This morning, we were not woken by the familiar rounds of a boatman announcing first-call for coffee. We were sprung out of sleep by a shriek rendered by Ellen, who was having a close encounter with wildlife. A visitor had found its way into her tent and subsequently crawled atop her while she slept. From the fear in that piercing scream, you would have been certain that a mountain lion, rattlesnake, or scorpion was keeping her company – not a little old mouse.

Exiting camp is ever more expeditious as the routine becomes a habit and we master the art of speed packing. We deliver our dry bags at lightning speed to the rafts before a quick breakfast and the preparation of another sack lunch prior to our departure. Into the rapids we go; the first is the namesake of our camp, Olo, which means horse in the Havasupai language. The next rapid would require fixing the helmets to our noggins – Upset Rapid. Both were run with the efficiency and skills we have become accustomed to, not to imply this whitewater business is being taken for granted. The boatmen have not stopped reminding us of our role in maintaining safety and the danger that is never far from snatching one or all of us from a dory should we stop paying attention to the river and the instructions of our boatman.

The Canyon walls are close to the river today, the shadows especially dark. Our time on the water this morning is brief, although we travel 11 miles before our first stop. Along the way, we pass over more of these intriguing river phenomena known as boils. This is appropriately named as that’s just what the river looks like it’s doing: boiling. Below the surface, the uneven terrain of the riverbed or a rock pile alters the flow of water. The blockage allows some of the water to flow downstream over the obstacle while another part is redirected back upstream. Between these two flows, the rest of the water is pushed straight up, creating the appearance of a boiling cauldron.

Briefly, a glimmer of sunlight finds its way into the labyrinth, but before we know it, we are rowing back into deeper shadows, walled in by stone monoliths. Remember, these are not just any old rocks; these are far from boring. Here in the Canyon, it would be foolish not to look closer, even stare, at the rocks. These are the reflections of our history. This is where you are allowed to have your very own peek at prehistoric Earth. If you are interested in Earth’s story, take time prior to your excursion into the Southwest and “bone up” on the mineral and fossil history to be found here. Get excited before starting out on your own journey into a better understanding of our paleontological roots.

Above the river on the cliffside, there appear to be the remains of a cave, but upon closer inspection, it looks like fragments of travertine. Now smashed to bits by rockfalls of cleaving stone and heavily eroded over the centuries, the limestone formations beg for interpretation. The jumble of broken shapes and varied colors appear to have been stalactites, but that will be the most I can decipher as we float by.

When the river is calm, and a burst of direct sunlight falls on the steep cliff-sides buffeting our course, the mirrored riverway ahead of us shines brightly. On the surface of the Colorado, the horizon begins to blur. I scan the river, looking for that perfect window into the opposite view of what is sitting above the waterline. The reflecting glow of the Canyon, topped and bottomed with deep blue sky, asks us to stop, take a deep breath, and savor these moments.

Pulling around the next bend in the river, we are about to witness another iconic location. Our first glimpse of the milky turquoise waters of Havasu Canyon comes into focus. They are flowing out of Havasu Canyon to mix with the sediment-rich Colorado. Back on our first day at Lees Ferry, the river ran clear due to the settling of the sequestered Colorado languishing behind Glen Canyon Dam. Over time, the fine sediments that were collected while carving the landscape north of the dammed river find their way to the bottom of Lake Powell, and what is released from the dam is cold green water. As the river continues its journey, many side channels contribute their streams with their own accumulated sediments to the river that continues scouring the main channel. This big river we travel on is laden with the iron-rich ocher-hued sands for which it was named. With the flow of the Colorado having doubled in the last days, there is even more turbulence in the water, agitating the silty bottom and suspending a fine particulate soup that turns the river into a muddy liquid knife, slicing an ever-deepening path through the Canyon.

Just before entering Havasu Canyon, the boatmen work hard to avoid the pull of whitewater that is Havasu Rapid, delivering us to a rocky shelf on river left. They row the empty dories upstream into the narrow canyon mouth. The tie-up is up against the wall of Muav Limestone. The boats are now parked in what looks like a pool of bluish milk. This image is almost as famous as the waterfalls further up Havasu Creek on the Havasupai Indian Reservation. One of the boatmen takes the lead up the streamside trail, and we are soon on our way to discover another of the many famous side canyons.

Our hopes of finding this golden opportunity to visit Mooney Falls, near the capital town of Supai, were dashed, as the rare commodity of time was not ticking in our favor. As early as the day started, and as fast as the boatmen rowed, we would be hard-pressed to visit a fraction of Havasu Canyon, let alone hike the 7 miles to Mooney Falls and back. Maybe summer visits with 16 hours of daylight could offer enough time for river runners to hike in and out, but then again, they’ll be jogging an often precarious trail in 110 degrees of withering heat. We, on the other hand, will have to make camp today before night descends around 6:00 pm.

The hike into Havasu is on limestone stained red from the iron in the rock layers above. We walk over narrow ledges next to soaring cliffs while the sunshine falls on the opposite side of the creek, with little of its warmth bouncing over to our side. Mind you, it’s not cold, just a wee bit chilly in the shadows – and although it is November, I am still comfortable in shorts and a thin shirt. On our scramble to a suitable picnic location that, at a minimum, should be supplying a perfect view with an impressive backdrop, we will be passing through the creek a couple of times.

The water feels awkward to step into, probably due to its peculiar bluish-chalky color. The spring that feeds the creek is mineral-rich and loaded with calcium carbonate, the stuff of travertine and cave formations. While it is less than knee-deep, we cannot see much more than an inch past its surface and must be especially careful where we place our next step. The creek is also much warmer than the Colorado we left behind. We carefully wade across, facing upstream to avoid slipping in the current flowing over the slick rocks.

After a final crossing, we must pass through a tunnel camouflaged as a cave. We scramble through and emerge into a whole new world. The canyon widens, and the sun is within our reach. It will be here that our hike into Havasu Canyon comes to an end. We pause for lunch and enjoy some time to warm our bones and absorb the beauty of the creek. Caroline and I sit on a rock, dip our feet in the water, and enjoy our meal.

This end of the canyon is but a small part of the ancestral lands of the Havasupai tribe. Havasupai means “Blue Water People.” For more than 800 years this canyon and the surrounding area have been their lands. Near extinction just 100 years ago, today, the tribe is still small, with fewer than 650 members. Tourism into their corner of the Canyon now sustains them, while visitors enjoy the strenuous hike to the famous Havasu Falls further up the canyon.

