids after Lava Falls, but that does not alleviate the need for caution. Two days later, Malina, sunbathing atop her dad’s boat, her PFD secured only by a single strap at her waist, was yanked overboard when Emilio hit an eddy fence. She went down deep, the jacket yanked off over her head, and she did not surface for many moments, while dad desperately searched the chocolate brown water for his daughter. When she finally popped up unharmed, upstream in the eddy, all six boats let forth screams of joy and simultaneously erupted into our theme song.
“Oh Lord, will you buy me a Mercedes Benz, my friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends,
Worked Hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.”
A water fight ensued, followed by more off key singing as Olav standing high in the stern of his raft led all in a rousing, enthusiastic, if tone deaf rendition, of the legendary tune by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, beginning with the only lines he knew, “Hey there Little Red Riding Hood you sure are lookin good, you’re everything thing that a big bad wolf could want…...Grooowwllllll!” Which was the only part this motley crew could nearly sing in harmony!
We arrived at the takeout at Diamond Creek, just above Lake Meade, where a Hualapai elder awaited to shuttle us in several shifts to the waiting cars driven down from Lee’s Ferry several days before to Peach Springs on the reservation. The breakdown of the rafts was tinged with melancholy as the endings of magical river trips always are. The community forged over 3 weeks of joy, beauty, meals, and labor would break apart, each family group heading their separate ways. Emilio and his daughters were off on a college trip for Malina, Olav and his family heading to Guatemala to build houses with Habitat for Humanity. I was catching a ride to the airport at Vegas, home to Sacramento and a new job awaiting in two days.
On the ride out of the canyon, the Hualapai elder, the tribal leader, and an ex-veteran and union ironworker, who had spent a good portion of his life in San Francisco pointed out spots sacred to his people hidden in the cliffs above. I was in the last group to leave. Others on previous shuttles had told him about my background in government and law, and about half way up he stopped and pointed to the ridgeline. He told me about life on the res. About poverty and alcoholism, and domestic abuse. With much sadness he described how he had returned to the reservation to instill in his teenage son, lost amid the cultural imperialism of the capitalist culture, a sense of his people and its history of survival against all odds.
Here was the dilemma. A Vegas based casino corporation was offering to build a luxury resort on tribal land up there on that ridge, close enough to the canyon where a giant glass bottomed path could be extended far out over the ancient chasm. They promised jobs and money to the tribe. It was a way forward in the white man’s world. But at what cost?
I truly wished I could provide an answer. But I’d grown. At moments like this, I always remembered Bob Dylan’s words from “My Back Pages.” “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” How I interpret that, is that there is a certainty to youth that experience erodes. The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know. With age, the hubris of youth has been replaced by humility.
What I said was this. “I can not walk in your shoes. My people fled Russia 100 years ago to save themselves. What they found among the white Christians who have the power and set the agenda in this country, allowed monetary success, and a degree of religious freedom heretofore unknown. It allowed through hard work and educational achievement status unfathomable in the impoverished villages of the Asian steppe, though it came with a heavy bill, paid over the ensuing generations through intermarriage and acculturation. I do not have the wisdom to offer advice as to how you and your people might strike that balance and at what cost?”