12 – AFTERMATH -- “Grand Canyon Rafting – A Dozen Little Stories”

 “When do you think I’ll stop thinking every day about the Canyon?” Eva asked me recently.

“Hopefully, never,” I said.

* * *

A trip through the Grand Canyon messes with your mind. How can anyone experience the Canyon and not have their perspective shocked regarding their place in the universe?

Right there in the rocks before your eyes is the earth’s record of much of the past two billion years. You touch the evidence with your hands – like worm burrows in layers of the glauconite-green Bright Angel Shale. Once this rock was mud and sand on the bottom of a shallow-water ocean in a time before there were fish, yet swarming with exotic creatures – trilobites, mollusks, snails, sponges, algae, and worms. Today, traces of their lives’ scurrying and burrowing are frozen in cliffs high and dry above the Colorado River. A lot can happen in 500 million years.

Since returning from our trip to my retired life in Oregon, I’ve tried to expand my meager understanding of the Grand Canyon’s rocks. I’ve slogged through the 432-page Grand Canyon Geology. I was amazed by how much detail scientists can explain about that two billion-year history. (And by how little I could completely understand, despite my college degree in geology.)

Knowing its past so well, geologists confidently predict the Grand Canyon’s future:

“The outcome is fairly well assured. The plateaus surrounding the Grand Canyon will continue to fragment by extensional faulting. Erosion will continue to wash the elevated rocks to the sea. The canyon will gradually disappear. Someday the seas will return and deposit new rocks here. Perhaps Ecclesiastes (1:9) said it best: ‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.’” –Peter W. Huntoon (“Post-Precambrian Tectonism in the Grand Canyon Region,” in Grand Canyon Geology, 2003, Eds.: S.S. Beus & M. Morales)

There remain mysteries of the Grand Canyon yet to be solved. For me, here’s the biggest one of all:
Early in our trip after Boatman Art had painted for us the big picture of the Grand Canyon’s geologic history, I asked him, “Do you ever get Creationists on your trips, people who believe all this happened in seven days, 6,000 years ago?”

Art said that he did.

“How in the world do they reconcile what they see here with their beliefs?”

“People have all different points of view,” Art said, patiently, “and that’s all right.”

I couldn’t tell if he was being diplomatic or if he really believed that, but I blurted out: “No it’s not all right!”

We hiked one day up to see Indian pictographs – images long ago burnished into vertical cliff faces. Who were the people who made them? What visions inspired them? Did the locally-abundant Datura, a dangerous psychotropic plant, have anything to do with those visions?

Maybe the images were left on the cliffs, as some believe, by aliens from other worlds. Not likely, of course, but more plausible to me than an entire cosmic creation laid down in less time than we took to float through the Grand Canyon. To believe, literally, the Biblical tale, then you also must believe that all the evidence of geology, paleontology, and just plain common sense is an elaborate hoax of the Creator, a practical joke, an omnipotent trick, God’s shenanigans.

The night sky over the Grand Canyon is filled with its own mysteries. The Milky Way is right there, a glittering swath of stars and worlds we’ll never know. Just as most of us can’t easily read the stories in the Canyon’s rocks, we can’t fathom what is out there. But while geologists probe the rocks’ stories with hammers and microscopes, astronomers use complex instruments to see light and hear signals from near the very beginning of the universe.

If you could peer into that night sky far enough, it would be like going back in time – before the Grand Canyon’s Zoroaster Granite was molten rock 1.7 billion years ago, before the 4.5 billion-year-old earth existed, back to the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago, and before that… Bazinga!

It’s nonsense, of course, since time didn’t exist before the Big Bang, as the world’s greatest minds explain. And as if that’s not maddening enough, astrophysicists tell us of mysterious black holes, dark energy, and multiple dimensions beyond space and time. Do we live, not in a universe, but in a multiverse? Are there infinite universes? Is everything we think we understand about reality as far from truth as a seven-day creation story?

* * *

The government recently announced that in America we’re living longer than ever before. At my age, that's good news. According to the new data, I should have another fifteen “years of life left,” as the newspaper bluntly put it.

My dentist had seen the same story. We were talking about how long my gold crowns might last and he told me he has a dozen or so patients in their nineties and more, and they still have good teeth and aren’t treating them like they only have to last a little bit longer. He said my gold crowns could last forever.