How do our boatmen see their relationship with these canyons? As I lament the brevity of my time to linger in each location and scheme how I will bring as much as possible from this one exposure back home with me, I wonder if this desire to absorb it all can ever be satisfied. While the boatmen will likely return again and again, they also must know that each of the subsequent visits will only be for brief moments. Neither can they be full-time residents here in this corner of the world they are obviously hopelessly attached to. This desire for eternal memories must in some way explain their lasting relationship with running the mighty Colorado. Why else would so many river runners commit to returning season after season? Running the Colorado is not a path to fortunes unless you consider what your heart and mind are rewarded with. Maybe the real wealth comes from the idea and hopes that something so big might someday be truly known or at least better understood.

Could it be that the real magic to be found in this vast National Park is not to be gleaned from the infinite details or the magnitude of beauty but from how this place channels our inner vision to a focus that allows us to look deeper within ourselves? Maybe the time away from the constant electronic noise and our routine, time-consuming activities offers the mind a quiet opportunity to resolve our own conflicts or bring insight into things we might have been unaware of prior to setting foot into the Canyon. For those who might bring their cellphones or iPods down here to play games during the “boring” parts, I wonder how unfamiliar these folks are with the machinations of their own minds. How did they come to perceive nature and their relationship to it as possibly being enhanced through the display of a small electronic screen that entertains them with tiny little pixels?

The two hours slated for today’s visit to Havasu Canyon soon come to an end. I try to convince myself that what I have taken in was enough, but I’m left wanting more. Not having the chance to visit the falls further upstream, Caroline and I vow to dedicate a future visit to a hike down to Supai village, spending a couple of days exploring more of Havasu Canyon. On that trip, we’ll be able to look back to this lucky day when our eyes first caught sight of the luminous, chalky waters that run through here and how we stepped off the dories from the Colorado River to visit the bottom of Havasu Canyon.

While probably displaying a good amount of obsession, it should also be obvious that I am trying to gather as much from this experience as I can. I look forward to sharing and celebrating the rarity of being one of the few humans who will see what I have seen down here. I tease apart every observable angle to lend more gravity to the weight of these memories. My day job here is to memorize the floor plan with a detailed inventory of all that is extraordinary. During the night shift, my sleep continues to explore the uniqueness of this experience. Although my dreams might prove elusive and forgotten to my conscious mind, I can hope that the sights and sounds of each day, the stories heard, and all of these fully lived moments will work together to paint a riot of beauty in the imagination of my resting brain.

Cynicism finally raises its ugly head, asking me: what remains to be seen? Havasu is left behind. Does any more of the extraordinary exist between us and Lava Falls? And then, what comes after that? Is river life going to turn into a routine where expectations of the familiar kill my anticipation of the wonderful? If this moment were a seed sprouting to grow this line of thinking, I could be setting myself up for boredom as I await the grand exit. Just how many iterations of spectacular and beautiful can be had? At some point, we must run into a broad expanse of dull. We’ll row into the doldrums of a wide, flat river with a dreary desert eating the horizon, diminishing our ability to spot the incredible. My anxiety tells me that it’s probably here, right after Havasu Rapid, up around the corner – the forbidden zone. From there, we will suffer the long, slow approach to the punisher known as Lava Falls, which is laying in wait to stomp us into submission before spitting us over to Diamond Creek. There, the rescue team will try and revive our exhausted spirit before we face the return to what was once known as normal.

Nightmares, the folly of our fears. Fortunately for me, I am quickly woken from these fiendish traumas of the imagination. My reawakening occurs on the other side of the river bend. The light here is doing that Grand Canyon thing, where high golden cliffs dip reflections into the river ahead, bringing on a state of visual bliss. We are entering the mirror, passing to the other side where our fairy tale continues. A minute ago, a negative voice rose from dormancy to cast doubt on my ability to see that great brilliance is always just around the corner. How do I sear the lesson of optimism into my memory?

Our next mile sees the sun moving lower, ratcheting up the shades of gold, and delivering even greater wealth without so much as a wish. Days ago, back at Redwall Cavern, I wondered about the boatmen’s impeccable sense of timing; here we are again approaching one of those junctures. As the Earth spins us toward evening, we are passing through the late afternoon on a stretch of river with sparkling sunbeams leaping off whitecaps that rise out of a shimmering black highway to another world. Just as quickly as the glimmers spring into my eyes, they are equally fast to subside, extinguished with their fall back into the Colorado. As the river works to steal the sun, it also absorbs any ambient noise, aside from the slip of the oar. I am left with the idea that I am floating in space with a billion shining stars pulling me further into the universe. The oars are the propulsion system for our spaceship. Legends arise out of these moments; mythologies gain epic scope from this display of imagery, transporting us across space and time into the infinite.

Up to this point in the story, I have shared one of the difficulties facing me on this trip: my fear of heights. There is one other issue that nearly stood in the way of being able to make it this far – I have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a condition that stops me from breathing while I sleep until I briefly wake and gasp violently for air. These episodes are particularly bad in my case, lasting for 19 seconds on average. My wife had complained about my snoring for years, often telling me of my struggle to breathe during the night. Since I did not believe her, she recorded me and then frightened me with what I heard. A doctor’s appointment and a sleep study later, I was set up with a CPAP device and have been well-rested ever since. Sleep apnea need not be a huge problem; it is easily treatable – as long as one has access to electricity, which I do when at home or in hotels. However, these dories do not travel with generators, there are no riverside outlets, no opportunity to recharge batteries, and during the short days of fall, not enough sunshine to effectively use solar panels. Add to this that we plow through rapids daily, where solar panels would exit the boat lickety-split or at least be destroyed by the water crashing over the bow. Yet I needed a solution that would power my CPAP and enable me to sleep soundly for at least a majority of the 17 nights we would be in the Canyon.

For months, I was not able to find useful information beyond hunters using their truck batteries for a couple of nights or folks in storm-prone Florida who had tried various one- or two-day options during occasions when the electricity was knocked out by a passing hurricane. As the weeks went by and it grew closer to the date when we could still cancel with the hope of seeing some refund of our investment, I was getting nervous. I even read of someone who dragged two 40-pound deep cycle marine batteries on a raft for his Grand Canyon trip. Prior to his departure, he had also arranged to have two fully charged replacement batteries delivered by mule to Phantom Ranch, the halfway point, with the two depleted batteries to be carried out using the same expensive four-legged method.

