River: Into the Grand Canyon 6, Reflections

We have been off the river for 37 days.  Every time I close my eyes, I see the river, a campsite, canyon walls.  It amazes me.  I listen to the sound track I created in memory of the trip, and I am taken right back to the river.  I feel the water surge, the boat lift, then crash down on a rapid unnamed in my mind.  I hear Annie's laugh.  See Lee's smile.  Wish, as the full moon eclipsed this morning, that I was back in a rock-strewn wash in a slot canyon, watching the moon through a break in the canyon rim.

Off the river, I have time to reflect on parts of the trip that grabbed my attention but defied immediate exploration.  As we floated downriver, nearing the site where we would find potsherds exposed by recent flash floods, I recall Travis' explanation about why the prepuebloan peoples are no longer called Anasazi.  That name, used by white people, actually means "enemy ancestors."  Most tribes call themselves names that simply mean, "The People."  I think about the right and yearning we all have to name and define ourselves.  

As I walked on the good, red dirt of an ancient village, picking up pottery remnants, I wondered if thousands of years from now there will be anything of me that the then people will find.  Will they wonder about our people?  What will those future ones make of our culture?  We will be the primitives then.  The backward ones.  The ones who were not advanced enough to live in peace and care for our planet in a lasting way.  I will leave no potsherds, or marks that someone might discover.  I make words, mostly.  Words that will drift and fade, electronically vaporizing in some not so distant time.  

Pam and I have spent a good amount of time talking about what it was like for each of us to be on the river for seven days.  We were certainly pampered in that we never had to prepare meals or paddle.  Yet the trip did take us out of our comfort zone: living with grit in our teeth and drawers; sometimes sizzling hot, at other times chilled to the bone; plunging and bucking down rapids; bathing in fifty-degree water; sinking knee-deep in mud. 

Seven days off the river I wrote:  It is fine to have had this experience.  To listen to the river at night, to lie under the stars with no tent and no blanket, receiving a shower of blessings falling from distant stars and the moon.  I think it is good for us to remember that we can still "tough it out."  This is a good thing…to be jerked from our everyday, easy routines and left mostly dependent on our ability to cope with the extraordinary at 67 and almost 70.  Would we do this again?  Pam says no, once was enough.  At day 37 off the river, I think, perhaps…

Actually being on and in the Colorado River brought the whole issue of water very up close and personal (up my nose and in my ears as well).  Due to the demands we make on this great and mighty river that has tossed us about like so much flotsam, it discharges into the Gulf of California as a relative trickle.  We humans have done a great deal of harm to the land and water on which we depend for our very survival.  We wonder what will be the world that our grandkids and their children inherit?  

Denise Chavez's invocation from Writing Down the River:

A Litany for Sentient Beings

Blue sky.  Bless me.  Wall of rock.  Bless me.  Animal friends:  Red Ant, Blue Heron, Raven, Bighorn Sheep, Chuckwalla, Canyon Rattlesnake and Spiny Lizards.  Bless me.  Plant friends:  Desert Willow, Brittlebush, Snakeweed. Bless me.  This is your home. I am merely a visitor.  Bless me, be gentle with me.  Let me pass through your beauty unharmed.  Let me pass through your world not harming any as I go.

Weeks ago, I began this blog with thoughts from its first recorded explorer, John Wesley Powell.  I will conclude with the words of Theodore Roosevelt, who loved this land and realized that we must treasure and preserve it:

"I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature [the Grand Canyon] as it now is. I hope you will not do... anything...to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it."

 Lasting reflections from beginning to end...

Petroglyphs

 And Lee!

Cookin' the Captain's Dinner...  

  

Thanks to our readers

Fall on the Edge of Winter

From the deck off our bedroom…Ypsilon Mountain

It is always with mixed emotions that we pack up to leave either the mountains or the prairie.   Summer has gone from the mountains, fall is fading and it is time for us to head east.  There will be one more River blog, but it needs a bit more time.

This morning, we got a beautiful parting gift…a spectacular sunrise.  All day yesterday, snow fell on the mountains in the Park.  Rising, the sun turned everything pink for just a few minutes.  It was magic.  Now Trail Ridge Road is closed, maybe not for the season, but certainly for the next few days.  We hear reports of four feet of new snow up there.  We are in the middle of the elk rut and people are flocking to Estes Park from near and far to watch the elk in their annual courting, defending, bugling rituals.  Truly, pictures speak better than my words.  So here, for your enjoyment are some images from our sunrise this morning, and a few of our Rocky Mountain Fall.

