It didn’t
even have a real name, just a number corresponding to the river miles we had
covered since embarking from Lee’s Ferry seven days earlier. How bad could it
be?
As you approach
the really serious rapids in the Grand Canyon, it often looks as if you’re heading
for the edge of an infinity pool; the river simply vanishes. Nearer, however, and
white flecks appear beyond – the crests of garage-sized waves that await. As
the raft falls over the cliff of water and you’re looking ahead, mostly down, into a churning abyss, you may
wonder, “How is this possible? How on earth will we survive this?”
I hadn’t
heard whether Art had warned us that 232 Mile Rapid was a “one-hander,”
“two-hander,” or “three-hander if you got ‘em.” I was straddling the right front
of the raft’s sausage-like tube. My left hand was locked tight to the raft
by a strap, my right one waving the air like
a bronco rider.
Although 232
Mile Rapid drops “only” seven feet, my point of the raft slammed into the base
of the biggest standing wave. A wall of frigid water engulfed me, sweeping me
from my perch. I went air-borne – or water-borne, it was hard to tell the
difference. I heard Art’s first rule echo in my head:
“Don’t let
go. You might feel like you’re swimming, but as long as you’re holding on, you’re
on the boat. Don’t let go.”
As we
tumbled through the rest of the rapid, I realized that the strap I clenched hadn’t
been my only lifeline. A fellow-rafter, aghast at my aerial acrobatics, had
grabbed my jacket under my neck, holding my throat for (what she must have
thought was) dear-life.
“He survived
the rapid fine but suffered a broken trachea,” I laughed, coughing out river
water as we recovered. I blamed the well-intended intervention on my nearby
wife, who constantly chided me about being more cautious. But Eva informed me
later that it had been another woman who had “saved” me. I never got a chance
to thank her.
* * *
There is no
doubt, however, that the rapids’ dangers are real. It’s no Disney ride.
As we had drifted
downstream just before reaching Lava Falls Rapid, the last really dangerous one
of the trip, Boatman Art shared a story clearly intended to give our ride an
extra edge. It seems that Art’s father, Paul, also had run rafts through the
Canyon, although “he wasn’t known as the best boatman on the river,” Art
admitted.
Paul was
among the pioneers who learned the quirks of the Canyon’s rapids, as well as
the business and challenges of bringing tourists on rafts down the river. What
those early boatmen had figured out, Art explained as we neared our own
rendezvous with Lava Falls Rapid, was how on low water you need to run along
the right-hand shore, and so on. He rattled off the options for different water
conditions like an L.A. commuter talking about rush-hour traffic choices. One
thing for sure, Art emphasized, is that you have to miss the big Ledge Hole right
in the middle of the river. It’s a cauldron of churning water immediately
downstream of a submerged rock.
One time back
in the ‘80s, Art’s father and his 17 passengers had “slammed down in the middle
of that Ledge Hole. You never, never want to be there. It’s a bad spot,” Art
told us.
“His swamper
comes flying off the box and lands in the bottom of the motor well. He leans
down and he grabs him and he picks him up and he puts him on the box, and he looks forward to count everybody and make sure everyone is still on the
boat. All there was on the whole front of the boat was just rubber. There was
nothing left. Even the frame was gone. It busted every strap, every D-ring.
Seventeen people went off the boat with the frame, still holding on.” |
| Throughout his tale, Art demonstrated each move with great animation. |
He paused as everyone laughed, a bit nervously, I thought, and then delivered his punch line:
“They only helicoptered one lady out, and that was really for psychological trauma, I think.”
Imagine our
relief.
As for our ride
through Lava Falls Rapid, it was a bit anticlimactic. I can’t, however, speak
for our two swampers, Den and Duffy, who drove our rafts through the infamous
rapid for their first times ever. |
| Den drives Lava Falls Rapid. |
Duffy told me later, “It is so much fun driving the boat through big water!”
Although Duffy was no novice, having gone down the Canyon 120 times, it always was rowing in dories – never driving the big motorized rafts.
Art
confessed that evening, “I was scared all day long, but they ran really good.”
A rafter
butted in: “To say nothing of all our lives at stake.”
Art: “That’s
not really a consideration.”
We didn’t
quite know how to take that.
* * *
People die
in the Canyon’s rapids – even in the not-so-big-or-special Mile 232 Rapid.
That’s where the 1928 Hyde River Tragedy took place, named for the “Honeymoon
Couple,” Glen and Bessie Hyde. <Story from ASU website> These newlywed adventurers loaded their homemade
wooden scow with supplies (but no life jackets) and a bedspring – after all, it
was their honeymoon – and pushed off in late October from Green River, Utah.
Although
today thousands of people ride the Canyon’s rapids every year, in 1928 only
a total of 45 people had ever boated
down the Canyon. Bessie would become the first woman down the Colorado River –
a certain path to fame and fortune for the Hydes.
When the
couple didn’t show up below the Canyon in early December, as planned, Glen’s
father rushed from Idaho and initiated a massive search. On Christmas morning
the search party found the Hydes’ scow floating calmly a few miles below 232
Mile Rapid. Everything was in place, but there was no trace of the
honeymooners. Their bodies were never found. Historians believe the couple
crashed and perished in 232 Mile Rapid, but no one really knows. You have to
figure, though, that at some point they must have let go.
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