It was looking as if people with sleep apnea had given up on exotic adventures that required them to go off-grid for any period of time. Then, just a couple of weeks before we would have to cancel, I spoke with Chris, the owner of TheCpapShop.com. He thought he might have an answer in the form of a nine-pound 10”x7”x3” battery. What he didn’t have was concrete information on how others had fared with this compact and relatively lightweight potential solution. He had sold this type of battery before to travelers going off the grid, once to someone who was taking an African safari and another time to someone who was trekking the Himalayas – unfortunately, they never got back to him regarding the battery’s performance. Chris was willing to work with me to determine the best solution that could meet my needs, so I ordered a test unit.

After four weeks of keeping meticulous records of the number of hours and minutes that I used the battery, I calculated that I would need to bring two of these units with me into the Canyon. A few days later, I received the second battery. I packed both into a waterproof, crushproof Pelican case with room left over for the CPAP unit, almost a dozen batteries for my camera, batteries for my GoPro waterproof video camera, and my wife’s waterproof camera. I also found space for batteries for our GPS, headlamps, and a small tent lantern. Oh yeah, and my writing materials and my 70-200mm zoom lens, although it didn’t stay in there long. The entire setup weighed in at 38 pounds – two pounds lighter than one marine battery, and no need to employ the pricey mules.

The batteries were to supply my CPAP with a hair more than 40 hours each. This would give me five hours per night of restful sleep, leaving me with one night to rattle my fellow campers with bombastic snoring. I thought I could live with this, and I did. For my efforts, I was able to offer sound advice regarding a lightweight remedy to a problem more and more people are starting to deal with while making this trip that much more enjoyable for my wife and me. The generosity offered by Chris helped me put together a solution that would bring us to new adventures in locations where electricity is not to be found and where bulk and weight limitations have to be taken into consideration.

So, if you should find yourself wanting to experience the trip of a lifetime, but an ailment is giving you pause, I suggest you dig deep into resolve and find a solution and way to live your dreams regardless. Talk to outfitters to determine if they have a record of other clients who had to deal with an issue similar to your own; search the internet and find what it will take to overcome personal challenges that might be inhibiting you from full participation in the adventure of life. However, one defines adventure.

This brings me to another story of overcoming adversity, and it stems from the efforts made by one of our boatmen, Jeffe Aronson. Jeffe founded an operation known as Jumping Mouse Camp, where he and many other volunteers, including Joe Biner, brought people with special needs, and in some instances life-threatening illnesses, into the world of whitewater adventure. For some of these lucky adventurers, it may have been the single greatest opportunity to connect with nature. For others, it was the chance to better understand their own place in the scheme of things and find a kind of peace with their situation. These journeys of the heart enabled the participants to share the tears of accomplishment in a world not known for sharing the emotions of personal challenges. These specially crafted, laborious life trips were not to last – the program ultimately came to a halt. For those lucky enough to have participated they gathered the strength and manifested the necessary gumption to board a raft, be shot over the whitewater, and explore the Grand Canyon. As they survived Lava Falls, Crystal, and the inner Canyon, they were also busy surviving life. I am certain the memories of this epic mouse tale live on in their hearts.

My sleep apnea was an easy obstacle to overcome; the inner strength of a person locked into a wheelchair without the use of their own arms or legs to take such an adventure is an act of courage that should be an inspiration to all of us. It was Bruce who read us the story of Jumping Mouse from the book There’s This River…Grand Canyon Boatman Stories. Caroline and I had read this story in the months prior to our departure and promptly forgot the names of many of the characters until now. We had not realized that it was this very boatman named Jeffe who was so instrumental in forging these legendary experiences – now a hero in our eyes.

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.

We wake to chaos. Who would have guessed that two days in the same camp would make us so comfortable that our home away from home would have time to fall into disarray? But this is just how the inside of our tent looks this morning – chaotic. Clothes that were hanging out to dry yesterday were tossed in late last night due to the boatmen’s prediction for a dewy night. Good thing we brought the laundry in because their read on the weather was spot on. Had we left the clothes outside, we would have had to pack them, still damp, into one of the gallon Ziploc bags we were told to use for our stuff in case of dry bag failure. Clouds stopped short of forming in our toasty tent while the dew painted the nylon walls with streamlets of moisture and speckled the ceiling with a smattering of water drops. Reluctantly returning to the routine of a quick clean-up and packing our gear, we bring the tent down and watch two days of fine-grain sand merge with enough water to make clay. No time to sweat the small stuff, though; we were told to be ready for an early exit from camp today.

After a quick breakfast of hot 9-grain cereal with dried cranberries and almonds offered as deluxe add-ins, we turn around to make a sack lunch, as today’s plan is to bring lunch with us on our hike. This is probably a good dieting routine – after getting my fill of breakfast, the sandwich I make is much smaller than if I were to make one at lunchtime, where my need to stave off hunger until dinner usually encourages me to stack my sandwich high with two of everything. Right after breakfast, I am still able to act responsibly and tread lightly on indulgence.

Initially, the plan was that the most robust hikers would take off on a difficult seven-mile trail that would consume the better part of the day. This type of hike requires one of the boatmen to accompany the overland travelers to our common destination four miles downstream. With one of our boatmen not available to row, one of the boats would need to be left on shore here at camp. Once those not out on the hike arrive at the rendezvous spot, two of the boatmen would have to hike back to retrieve the boat left onshore upstream. Remember that phrase, “Indecision is the key to flexibility?” Well, here it is being put to work; those plans are now no longer our plans. Late last night, the boatmen learned via the satellite phone (the same phone that is used in case of emergency to summon the dreaded air evacuation services) that the folks up at Glen Canyon Dam have decided to increase the flow of water from a steady 8,000 cubic feet per second to a peak of 16,000 CFS. Thus, it was determined that leaving a dory or a raft at Tapeats Creek was becoming too risky, as the rising water could easily unmoor the abandoned craft. To avoid losing one of our boats, the entire group leaves via the river.

On our way downstream, Jeffe, whose dory we are planted in today, notices a waterfall he had never seen before on river right. This catches me by surprise, as I had easily imagined these frequent fliers of the Colorado must have seen it all by now. Here is Jeffe on his 117th journey through the Grand Canyon, and he is seeing something new. I can comprehend how a man on foot would only see a tiny fraction of this Canyon, even after having walked a thousand miles or more, but Jeffe has rowed, floated, or otherwise traveled roughly 25,000 river miles on the relatively narrow waterway carved through this southwest corner of the Colorado Plateau. If by foot or by river, over many a year and an extraordinary number of miles, these old hands of the Canyon are still finding something new, I must accept that no one will ever know the entirety of the Grand Canyon.