  

 

  

Color in Rocky…Hallett's Peak and Flat Top Mountain in the back

Himself, in the early morning

Back in Little Valley, Kristi stops for afternoon tea, while Tonya the turkey looks in the window 

(Lyn Ferguson photo)

…and yes, Tonya is a wild turkey who hangs out here

  

Color flanking Little Valley Road

Aspen turning…up close and very personal

Farewell to Windwalker…for now

River: Into the Grand Canyon 5, In Camp

Room for four in the arms of tamarind trees

"BUMP!" shouts Shad as the five tubes of our J-Rig hit the beach.  Travis runs forward and vaults to the shore with ropes to tie us up for the night.  We all begin to stand, uncurl, and stretch cramped legs and arms.  "OK…the kitchen will go right here in front of the bow and the toilet will be up there behind those trees."  At least one person from each couple or group hits the beach and begins a search for "the perfect" place to set up for the night.  Soon, we are joined by the others carrying day bags and water bottles.  Sites are approved or moved, and then, "FIRE LINE!"

Most of us shag on down to the raft and form a line.  A few of the guys get up on the tubes and Shad and Travis begin handing down camp essentials:  tables, pots, utensils, gas bottle for the kitchen, then, "CHAIRS!" and bags of chairs are passed up the beach, hand-to-hand.  "COTS!" and they go up the beach in their bags.  "DRY BAGS!"  and the big, personal gear bags come off.  We grunt, and groan, and curse people whose bags weigh more than the 20 allotted pounds.  We praise those whose bags are light, and threaten to drop the really heavy ones overboard in the morning.  "Take Five," means that's it and we can begin to carry to our camp spots, shed wet clothes, make clotheslines, and gear up for a bath.  

A few stragglers hang around the raft, "Tents?" one calls up.  "Tense?" answers Shad.  "Nah, I'm never nervous."  "No.  Tents!"  "I'm just not an anxious guy."  "I mean TENTS!"  "Oh," laughs Shad, throwing a couple of tent bags to the sand.  "That's what you want?"  Unless it is raining or looks like rain, most of us just put up cots, throw sleeping bags on the cots and flop out on top of the bags with the stars and night sounds as our shelter.  

 At this point the guides and Judy begin with dinner prep as the rest of us hang clothes, set up cots, and go back into the river to bathe ("Guys go downriver there, women you have the area upstream.")  Some of us bathe by taking clothes off in the river, others just apply soap under and over whatever they have on.  About the time we arrive back at our camp area, Travis or Shad blows the conch shell and we hear, "hors d'oeuvres are served!"  A circle of chairs has magically appeared next to the kitchen.  We grab our plate and utensils and drinking mug and claim a chair.  Beer drinkers rifle through the drag bags to find their own cold beers, and I scramble through one of the big coolers on board the raft to find our wine.  The chardonnay is in boxes, but the boxes disintegrate after the first day and we are left with plastic bladders filled with yellow liquid.  Looks like a bladder of pee, but tastes just fine.  

On the first night, Shad takes the women aside to have a pee talk.  "We know it's tough in the night when you don't want to wade back into the river, so…we have a present for you."  He hands out clear plastic containers with Ace Hardware written on the sides.  "Just pee in here, cap it, and empty it in the morning.  Simple as that."  By the third day, Jeanne quietly asks Shad for an extra Ace container, and nonchalantly shows up in the hors d'oeuvre circle sipping from her "Pee Bucket," as we call them.  The wine is indeed pee-toned.  She is a big hit.

We sit and drink, talk about the day and show off new scrapes and bruises; all the while the guides are chopping, sautéing, and assembling.  The conch sounds again and we rise to queue up for dinner.  Faced with primitive conditions and limited to what could be carried and kept fresh on a raft for seven days, what did we eat?  Chicken, rice, veggies, and salad; steak and a potato bar; fajitas, rice, and beans; hamburgers and brats; and two specialty meals--Italian night,  featuring pasta with chicken, and garlic bread with bananas foster for dessert (yes, real ice cream!), and our last evening's meal, the Captain's Dinner--shrimp cocktails for hors d'oeuvres, and trout and potatoes.  For dessert, Travis bakes a white cake and adds chocolate frosting.  