How long is forever? I suppose for all practical purposes, for me it’s fifteen years, plus or minus. Hopefully, plus. My dentist and I agreed that both of us were going to beat the averages, but still…

How on earth can we reckon our personal time scale with the Grand Canyon’s billions of years or with the cosmology of a forever multiverse? I can see how it might be comforting to invent a god (or gods) to try and make some kind of sense of all this unknowable mystery.

The geologic history of the Grand Canyon, however, no longer falls into that “unknowable mystery” category. Actually, that’s been the case for nearly 150 years, but I guess some people are slow to change. I just don’t understand, though, why anyone would need to believe in a god who goes to such lengths to fool scientists into thinking the universe, including the Grand Canyon, wasn’t created in the last 6,000 years?

On the other hand, for millennia people all over the world have believed in trickster gods. So what do I know?

* * *

Some might argue about how the Grand Canyon got made, but anyone who has been there probably can agree that it is, as John Wesley Powell put it, “the most sublime spectacle on earth.” No landscape can surpass its grandeur – both great and small. It’s so big and breathtaking that it is hard to hold in your head, especially after you leave. Small memories of spectacle linger more easily: snake tracks in dry sand, a bighorn ram ambling riverside and ignoring rafters' excited chatter, a posse of ravens harassing a golden eagle, a chorus line of black-necked stilts strutting in the shallows like tuxedo-clad dancers.

During our recent excursion, thirty-two of us shared far more than a scenic boat ride with heart-stopping white-water rapids. In the forced intimacy of rafting and camping together, old friendships were deepened and new ones forged, and how often can you say that?

* * *

There’s a lot about the Grand Canyon that’s no longer “natural.” Dams, climate change, invasive plants, and visitors have changed things. After all, millions of people come to the Grand Canyon every year and peer down from its rims; 27,000 float the river each season. Developers still hustle absurd plans, the latest on Indian land with some Native Americans backing a proposed desecration that would exploit the Canyon’s world-famous allure.

Yet the Grand Canyon endures. Those who love it most – the river guides and their companies, scientists, park rangers, artists, and natives – have found a good balance. The Canyon, despite demands to love it to death, is well-managed. If, heaven forbid, I never get back there again, I’m confident that the Grand Canyon that so touched my soul will be there as I remember it for my grandchildren.

Our rafting trip ended on the eighth day, just the right length of time. That surprised me; at the beginning of the trip I could barely stand the thought that our adventure would too soon be over. It turned out that after a week of playing hard, I was exhausted. Used up. Content to have our perfect moment end.

As the days of our lives rush by, we can only hope they end in so gracious a manner – just enough time and not too much. Meanwhile, I’ve still got another fifteen years (plus or minus), which should give Eva and me plenty of time for at least one more ride down that river through the Grand Canyon. Maybe I’ll see you there. 

"Eventually, all things merge into one and a river runs through it." --Norman Maclean


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11 – JUST ONE WORD -- “Grand Canyon Rafting – A Dozen Little Stories”

After dinner on our final night of camping in the Grand Canyon, Boatman Art gathered all thirty-two of us with our chairs in a circle on the beach. Our “campfire” was an overturned white five-gallon bucket with a lantern inside giving it a friendly glow.

Earlier in the evening, Art had asked us to come up with just one word to describe the Canyon and our experience. It seems you don't need a thousand words, after all, to equal the worth of a picture.

"Magnificent" (Tyler)

"Perspective" (Steve)



"Serene" (John)



"Surreal" (Joel - with John on left)

"Spiritual" (Marilyn)

"Beauty" (Wayne)

"Grounding" (Eva)

"Love" (Rafter Ray)

"Love" (Ann)

"Sockety" (Art)

"Craggy" (Mary)

"Buckets"* (Paul)

"Humbling" (Tom)



"Mystical" (Ruth)



"Friendship" (Tammy)

"Reality" (Rachel)

"Awesome" (Bernard)

"Sacred" (Al)



"Proof"** (Cindy - with Terry)



"Cosmos" (Gary)

(Credit: Dell)

"Fulfilling" (Dell)

"Phenomenal" (Debbie - with Steve)



"Family" (Steve - with Stephanie & Debbie)

(Credit: Dell)



"Inner peace" (Stephanie)



"Grateful" (Ann-Marie)

"New experiences" (Den)

(Credit: Dell)



"Life changing" (Duffy - with Tyler & Dell)



"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (Jeanne)

"Art" (Fred)




"Religious" (Arlene)

(Credit: Dell)



"Ever changing" (Larry - with Al)

(Credit: Dell)

*Referring to Paul’s unexpected mid-river plunge from the raft as he tried to rescue an errant bucket floating in the current.