When you realize that no one, not a solitary soul, will ever know all of this single National Park, how will any of us ever succeed in knowing much of anything at all about the planet we are living on? Yet people sitting in front of a television are content to act as armchair experts on subjects they may know little of outside of what that box of electronics has just told them. Our lack of meaningful real-world experience doesn’t stop us from forming maligned and uninformed gut feelings that we are allowed to vote on. How does one develop and mature a level of awareness about our natural world and how little we individuals truly understand or will ever know about it? My heart sinks at the thought that after billions of years of life’s progress we humans should wield so much power through ignorance.

Row, row, row your boat quickly down the stream. At lightning speed, we arrive at our trailhead, pulling up to shore to start the ascent up Deer Creek – mile 136.9. The dories and rafts are tied up high in anticipation that the river will be rising dramatically while we are up the creek. Next to the pull-in, not far from where we are about to start a scramble over some rather sharp and jagged rocks, is a gorgeous waterfall exiting a narrow slot high above us. The trail climbs steeply, giving us those views that in and of themselves would satisfy the cost of being here. Hand over foot, we climb what for me seems like a near-vertical ascent until reaching a shelf that will take us deeper into the side canyon.

The group story takes a pause here for me. The exposure, the sheer drop-off, and the loud rushing water, out of sight deep below, are too much for my occasional yet strong feelings of anxiety brought on by a fear of heights that isn’t always easily manipulated by my will. Just behind and below me right here, Deer Creek races on its way to the pour-over to become the waterfall that we admired down at the riverside. In my mind’s eye, I can see clearly how my 240-pound mass tumbles into the stream only to be spit out over the falls, to the shock of sunbathers below. Stunned, they might wonder out loud, “Just what the heck is that fat bearded guy doing?” before recognizing that I am not likely to survive landing on the rocks of the shallow pool I am accelerating towards. With the final scene of my internal movie over and my adrenaline pumping, I consider that this isn’t even the worst part of the trail – it gets narrower ahead. I ponder for two seconds what could be lost were I not to see what was up the canyon. The “Throne Room” sounds intriguing, and another spectacular waterfall is somewhere up there as well, but in what I hope is a wise decision, I opt to turn around now. For a second, I felt I could get over myself and press on; I’d done it before under other circumstances and was happier for my effort, but here and now, in this environment, I do not want to find myself on the other side of something that I might not be able to return from without insurmountable panic. So instead of putting the group, my wife, and myself into a situation where that satellite phone would have to summon a rescue operation, I suck up my predicament and turn to hike back down.

My wife graciously insists that she will return to shore with me. A little reassurance lets her know that I’ll be fine hanging out by the lower waterfall on my own and that she should go on to see this for the two of us. So here is Caroline’s impression of her time in Deer Creek Canyon as she related it to me later:

I continued on with the group bearing some apprehension myself about the width of the trail. They say that when couples are together long enough, they begin to take on the mannerisms and, to some extent, even some of the physical characteristics of their mate. For me, I have gradually picked up on John’s fear of heights – but nowhere to the extent, it affects him. If he thought the part of the trail where he left looked bad, I was happy he made the decision to turn around because further ahead, things got worse. A barely two-foot-wide ledge required us to scoot sideways, facing the cliff wall, gripping a thin rib of sandstone for stability while performing a daredevil crab walk. There were a couple of people who benefited from one of the boatmen offering a reassuring hand behind their back to steady them on this short section that felt inches wide. I focused on my hands holding the sandstone in front of me and kept taking tiny steps to the right. This part of the trail isn’t long and was crossed in just a few seconds, but you are right on the edge.

Beyond this big-time exposure, the trail opened up to the Patio. A group of boaters on their own trip were already hanging out here, giving me the feeling it was a little crowded. While some of our group stayed, I continued on with Bruce and First Light Frank. Leaving the narrows of the slot canyon, we walked into an expansive and lush green valley. I almost felt like we had left the Canyon and had fallen into Zion National Park. All of a sudden, we were surrounded by a dense forest of cattails taller than me, high grasses, cacti, a ton of flowers, and large cottonwood trees. To the side was a small campground. Our hike continued along the creek until we approached a sheer cliff wall where Deer Spring was gushing out of the rock face, producing a beautiful waterfall we were able to walk behind. On the sides of the waterfall grew a hanging garden of dripping plants, busy giving back the water they didn’t require. The view of the valley from behind the spilling liquid curtain was simply amazing. I wished John was with me to see it all with his own eyes since I knew that my camera would not be able to take in all of the details.

A few steps further up the trail, we arrived at the Throne Room, appropriately named, too. It must have taken years and the work of many visitors to rearrange the slabs of sandstone that have fallen from the crumbling cliffs surrounding us into massive chairs – thrones. Unlike at the Patio, we were here alone, taking up the seats of kings and queens before digging into lunch. Rondo and the rest of the group joined us a little later. Fellow passenger Erin and I left before the main group so that we could take photos of the greenery on the way back. This time, we crossed Deer Creek at the foot of the waterfall. Back at the Patio I sat down and had a drink, taking in how beautiful the soft lines of the well-worn sandstone had been massaged as Deer Creek sculpted this slot canyon. In some places, people can get into the water, and that’s just what Sarge did. A quick swim and we were on our way out to go find John.

The way back to the river was scarier than the way in. Yes, it was the same path, but maybe it was the different angle from which we were looking at the trail. This is definitely not a hike for someone with a fear of heights or vertigo. Something I had not noticed on the way in was that on one of the walls right next to the trail was evidence that we modern visitors were not the first to see this incredible location: handprints, probably made using ochre, have remained here as a testament that the Ancestral Puebloans crossed over this very trail long ago. Emerging from the slot canyon, we walked past the spot where John had turned around earlier, and I could see him down by the dories, where it was obvious the river level had risen substantially. I tried signaling him; maybe it was the noise of the river or the crashing waterfall over his shoulder that stopped him from hearing my calls. Someday, I hope we’ll be able to hike into this area from a North Rim trail so he can see how beautiful this all was. Until then, he has my photos and my respect for having the presence of mind to do what was safest for him and the group, even if he did miss a little something. Now, back to John.

