Rafting 5: Too Soon Done

Brave boatmen come, they go, they die, the voyage flows on forever. We are all canyoneers. We are all passengers on this little living mossy ship, the delicate dory sailing round the sun that humans call the Earth.

Joy, shipmates, joy. - Edward Abbey

Glen Canyon NRA, day 5.

There! In the tree! Raoul has found a perch. He's come to say 'goodbye'.

We lingered over our last breakfast together. Recollections of yersterday's thrills powered our conversations. The memories brought smiles to us, even as thoughts of returning to 'civilization' tempered our moods. I took advantage of the unhurried time to interview the others, and to savor the quiet desert canyon one last time.

According to the map, six more rapids awaited us, with names like Satan's Gut, Imperial, Repeat and Powell's Pocketwatch. Following that, we would face a miles-long float to our takeout. Owen reminded us that the upcoming whitewater still could wash us overboard, as he strived to keep us from complacency.

I claimed a seat in the front of the oarboat. Once more I could try for the 'perfect' GoPro video. Nothing comes easy, of course. We couldn't remove the mount attached to Craig's GoPro, so I had to mount his mount on mine, leaving the camera pointed 90° from straight ahead - but since my seat on the thwart had my body facing sideways, it might still work.

"We may still have waves we must punch through," warned Alex. "Let's practice. When I say 'two-punch!', you two [Craig and I] throw your shoulders to the front of the boat. Without letting go of where you're holding on. Ready? Two-punch!" We practiced twice, and Alex reminded us of 'high side' also.

The current caught us and moved us down the river.

In little time the rapids took hold. For fifteen minutes we bobbed and veered as we worked our way through the tumult.

I counted five distinct rapids, barely catching my breath as one's waves ebbed before those of the next greeted us.

The middle stretch of whitewater lasted four minutes without a break,

with the others a bit shorter. The first two served as a preview of more intensity to come, working toward a crescendo for the finish.

The late rapids gave us our biggest challenges outside of the Big Drops.

Waves regularly washed over us, though Craig fared worse and wetter than I.

Too soon it was over. The water calmed as we entered Dark Canyon, the rock walls still enveloping us. Our moods soared at surviving Cataract.

With the river now calm, we shucked our (hot) wetsuits and paddle jackets and took off our PFDs. "But keep them nearby. When we reach the takeout, you need to have your life vests on. Rules, you know..."

"We're now in the upper limits of Lake Powell," Alex informed us. "Years ago, this shoreline was underwater." Years of drought had dropped the lake level, which resulted in a current here. To the sides, we could see a thick cliff of sediment where the stagnant river had deposited its loads.

That sediment severely limited our landing options. On one river bend, the inside corner offered a rock outcropping where the boats (once again, the J-rig pushed the oarboat) could tie off. We four dismounted onto the rock while the crew took the lunch fixings out of the coolers.

They whipped up more salad wraps, then delivered them to us on the rocks. Table service! (Where are the linen tablecloths?)

The J-rig pushed us lazily through the slack water.

We moved about the boats, switching positions and conversations. We watched canyon features - I called this 'The Eye' - pass by.

Alex strummed his guitar. I finished my last interviews.

We had one more stop. The crew found a spot where bushes had stabilized the sediments, so Alex tied us off. Owen produced a bottle of champagne, telling us, "This is where we let the customers toast a successful trip. Sometimes we'll toast with the customers... other times, we'll toast getting rid of them." Of course, they toasted with us. But it inspired another question from me.

"Can you tell us about customers you were happy to be rid of?"

Owen: "There was one guy who didn't care about nature. He would drop litter. He would walk on the biotic soil. On the last morning, I saw an eagle perched on a tree next to camp. When I pointed it out to him, he barely looked up from his cell phone. He was looking at hunting equipment to buy when he got home!"

Alex: "We had one family who fought the whole trip, arguing with each other. I felt so bad for one child - they were transgender. They wanted to be called 'Emily', but his family refused to do so. Sad."

Sav: "There was this girl who talked, and talked, and talked. Constantly. We could have our attention focused on getting through the rapids, and she would be blathering about her cats. Worse, she would ask personal questions. 'Do you have a girlfriend?' she asked Alex. No, we just broke up. 'Oh, I'm sorry. Why did you break up?' And can you believe - while we were setting up lunch, instead of waiting for us to finish, she wandered over to another company's table and started eating. NOT cool."

The sight of the Henry Mountains meant the end had arrived.

It took only a few more minutes on the river to reach our takeout. Instead of winching our boats up the steep ramp cut into the sediment (as the Holiday boats were doing), Owen steered us to the bank below the ramp. There, Alex helped us forge a path up the sediment to the restrooms at the ramp. He had a van parked there.

We said goodbye to Owen and Sav, and Alex drove us five minutes to the Hite airstrip - nothing more than a paved runway and a windsock,

where our flight back to Moab waited. "Goodbye, Alex," and he drove back to his mates. They would float down many more miles to reach the takeout where someone had parked the truck and trailers.

We walked past the sign saying, "Private airstrip, Dangerous" to where Derek prepped his eight-seater plane. He served as gate agent, flight attendant, and pilot, giving us a Flight Safety talk quite removed from the talks I usually ignored on the major airlines. As we boarded, he handed us headphones to cut the noise from the engines, allowing us to talk to each other and him (and hear air traffic control). Then it was contact, engine started, and roll down the runway as we held our breath to see if the plane would go airborne. It did.

We flew low over canyon country, our cameras at the ready.

Spots we experienced up close the last five days - Cataract Canyon, White Rim, the Confluence - sped beneath our wings. Further north, we flew over Canyonlands NP's Island in the Sky district, which I would see from ground level in two days.

At the Canyonlands airport, our driver transferred our red and blue bags to the shuttle bus and drove us back to the office. There we emptied our bags, deposited tips for our guides, and promised each other to share pictures on the internet.

I grabbed a ride back to town with Craig and arranged to meet him for dinner. Finally, I had time to take a wonderful shower, letting the water course over me and wash away five days' worth of accumulated sunscreen.

When Craig came by to pick me up, we first took a few minutes to download the GoPro footage from his camera. Finally, more good video! Thai food called to us, then at Craig' suggestion, we drove to Arches NP for sunset photography. It took several minutes after the sun sunk out of sight for the colors to develop.

Not spectacular, but well worth the effort.

And thus closes another spectacular adventure. As I once again lay in an actual bed, I reflected on this outing which I had so fervently anticipated. It met, if not surpassed, my hopes. The peace of the canyon - the lack of the mundane distractions that batter us day in, day out - recharged me to tackle the task of planning my four remaining trips to finish this challenge. ('Finish' - that sounds strange!) Sav said it well when she reflected how issues on the river are basic and elemental, matters of survival.

A passage in The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko resonated with me:

Of the many attractions that draw people to the bottom of the canyon, perhaps the most potent and beguiling is the realization that the experience is the opposite of a race -- the antithesis of rushing from where you are toward someplace you think you would rather be, only to discover, once you arrive, that your true goal lies somewhere else. That is a defining characteristic of life in the world above the rim, and if there is a point to being in the canyon, it is not to rush but to linger, suspended in a blue-and-amber haze of in-between-ness, for as long as one possibly can. To float, to drift, savoring the pulse of the river on its odyssey through the canyon, and above all, to postpone the unwelcome and distinctly unpleasant moment when one is forced to to reemerge and reenter the world beyond the rim -- that is the paramount goal.