**“Proof that the universe is larger than us. 80 proof liquor. Proof that 28 people can get along for a week. Proof that I could get over that ledge to the falls.”



Doing It

A postscript about our rafting trip for anyone thinking seriously about doing it. Here's my advice: do it.

And do it with Grand Canyon Expeditions. They make it easy. They were professional from start to finish. The best thing I can add to my earlier kudos for this company and its staff is this: Throughout our eight-day raft trip, we briefly encountered a dozen or two other groups. I confess that each time I felt a bit superior. Ours had a better raft setup, better group, better guides, better vibe. I couldn't have asked for anything more.

 Next: 12 – Aftermath

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10 – IT DOESN’T WASH OFF -- “Grand Canyon Rafting – A Dozen Little Stories”

Can it be true that beautiful places produce beautiful people? Like the way great events produce great leaders?

It seems that way to me, based on what I’ve seen of the Grand Canyon’s river guides. They are rooted to the place as strongly as Native Americans who peopled the Canyon throughout the past hundred centuries. They’ve created a soulful culture that’s now a natural part of the Canyon itself. They are beautiful. 


"These boat captains surely know how to relax when they have a moment or two and they just can't help but reflect all that immense beauty they live in." --Rafter Ray

These aren’t kids on summer vacation guiding tourists on a faux-scary boat ride. There’s no rote recitation of “and on your left coming up you’ll see…” The river guides of the Grand Canyon are serious people who love the Canyon as much as it’s possible to love anything. They speak from their hearts about that love.

Many of them, like the guides on our trip, have grown up on the Colorado River. Their lives – families and friends and work and play – are connected to the river. Babies float white-water rapids before they leave the cradle. Imagine if the Colorado River’s roar and the gurgle of side-canyon waterfalls and the songs of canyon wrens were among your first sounds of life to hear. These people are of the Canyon.

Our boatman, Art, grew up on the river. His father, Paul, was a long-time river guide who could never get enough of the Canyon. One day Paul will become, literally, of the Canyon. On his mantle at home is an urn adorned with scenes of the Grand Canyon. It’s intended for his ashes one day, and he’s given explicit instructions on how he wants them distributed among his favorite rapids of the Canyon. It seems a common desire with those who’ve spent their lives boating and hiking the Canyon.

Paul’s son, Art, is nearly 40 years old and has become something of a river elder. You could see it in the deference paid to him by other guides when we crossed river paths during our trip. It’s a deserved respect, hard-earned over Art’s lifetime and nearly 200 trips through the Canyon.

At the end of our raft trip, utterly exhausted, we boarded an air-conditioned bus back to Las Vegas for hot showers and real beds. Art, however, after packing up his leaky raft and dealing with our shit from eight days on the river, was heading back to Lee’s Ferry to start all over again.

 “You guys are just immersed in this place,” I said to him.

“Yeah, it doesn’t wash off very easy,” Art conceded.


Boatman Art

Our boatwoman, Ann-Marie, is also branded by the Canyon. Her father, O’C, came to work the Grand Canyon as a river guide after getting shot in Vietnam in 1969 at the peak of that tragic war. The river captured O’C, salved his bitterness, and probably saved his life. But not his marriage. I asked Art if it was the river or the war that ruined O’C’s marriage and he said he wasn’t sure. That the river guides and their families suffer with the same challenges as everyone else is merely to say they are human. 


Boatwoman Ann-Marie

They work hard, these river guides, and none of them look like they’re getting rich. At least, not in the normal sense of the word. But I ask you, how many people have jobs that regularly include long minutes of contentment gazing at the grandest landscape on earth? 

Swamper Duffy.
"Can you believe the light in that smile?" --Rafter Ray

After 25 trips through the Grand Canyon, then 50, then 100 and more, how could you not be changed by it? After years of burning under the Canyon’s sun, breathing its air, and drinking its water, how could the Canyon’s power and beauty not seep into your bones?

"That gorgeous little Swamper Den, who is actually really strong but who is so sweet and beautiful that you can't believe her amazing endurance." --Rafter Ray

The Canyon has inspired untold romances among the guides. Art confessed one evening that a big mistake he learned the hard way had been once having a girlfriend as swamper on his raft. Giving orders got complicated, he said, with what I considered masterful understatement.