With Caroline and the group gone, I realize that I can’t help but feel some disappointment as my fears limit my potential. What am I being denied back there as I leave the shelf, half sulking inside, while the brave go on, and I drag myself back to shore? Better that I pull an old Monty Python tune out of the trunk of memories, dust it off, and give it a play, “Always look on the bright side of life….” It brings a smile to my face every time I think of it. I brush off the pity from my shoulder and start looking for what is going to make my visit to the lower fall of Deer Creek memorable.

I grab a chair and set myself down for some quiet observation, alone here at the river’s edge. Now, what is to be seen here that hadn’t been seen in great detail 30 minutes ago? Water, that’s the first thing. Out on the Colorado, undulating, flapping, splashing water, folding and collapsing as it sends atomized droplets skyward until gravity grips their trajectory, arcing them forward and then back down into the bigger flow they momentarily escaped from. There are no repeatable patterns or rhythms to the timing in which these waves collide with other water, or respond to sunken rocks buried from sight. They create successive dynamic forms, producing temporary artworks the futurists would be proud of.

At my feet, red ants scurry about, tending to business outside my purview of knowledge. Food gathering would be an obvious guess, but I’ll opt to dream of something not as mundane for these busy ants to be doing. But what might the story be? Impending attack on a Lilliputian scale to nab the 40-course human meal as the giant is lost in a daydream, staring at the hypnotic rush of water. Heck, maybe they are on a truly important mission to deliver the ring to Mordor. A giant black bumble bee zooms into the living tapestry being woven before my eyes. The bumbler’s ultimate role would remain veiled, as the ruse of searching for pollination opportunities was obviously transparent. With its cover on the verge of being blown and the dark overlord’s conquest in jeopardy, his death star body evacuates this sector.

Look out, here come the flies, stormtroopers of trash collection. Expendable mercenaries, every damn one of them. Pesky biological attack ships vomiting upon their dinner, doing the dirty work of the Empire. Out of batteries, my lightsaber would prove useless in combating the marauding invaders.

Jar-Jar the Lizard emerges from the deep, dark hole he had taken refuge in. He tries hard to earn my appreciation with his feeble attempts to snatch the stormtroopers from midair. I watch him as long as I can, but he fails to score even one direct hit; life imitates art. The flies continue with their dart-and-land combat techniques that do little besides finding my scorn. Watch out, Jar-Jar, and you stormtrooping winged pests, here comes the Millennium Falcon; okay, so it’s a canyon wren, but the force has obviously imbued this feathered hero, who perches atop the feeding chain, with great mysterious powers. Able to scoop up its enemies with a technologically advanced beak, the wren has no need for sidekicks or lightsabers.

With a snap, a wormhole opens in the space-time continuum, and the Starship Enterprise, disguised in dragonfly cloaking, breaks into my reality. It’s obviously on a reconnaissance mission to boldly go where no insect has gone before. For purposes only the captain on the bridge can know, the Starship Dragonfly darts left, right, back, and forward. With the flight recorder full of new details stored for a future mission, Scotty throws her into warp drive and exits the way she came in. Poof, they’re gone. In a blur, Sulu, Bones, Kirk, and Spock have left this galaxy and sadly neglected to beam me up.

As for the bees and butterflies down here on the river? They played no dramatic role this afternoon. They were on display to emphasize the sensual beauty of pollination and the dance of fluttering. The credits begin to crawl as I leave my seat to see what intrigues await me in the next theater.

The rise in the water level is becoming apparent as the beach is starting to disappear below the encroaching river. High in the sandstone above the tied-up dories, a hidden spring is feeding a seep that, in turn, supports a small hanging garden. A chalky film of salt stains the dark gray, almost black, desert varnish with a crystalline white layer, while streaks of greenish-black moss grow downward to the extent the dripping water is able to support its need for moisture. Around the seep, ferns and various other delicate plants cling to the wall.

Not far from the hanging garden, the red rock wall is barren and dry, although, on a small ledge further up, two prickly pear cacti have taken up the best seats in the house for watching the comings and goings of boats, passengers, wildlife, and the rise and fall of the river. Over to the far left, the Deer Creek waterfall maintains its constant pitch and hum on its way down to replenish the pool that acts as a collection basin. From there, it’s a short run before emptying into the Colorado, where its identity is lost in the bigger flow of water’s existence.

Since it is autumn, I can be happy that the sun finds itself low on the horizon instead of almost directly overhead. However, that doesn’t stop it from bearing down with no small reminder of its more sinister summer oppressiveness: it’s hot down here. In a few minutes, a towering summit on the opposite side of the Colorado will offer a shady break, preventing the sun’s rays from making direct contact with my pasty skin, which would not benefit from a desert varnish tanning. And then, right there, the sun goes out of view, and I’m here in the cool shade. Downriver, I can see the line temporarily separating the world of shadow from that of light. With the speed at which it travels my way, I surmise there might be 15 to 20 minutes of comfort left before putting on the squint again.

My solitude of self-imposed isolation comes to an abrupt end with the first trickle of the group returning to the river. I was certain I’d find boredom down here, but instead, the time flew by. I could have easily enjoyed a few more hours of doing nothing more than searching for that which requires idle moments of uninterrupted contemplation and imagination. Pardon me for not explicitly mentioning this yet, but the effect of the Canyon and these days on the river are producing a monumental reexamination of what’s what. My outlook, my look inward, and my place in the hierarchy of life and nature are being shifted. What these changes are precisely, I couldn’t have told you while still down there. Even months later, as I write these words, the magnitude of what has been altered hasn’t been fully appreciated yet.

There are hints of things that are different, such as how heartfelt my emotions have become as I look back at this and nearly any other venture into nature my wife and I have made. It is apparent that I may have taken much for granted. I can now see the fragility in a world too many of us are willing to erase, discount, pollute, and modernize. This idea of modernization cannot be reconciled with progress when it means we must destroy our natural world. For me, the interior of the Grand Canyon became a drug, and upon swallowing its pill, I turned into an overt tree hugger in nature’s matrix.

Time to fall out of the dream. Our group is once again complete, with each member accounted for. They stand amazed that the water level is up almost two feet, and the beach we landed upon is gone. I have no more time to linger; I will have to get back in the dory. This means that I will also be brought closer to the end of the day, the end of the week, and, eventually, the end of this journey. Unanswered mysteries are a more palatable solution to the big questions of life than the knowledge of the known endpoint. Even death will sneak up and happen on its own terms, while leaving the Colorado is a certainty just five and a half days away. Unless I figure out a way to bring it with me.

