A body bag named Woody, a man named No Mayo, and a device called a Groover. Place names like the Osiris Temple, Shiva Temple, Vulcan's Forge, Tower of Set, Vasey's Paradise, Elves Chasm, Cheyava Falls, Nankoweap, Hot Na Na and Matkatimiba. It was a weird trip for me as I was thrown into the world of rafting and spent 21 days rafting 297 miles of the Grand Canyon with 5 total strangers, not really knowing what to expect.
I underestimated the Grand Canyon, and I really should have known better. Like so many others, my only previous foray with the Grand Canyon was staring out from a viewpoint on the South Rim amidst train and bus tourists, out over the gaping hole, the staircase of cliffs, boringly monotonous geology and apparent badlands shrouded in the haze of industry. I visited several viewpoints on a family vacation as a teenager and remember little difference between them. To me the canyon was only impressive in its grandiose scale, and indeed that is what it is readily known for. The much-feared rapids John Wesley Powell faced over one hundred years before looked minisucle and overrated from the height of the rim. It was easy for me to dismiss his trip as one of those feats which only seems exceptional because it had never been done before and because technology was more primitive. Only the smallest percentage of the five million annual visitors could realize that there is a veritable lifetime of worthwhile things to explore in this single rift--grottos, gardens, waterfalls, caves, springs, towers, arches, ruins, life--many only accesible from a float down the Colorado River, and even then requiring much effort to see.
John Wesley Powell's 1869 exploration of the Grand Canyon is one of the great expeditions undertaken on American soil, perhaps only overshadowed by the Lewis and Clark Expedition. For a long time a great void existed on maps, a barrier blocking travel to the north and south for hundreds of miles, a region few entered and none passed through. Powell's expedition is one of the few expeditions in which white men can actually claim to have explored first as although Indians populated the region, it's very unlikely Indians travelled down the length of the Colorado River and its rapids. Thus it's one of the few instances where the white explorers actually named things for the first time. Unlike most expeditions, once they set off they were committed. Once they entered the canyon, steep and high canyon walls continued for 300 miles with few places to climb out the canyon and nothing but desert in all directions if they did make it to the rim. Once on the river in the Grand Canyon, it is easy to think of the one-armed Powell and his small crew who ventured through this grandest of canyons, uncertain of what lied around the next bend in the canyon, climbing (one-handed) thousands of feet above the river to survey the land and sneak a peek of what the next miles held, of the fear he and his men felt when they saw a frothy, boiling horizon line on the river and heard the roar of the approching rapid drown all other thoughts. What terror and joy they must have felt.
There are a few significant changes from the time of Powell; first and foremost, the river. It is no longer the warm, chocolatey-brown, silt-laden, wildly-fluctuating river Powell encountered. Since his time, the river has been tamed in the name of progress as the river now flows green and cold at a controlled rate through the bottom of the Glen Canyon Dam, in turn damming (or damning) another magnificent canyon Powell explored and burying it in an expanse of water, which in some sort of political cruelty has been named Lake Powell. The last 50 miles of the Grand Canyon is now Lake Mead- some of Powell's most feared rapids are now non-existent, buried under sediment. We are no longer drifting into the great unknown void on a map. Because of Powell and others who came after, we have detailed maps and guides with which to follow. We know precisely what to expect: what gear to take, which rapids we will want to scout before running, where to explore and where to camp. Technology has improved greatly as rafting and outdoor activities have become major forms of recreation. Inflatible self-bailing rafts offer much more stability, durability and storage than Powell's wooden dories and are designed to not flip in a rapid. We have petroleum-based wonder products like plastics and synthetic fabrics to keep our gear dry, to keep us warm when wet and cold and to cool us when we are hot. We even have effective coolers that can keep food cold so that we can have fresh meat or yogurt three weeks into a trip. Forget the meager, water-spoiled rations Powell ate. Lastly, it's been done before- we know that 20,000 people run the river every year so we will emerge from our adventure alive. One of the lessons I have learned from caving is if you know it has been done before, it is psychologically alot easier to do.
The trip was very memorable- I still have the cuts, bruises, sprains, poison ivy, and cracked skin to prove it. We had a few days of rain, but at least it shrouded the canyon tops in ethereal fog, made waterfalls appear in otherwise dry places, and once the rain cleared, a magical day of light as the sun and clouds cast shadows and light across the canyon. Going this time of year has its pluses and minuses. We could have fires, there were no commercial or motor trips running, we had our pick of campsites, and there were very few people (we twice went four days without seeing another person). On the downside, it was sometimes a little colder than comfortable and the dew some nights was incessant. The Grand Canyon is home to some of the most beautiful waterfalls and best technical canyons I have ever seen and some of the most amazing caves I have never seen (obviously, since its illegal to enter caves in Grand Canyon National Park, but I hear they are fantastic). The highlight of the trip for me was the layover days where I hiked for up to 9 hours to certain destinations. On one of these days we did a canyoneering route I came up with that to the best of my knowledge had never been done quite how we did it.
The geology is fantastic- there's a reason it is so classic. Although structures are pretty straightforward, the collection of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks is magnificent. I was also transfixed by the intricate sculpting of the rocks by floods (potholes, fluting, nooks, crannies). Of particular interest is the Toroweap area where lava and river clashed for the last million years, at one point creating a lake in the canyon over a thousand feet deep. Also compelling is what is absent- the Great Unconformity, an erosional surface across which one billion years of geologic time is missing.
I learned how to row my own raft and tackled some exciting rapids. Mostly by accident, I paddled Kolb Rapid (rated an 8 out of 10) in an inflatable kayak (in which I had only minutes of experience with) and somehow managed to stay upright which was a trip highlight. The adrenaline rush was vivid. It was a completely different view being on the surface of the water surrounded by frothy whitewater and doing all you can just to stay upright and prepare to hit the next wave. We had two raft flips the whole trip- one in the infamous Lava Falls Rapid (I wasn't on this raft) and the other on the very last rapid of the trip. I was sitting in a chair we mounted to the back deck (being the last rapid I didn't take this one as seriously as I should have) and was catapaulted away from the raft as we flipped. My only casualities were a lost wetsuit bootie and a very wet Steinbeck book, although much of my clothes soaked. Very happily, my camera equipment all survived.
We rafted the full 297 miles from Lee's Ferry to South Cove on Lake Mead, which is something few people do. The Grand Canyon ends abruptly as we crossed the Grand Wash Fault (10,000 feet of vertical displacement), which marks the western edge of the Colorado Plateau. We decided to row the last miles across the clear waters of Lake Mead in the dark, clouded moonlight since there were navigational beacons to guide us by. I was rowing my own raft behind everyone else at this point and felt a strange unsettling feeling of exposure and nakedness being alone on such a large, still body of water in the dark after being on a river in a narrow canyon for three weeks. It was like the whole world had suddenly expanded and my insignificance was returned to me.
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| Last camp at night |
