Windwalker's Mountain Post: 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.