All Aboard! We’re going to ply a few more river miles down this warm, sunny corridor that is a million times better than any old thrill ride in a theme park, although I do still have a nostalgic love of those relics from my childhood. Maybe someday in the future, a potion will be found that digs into the recesses of my brain to find the many wonderful experiences I have had and forgotten, then amplifies them to beat up and subdue any of the negative ones that have managed to overstay their welcome. With the bad memories vanquished, I could fill the newly found space with more details kept from experiences such as what I am enjoying on this adventure. Today’s remaining miles are spent in blissful delight, floating under the warm sun, watching an ancient play of shadow puppetry on walls steeped in a familiar story of fleeting illumination, except that on this occasion, the performance seems to be for our benefit and our memories.

Camp Olo is the university dorm of campsites. We are nearly stacked one upon the other. If our group had two more people, we’d require two-story tents. The kitchen is set up in Erin and Jerry’s front yard and is put immediately to work in preparation for dinner. This is one of those nights in which the menu should be noted for its indulgent perfection. The appetizer is, of all things, a shrimp cocktail. Let me be clear: the shrimp are not made of dehydrated shrimp powder molded into shrimp-shaped tricks of the mind; they are previously frozen, freshly thawed, and ready for dipping into a bowl of cocktail sauce. The main course is spaghetti with pesto, shrimp scampi, garlic bread, and a fresh garden salad. These may seem like mundane details to a reader, but after nearly two weeks in the desert without a resupply, to be sitting here eating fresh food is the ultimate in luxury.

Tonight’s entertainment program consists of Jeffe reading from the book First Through Grand Canyon by Michael P. Ghiglieri, who shares details previously unreported about John Wesley Powell and his 1869 expedition, revealing surprisingly detailed journal entries and letters penned by other members of the group. The notes suggest Powell shouldn’t have taken all the credit and that historians may have been reluctant to set the story straight. Although it should be clear that he was the man who organized the now historic and important first run through the Grand Canyon, formal recognition should also be paid to J.C. Sumner, William Dunn, Seneca Howland, O.G. Howland, W. R. Hawkins, Andrew Hall, Frank Goodman, and John Wesley Powell’s brother Walter.

I wrote of bringing the Canyon and river with me when this adventure is over. I was afraid I would find myself drifting too far away from the details and emotions of these precious days after our return home. It would be the books we’ve been introduced to during the evening campfire sessions that played a big part in keeping those memories alive. To fill the gaps in the Canyon’s narrative, I searched for a contemporary who had taken one of these commercial river trips, who wasn’t in the canyon as a scientist, a super adventurer finding a new extreme method of riding the river, or some other professional who doesn’t connect with me on a personal level. I wanted to read about the average traveler who was swept up by the emotional impact found in the Canyon. While on one hand, those other stories are important too, the one book missing for me was the story of how one’s perspective and senses are reset and focused anew. I wanted to read of a person discovering their own profound emotional relationship to nature in the Canyon. To find those impressions of awe, I simply had to reflect upon my own memories and revisit the notes I kept during these days in the Canyon. With my thoughts ignited, my mind let the words flow onto the paper, allowing me to come back here to the Canyon, to be in these moments again and again.

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.

The real pleasure of a layover day is not that we will avoid risking life and limb on the river; it is that we do not have to break camp. No rolling up sleeping bags, no pulling down tents, and shaking sand from their interior. The dry bags stay put; the laziness of it all is a great indulgence. With that in mind, this would also be a day to sleep in. Cozy and warm, snuggled into the sack. A morning to linger in dreams.

Ring…Ring…Ring, it’s the bladder calling.
“Go away, let me doze a few more minutes,” I beg.
“Hey John, you awake? Is that the sun coming up? It makes me feel heavy and bloated.”
“NO, not yet; I’m cozy and oh-so warm. Can’t this wait?”
“I think I hear others stirring; it has me feeling like I want to be emptied; I’ll bet that’s what everyone is doing; come on, let’s go.”
“You can’t be serious. Why, on this one day when I get to sleep in, are you barging in with such an unreasonable demand?”
“I can hear water joining other water; is that splashing? You know what this does to me. Come on, let’s go.”

The indignity of being manipulated by a tiny 1.5-ounce organ that has the ability to put such pressure on me. I start to peel out of the bag of comfort. Seems Caroline’s bladder was having similar negotiations with her as she, too, unzips the cocoon for the trip to the river. Dressed, it’s time to take the bladder for a walk. Relief is at hand.
“Thanks, bladder.”
“No problem, now let’s get busy refilling me.”
Time for the first coffee of the day.

Dring….Dring….Dring…
“Hello.”
“Hey buddy, it’s me, the stomach. I swear that bladder was so full I could hardly breathe up here, making it hard to tell you how empty I am.”
“Yeah, don’t worry, I know the routine.”
“So, how about sending down a morsel or two?”
“Come on now, I’ve been telling you this for days: the kitchen is not ours to raid. There is no bakery around the corner, and we didn’t bring a stash of granola bars. You’ll have to wait.”
“But…but…um, this isn’t fair. Growwwl!!”
“Hey, that’s enough of that. Don’t make me get more coffee and fill bladder again to shut you up.”
“Okay, no need to get all angry with me. You know how sensitive I am. I think we both are well aware how that big mouth up there doesn’t like me dis-engorging myself, pushing the flow of bile into reverse.”
“Sorry, I’ll chill, stay calm. Oooh, what’s that over on the griddle? I think I see blueberry pancakes and bacon.”
“Bring it on, John, stuff that pie hole with syrupy goodness and crispy hog. I’m ready to get to work.”

“Hey guys, is all this commotion necessary?”
Jeez, here come the intestines.
“Yo up there, you have the experience to know I can weather the weight of bladder leaning up against me, but that fat-ass stomach is too much.”
“Who you calling fat, you shit sock? Take this; I’ll fill your big trap and shut you up fast. Mmmmm, isn’t that yummy? All that masticated pig, sugar, and dough, get down in there.”
“Go on and keep on pushing, flubby. It’ll only be minutes of this kind of abuse before I rush over and beat on the door of rectum, and John cleans all of us out.”