“Art,” I laughed, “How on earth did you let yourself get into that situation?”

Art just shook his head.

Let’s face it – sexual allure was part of it all on our raft trip, enhancing even the beauty of the Grand Canyon.

One female rafter late one night, after considerable hydration, gazed long at Art. Then she turned to Eva. What she said next surely reflected the thoughts of more than a few of the women on our trip.

Her: “Don’t you just want to take him out there and fuck his brains out?”

Eva: “Uhhhh.”

Her: “And this is what got me in trouble last night, I think.”



Canyon cheesecake (Boatman Art & Swamper Den).

Next: 11 – Just One Word

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9 – NIPPLE BEERS -- “Grand Canyon Rafting – A Dozen Little Stories”

Some stories, titillating though they may be, stay in the Canyon.

"Wayne, you're just having too much fun." –Rafter Ray

Next: 10 – It Doesn’t Wash Off

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8 – FRED’S LIZARD -- “Grand Canyon Rafting – A Dozen Little Stories”

“Pretty soon you starting hanging back, saying, ‘I can’t run any faster.’ And then the lion gets you.” –Rafter Ray, during a wheezing Day 2 hike, contemplating the reality of our mutual aging.

No one had less business being on our raft trip through the Grand Canyon than Fred. His sister, Arlene, tried mightily to talk him out of it. But Fred had been on the trip before; he was a big boy – literally – and knew what he was getting himself into.

Out of shape and overweight, Fred, a retired bail-bondsman from Bullhead City, Arizona, probably should have stayed home. “He told me the trip would give him the incentive to lose 40 pounds,” Arlene explained to me, as if needing to apologize for her brother’s handicap. “Obviously, that didn’t work.”

Like aging itself, a Grand Canyon raft trip is not for sissies. You’re on and off the raft many times daily, and no one is holding a ladder.

You ride the river sitting on gear or sprawled on the deck. There are no seat belts; you hang on to any handy strap or rope, which hold the raft and its gear together. You wade in the sometimes mucky river to bathe and to pee. You sleep on cots out in the open and haul your own gear back and forth. You bake in the sun in hundred-degree heat all day long. It’s physical.

It’s also healthy. There’s no fast food, only the precisely planned and deliciously prepared food from the guides. You’re active all the time. I can’t imagine anyone gaining weight on the trip, although the volume of spirits downed might negate some of the healthy lifestyle.

The closest to junk food I saw was a trail mix being passed around the raft. Someone asked, “Do the M&M’s melt in your hand?”

Fred immediately volunteered, “Not in my hand.”

Snickers.

Fred: “I heard that.”

Me: “You said it.”

Someone else: “It’s just, the more you think about it…”

At that point, we laughed and changed the subject.

Fred struggled, and as the week progressed he grew more content to relax on the beach while others took hikes. For all his challenges, however, here’s the thing about Fred. Not once did I hear him complain about anything. Not the heat – even though sometimes I pictured his reddening countenance on the raft as a giant kielbasa broiling under the sun. Not the sand, not his frequent falling on his butt when getting on and off the raft. Not even when he came real close to killing himself.

It was Day 3 and we had hiked up the bank of the Little Colorado River. The water ran like chocolate milk, a natural phenomenon after runoff from upstream monsoon storms the prior week. Fred paused on the trail next to some large jagged boulders along the river. From the corner of my eye, I caught his movement, a completely unnatural phenomenon as he lost balance and toppled backwards like a felled tree, ending up stretched out on the rocks with his head down between the rocks and lower than his feet.

Several of us rushed to his aid, including, Eva, a nurse practitioner. Somehow, Fred had protected the back of his head with a hand, and, remarkably, he seemed uninjured. Others with backs stronger than mine pulled Fred’s bulk upright. It was a close call. 

As Fred was escorted back to the raft, a few of us hiked farther up the river and lingered until the appointed time to return. On my walk back, I stopped at the spot of Fred’s fall and marveled at how easily a simple slip could have been catastrophic, even deadly. How different our trip would have been.

Then I noticed that staring back at me from the same rock where Fred’s head had nearly ended its life was a lizard. Nothing special, just an ordinary lizard. Except for one thing. This one now has a name: Fred’s Lizard.

Next: 9 – Nipple Beers

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