The third night out, the wind begins to blow during dinner and soon we hear distant thunder and see lightning far down the canyon, so far away that no one seems overly concerned.   Armed with headlamps, we straggle down to the river to brush teeth and then settle down to sleep on our cots.  

But within thirty minutes, the wind picks up and the thunder is louder, the lightning closer.  Then Shad and Travis are running along the beach distributing tents.  Fortunately, most of us remember their tent-pitching demonstration, and soon blue tents spring up all over.  We move our cots inside just as the first rain begins to patter on the fly.  The wind picks up and I turn on my headlamp to find the zipper to close the "windows" in the tent. Super-fine sand is blowing sideways and through the fabric of our tent.  We get the windows closed and then fall asleep.  Hours later?  Minutes?  I'm not sure, but our tent is blowing over on top of us.  We push back with our hands and the tent rights itself.  Rain is pelting down, wind whirls.  Water is leaking in from somewhere. 

In the morning we learn that Lee and Jeanne's tent completely collapsed during the height of the storm.  "All of a sudden it was on top of us.  We used our feet to hold it off of us, but then the rain started coming in.  Our sleeping bags were getting wet, so we opened up and crawled outside.  It was pouring and blowing.  Somehow we managed to get the tent poles back into their notches, but one got broken and bent in the wind.  We were able to straighten it and jam it together and climb back inside.  By then, the wind was backing off a bit, and the rain was stopping.  We were wet.  Our sleeping bags had big wet patches and we had about an inch of rain on the tent floor,"  Our first clue to this havoc was Jeanne and Lee hanging everything they owned on the bushes around our tent sites in the morning.  What a night!

The guides rise with the sun...about 5:30 a.m.  They get water going for cowboy coffee--loose grounds in the huge coffee pot--and tea, and begin to assemble breakfast.  As we hear them, we roll from our cots and begin to gather clothes scattered about on bushes and makeshift clothes lines.  When the coffee and tea water is ready, we hear the conch shell.   Some of us are already in line to use the toilet, others are packing, dressing or tooth brushing and face washing in the 50-degree river.   A few others sit in the social circle and drink coffee.  Before or after breakfast, we roll sleeping bags, shake out ground tarps and stow them back in the bottom of the big personal bags. Cots are disassembled and bagged, and when all is done, we pile the equipment down by the boat.  When the conch blows again, it's breakfast.  Before every meal and after using the official toilet, we thoroughly wash our hands in a clever two-bucket system.  Then, before dishing up, we rub in hand sanitizer.  What did we have for breakfast?  During the course of our trip we eat  fresh fruit, orange juice, toast or muffins, french toast, breakfast meat, scrambled eggs, eggs Benedict (yes), bagels, cream cheese, assorted jams and jellies and honey.  After breakfast and dinner, there is a four-bucket dishwashing system.  Each person washes his or her own plate, cup, and utensils then puts them in a zip lock that is stowed in the personal dry bag.  We do not use plates or cups at lunch.  But lunches are worth mentioning.  No plates or utensils because all lunch items can be "handled."  Curried chicken or tuna salad we can put in conical wraps (very clever) or on three different kinds of bread, assorted sandwich makings--one day pastrami 'n fixin's, chips, condiments, and cookies.

While we eat, the guides begin to clean and pack up the kitchen while eating their own breakfast.  By the time we finish, the kitchen is packed and waiting on the beach to be loaded.  Soon, "FIRE LINE!" is called and the usual suspects line up and we begin moving our equipment.  "Take Five!" call the guides when all is aboard.  They throw giant tarps over all equipment, then strap and tuck and tighten everything.  "Last call for the toilet..." the line dwindles to one, then no one and Travis moves in to secure the toilet gear.  When all is ready we climb on, push off and give ourselves once again to the river. 

As you will see in the pictures, Italian night and the Captain's Dinner were very special.  Attire for the Captain's dinner:  Gentlemen must wear ties, ladies must wear skirts. 

Fire line…personal dry bags 

Picking up personal gear

Set up and waiting for the conch to sound

Cots and personal gear on our bedside tarps

Cots into the tent ahead of the rain!