Just then, rectum takes the mentioning of his name to be roused from slumber, letting off a lazy yawn. Startled, Caroline asks, “What was that?”
“I don’t know, it wasn’t me.”

With that, it was now time to wake from the dream, crawl out of the toasty sleeping bag for real, and start the day. After breakfast, we returned to the kitchen to prepare a sack lunch as the crew was taking the afternoon off. Our picnic packed up, water bottles full, and river shoes strapped on tightly; it is departure time for those of us following Jeffe up Stone Creek Canyon.

As is the routine, the hoof up the trail was not designed for timid slowpokes. This early in the morning, with the majority of the side canyon in shadow, it doesn’t much bother me that we are racing along. I suppose this sprint is an artifact of summer when groups visiting the Canyon must get out early to avoid the heat of the day while trying to get to a destination with enough time to return before the blistering late afternoon wallops hikers with heatstroke. There could be another explanation that is perfectly reasonable, too, which is that our trip isn’t infinite. With a fixed number of days, there is only so much that can be seen. Add to this that our daylight hours are shortened due to the time of year, and it’s probably prudent, from the perspective of our guide, that we should get back to camp before dark.

As logical as this might sound in explaining the speed and time constraints, I still want to find the 120 Days of Pure Indulgence Canyon Adventure and sign right up. My ideal river tour of the Colorado wouldn’t be 120 consecutive days, though. I live in Phoenix, and I know how hot it can be in the Canyon come the middle of July. My dream trip leaves April 1st, putting in at Lees Ferry. For the next 60 days, we only travel a mile and a half on the river per day. This might allow enough time to explore all the side canyons and hang out, examine stuff, look into details missed by everyone else speeding down the river, and remember that there are no awards for those who finish first. After inspecting every nook and cranny, looking underneath rocks and grains of sand, deciphering patterns and clouds, memorizing all the river stories, and living some new ones, two months have passed, and we start our hike out at Phantom Ranch at the end of May, it’s Memorial Day.

The next 90 days are spent in air-conditioned bliss back in Phoenix while reveling in the memories of where we have been and looking forward to our return. Then, a week after Labor Day in early September, to avoid the remnants of the summer crowds, we fix our aim on the North Kaibab Trail for a return to Phantom Ranch. September and October in the Canyon will feel like coming home. This leg of the trip we’ll have to push along at a brisk two-and-a-quarter miles per day to take out at Diamond Creek a few days after Halloween. Maybe then, after such an extended stay in the company of the Colorado, I will start to feel something more than the vaguest familiarity with this place. But then again, I’ll probably still fall short when I consider that Harvey Butchart spent 1,024 days in the Canyon over many a year, hiking over 12,000 miles within these walls and climbing 83 of the Canyon’s summits. I will have to come to grips with the idea that no one will ever really know the extent and absolute detail of this beautiful land.

What’s wrong with these speed demons hiking up front? Can’t they read nature’s stop sign? Don’t they know they are supposed to gawk every once in a while? Is my sense organ that is tuned for astonishment that much stronger than those of the people I am traveling with? I try to reassure myself that I am not an alien from another dimension, operating on a different plane of time. For all I know, their powers of observation are so finely tuned that the story they are writing will make my own descriptions and enthusiasm look like a child’s primer. I’ll have to settle with the idea that they are microwave ovens of sight and remembrance, and I am the slow-cooking crock-pot creating depth and rich flavor.

Hey, you cloven-hoofed half-goats, I think Caroline and I will just stop right here at the second waterfall. The others let off an enthusiastic “Maaah!” and, defying gravity, dart up a vertical wall out of sight. Well, here we are, alone. Just us and the waterfall. And some hanging gardens. And all these colorful pebbles, stones, and boulders. And the water running over polished multihued rock faces with minuscule plants growing out of tiny cracks, crevices, and pits in the surface of really big stones. Just the two of us and all of this nature. Alone, surrounded by this unknowable spectacle of the universe, right here, on a rock in the quiet of the morning. Contented, I sigh.

The bluish light of the early morning fades as the sun moves into its position of prominence in the sky. The still cold, gray shadows are in stark contrast to the already radiant patches of ground that are the first to receive the warmth of the approaching sunlight – soon, the shadows will be no more. Golden tones will briefly paint our oasis until the full spectrum of our star returns to bleach the landscape with scorching white light. The Sun and Earth around me rejoice in meeting once again with a display of their well-rehearsed dance of illumination. Stone monoliths surrounding us maintain their silent vigil, looking over these human forms crawling below them.

Slicing between stone and sun, running over the Shinumo quartz, the flow of the second waterfall deposits its calcium carbonate soup, slowly, imperceptibly forming the travertine that brackets the falling water. Strewn about the ground are rocks, pebbles, and stones, which have been delivered by a succession of storms, whose quick-flowing torrents hauled these loads of debris from higher in the canyon and ejected them over the waterfall. Do the native rocks see this intrusion of foreign stones and boulders as so much litter cluttering their front yard? To our eyes, this all looks like a well-orchestrated and expertly designed work of art. With these irregular shapes and rough surfaces, this is not the nature modern man would design. Where chaos reigns, too often, our compulsion is to flutter about putting things in order, to align, and make homogenous what the efforts of time have so patiently given us.

We try to sit here like rocks, still and silent, but it’s difficult to stay in one place. With so much detail jumping out to greet our eyes, begging isn’t required to encourage us to go on over for an up-close and detailed examination – of everything. We enthusiastically oblige and, upon approaching these little spectacles, find ourselves falling into delight as shifts in angle and height perspectives reveal yet more of what could have remained unseen had we continued the trek up the trail. Walking to and fro, I hover about the second waterfall of Stone Creek like a moth attracted to the light. As I take note of a plant growing out of the face of a rock, it is as if my peripheral vision is being tapped on the shoulder to look over this or that way, with my feet controlled by curiosity and willfully delivering me to another vantage point. I can accept that we did not see what the others will have gazed upon at their stop and that another potentially incredible corner will remain unknown to us, but I am satisfied that this extended visit offered us a wealth of detail that would have never become familiar without allowing time for this sojourn.

I don’t know how long we sat there, how much of the whole we looked at, or how far we walked around this place under the waterfall, but lunchtime came and went before we finally packed up and left. Not that we really wanted to leave, but we didn’t want the rest of our group to come up from behind and push us along back to camp. We were determined to take the leisurely trail, not the race track. And for our effort to separate from the cozy little spot under the falls, our way back was now in full sun. The Canyon walls were illuminated, the flora deep green, and as the temperature climbed into the low 80s, it felt downright hot.