Hand washing…soap up, rub it in, step on pump, and rinse at spigot in empty bucket

Ahhh…the throne!  Usually best view in the house from here

  

"Cheers!"  Jeanne and her cocktail pee bucket…the fans love it

Fixin' hors d'oeuvres

Italian night…Perry Como singing through the iPhone speaker

Captain's Dinner 

Lyn and Kristi

Sande and John

Lee--our personal pick for best dressed, and...

Judy, Travis, and Shad--Captain's Dinner

  

Travis serenades on our last night

Good night, Moon

River: Into the Grand Canyon, 4 Slot Canyon and Poetry

Moonrise above the canyon walls

Our favorite hike, Pam's and mine, is one led by Shad in the hours before dinner on Day 4.  The afternoon is soft and mellow.  We've traveled a particularly rough stretch of rapids this day and only a few of us follow our guide as he heads out for a slot canyon upriver, a narrow floor between two walls of rock that reach to the sky.  A large Sacred Datura, mother plant of dreamers, nestles in the shade near the mouth of the canyon.  As we enter, a lizard scurries from the sand to the safety of a wall of rock.  Her colors somehow blend with any and all of the contrasting rock layers she traverses.  These canyons are particularly dangerous during rain storms, as there are few places one can escape a deluge of rushing water roaring through such confined space.  Beings of all kinds die in slot canyons. 

 High above us, the sky is clear and blue.  It is very quiet.  No river sounds, no wind, the hikers hushed, respectful.  The only sound is river rock crunching beneath our sandals.  Lee and I fall behind the others early on, taking pictures of the walls, the sky, rocks, lizards, tadpoles skittering across small pools of water, and the backs of our fellow hikers.  

In some places it is cool and dim; in others, the sun still stretches fingers down to the rock-strewn floor.  The others are stopped ahead of us, bending over something at the foot of the wall.   It is a Western Tanager, dead.  Shad tells us that a storm the previous week was so violent (he was on the river guiding), that he finally had to turn his boat around because he couldn't see anything in the downpour and the driving wind. As we pay homage to the bird, Shad shakes his head and says the storm was surely strong enough to knock a bird out of the sky.

A bit further the remains of a bobcat, probably caught in the same flash flood, lies twisted, mouth wide open in what might have been an angry and disbelieving scream.  Climbing up a lip in the riverbed, we meet backpackers coming off the canyon trail.  They seek a sand bar on which to camp for the night.  We talk a bit, Shad offers them anything they need from our raft and directs them to a beach just below our camp.

We walk on.  The walls open out and we can see that the sun is going down.  As the canyon opens into a large amphitheater of flared walls and ledges, we pick our way upward along pale yellow layers of sedimentary rock.  Shad stops here, offers us a seat, and passes out trail bars. We drink water and spread out on shelves of still-warm rock as the sun cools.  As on every hike, Travis' mom Judy is with us.  Shad pulls out a book and tells us he's going to read to us.  "I dropped out of college after the first semester," he tells us, with what looks like a tinge of regret, "but I did have a chance to meet this great teacher, David Lee, and this is one of his poems.  It's hard to read 'cause it's in dialect but…here goes." 

"Ugliest man in town

was Rafael Martinez…

this one morning he woke up

wished he hadn't of

couldn't stand up the pain was so bad

he known he couldn't live with it

he found his pistol

put it in his mouth and pulled

bullet torn out his cheekbone

shot off half his ear

never hit no brains at all

and that was his only bullet left…"

We snuggle down into the rock.  Out beyond the lip of the amphitheater is more wall and at the top, a notch across the canyon rim. The whole thing is glowing gold in the setting sun.  The almost-full moon slowly rises like a lazy balloon, perfectly framed in the notch.  The sky is the blue of night coming.  

Shad continues:

"…so after he waited to die

and finally didn't

taken his knife

cut his throat but didn't hit a vein

stabbed hisself but the blade was turned wrong…"

Shadows lengthen, and the moon rises higher until it is free of the canyon walls.  Golden rock, soft words, dark canyon walls.  Big moon rising.  It is magic.  

Sacred Datura

Jeanne and John with a cairn marking the way…

Big rock, little people

She blends

 No matter the colors

Amazing rock

Looks poured

Tadpoles

These walls…

Bobcat

River rock

 Shad's poetry reading