Almost left unseen, held fast to a giant boulder and blending in perfectly on the bottom side of an overhang, we spot nests, dozens of mud wasp nests. These hanging cells are protected nurseries camouflaged by an ingeniously color-matched and stealthy design. On closer examination, it becomes apparent that no wasps are currently residing here and that we are safe to look around. As I peek into the tiny structures, it dawns on me how similar these nests are to the granaries built by Native Americans across the southwest. Tucked up under an overhang, protected from the weather and predators, hidden by the mud that blends into the surroundings so as not to be easily seen from a distance, these earthen cells are very effective in protecting their precious contents, be it seeds or – in this case – larvae.

Further along this desert trail, we see that we are not the only ones out here in the sunshine. A tiny toad hops off the path and out of the way in haste, exerting some effort to avoid the feet of us approaching giants. Its sunbath is interrupted, and the little guy is anxious to leave the stage. No matter how slowly or gently I move closer, this amphibian is not interested in putting on a show and quickly disappears under some brush. Nowhere near as shy is a lizard sitting tall upon a cairn, inches closer to the heat source that warms its cold reptilian blood, giving it the zip necessary to quickly dart away from swooping birds looking for a snack.

There is a phenomenon we desert dwellers never tire of, while those of you who live in a lush green environment may not be able to appreciate our perspective in quite the same way: Shades of green. It happens more often than not: people enter the vast expanse of deserts in the southwest for the first time and see nothing but an endlessly empty landscape painted with a fat paintbrush of tan and more tan, devoid of life. Barren rock, hot sand, skeletons of long-dead cactus, and that impressive thermal flow of shimmering heat rising off the desert floor, known as a mirage. The new visitors may even ask themselves, “What brought me here in the first place?” But after a while, like eyes adapting to the darkness of night, they start to see details that weren’t there at first glance.

The eyes tune in to subtle shades of green found scattered about on the scorched earth. Thriving cacti and low, silver-gray bushes eke out an existence in the desolation. Keep looking, and sooner or later, you’ll find a mesquite tree. Its dark, rich brown bark adds much-needed contrast to this bleached world. Should you come across a palo verde tree out here, you have found the mother lode of fluorescent green, and in bloom, the top of the tree will be ablaze in sun-bright yellow flowers. From here, we branch into the other desert colors, gradually learning to differentiate the shades of tan and brown, finding oranges, reds, purples, rusts, and greens so deep they are almost black, along with variations of copper, silver, and gold that are moving into focused appreciation. All of a sudden, you wonder how you missed all of this back on your first encounter with a space that looked frighteningly empty.

Over time, the rest of our senses join our eyes in this dramatic transition, allowing us to appreciate having taken up dwelling in this seemingly inhospitable wasteland. Fine, delicate sounds find our ears until we are able to hear the scurry of lizards and the flow of wind over cactus needles. Then, one day, after spending a good amount of time learning how amazing the desert is, you are ready for an entirely new perspective – it rains. And when it does, everything changes. That silver-gray bush explodes in a scent, screaming: “This is the smell of the desert here in the Southwest; this is creosote!” It is the intriguing fragrance that tells you that you are at home.

Maybe because this is a desert, the horizon looks fantastically large. An occasional mountain or hill appears squashed under the oppression of a sun that pushes surface temperatures to the burning point. There are rarely enough clouds to fill such a vast expanse, forcing the desert to be satisfied with rain falling on small strips and patches. For those of us lucky enough to put ourselves out there, the play of the weather couldn’t be better. As it rains and lightning bolts throw down, thunder rocks hard, performing its bombastic concert, but just over to the east, or the west, maybe the north, could be to the south, blue sky cuts through the billowy clouds and sharply defined sun rays beam down like a cleaver slicing into the earth. The water that has poured from above quickly saturates the thin, crispy soil to become a flash flood that spreads out and disappears almost as fast as it arrived.

In the rain’s wake, over the following days and weeks, there is a sudden explosion of color. Cacti bloat from the indulgent and rare sip of water offered by the downpour, turning a brighter shade of green. They bloom with white, yellow, red, and purple waxy flowers attracting all manner of insects and birds. Grasses sprout and give it their all to move from seedling to maturity in order to leave their seed for the next generation and the next rain. For a brief time, the desert has a succulent new vibrancy; it glows in electric Technicolor. This spectacular show of life awakening out of dormancy is bedazzling.

It is precisely this weather aftermath that we are walking through today along Stone Creek. At the start of our journey, we had anticipated the browns and tans that could be expected down on the desert floor of the Canyon, but recent rains have given life a boost of water-induced growth to alight our senses in celebration of this rapture of green. There is a humorous side note to this visual stimulation. In previous years, as we were becoming familiar with the desert, we entertained thoughts that we had been witness to the full spectrum of green, but it wasn’t until we found ourselves in the forests of Kentucky or Oregon that we realized that our desert green – even in bloom – is a pale representation of the resplendence of the greens found in areas that receive year-round precipitation. Maybe our green is only truly appreciable to eyes conditioned by this hard-baked, mostly dry sand-and-rockscape.

Drifting in a daydream, our thoughts must have wandered off, and our feet, too. Who stole the trail? A little backtracking, and we are once again on the primitive goat trail we were traveling earlier in the day. Try as we might to see what the boatmen see; as they appear to retrace a well-worn and known path, we often fail to spot where the next step should be put down. Out here on our own, our trail scouting skills fall short of being truly adequate. Of course, the river must be in front of us somewhere, even if we cannot hear or see it yet. So we are obviously pointing in the right direction, and while common sense says: “Follow the creek bed,” that is not always as easy as it might seem due to steep ledges and paths that look like trails but are actually roads to nowhere. Add to this our innate ability to be easily distracted by shiny objects, or even dull ones, and soon we are again off the trail. Maybe we are succumbing to sun poisoning and are too delirious to maintain our focus. Nah, we are mostly lost in our imaginations, wanting to look at everything, wishing for more time.

There is a competition going on between Caroline and me to distract one another from the most amazing thing ever, with an invitation to come over and look at this other most amazing thing ever. Our ideas of what has eclipsed the sense of novel beauty are open to discussion, one not easily resolved. What the other one of us has found should be considered equally amazing in order to eliminate the friction of competition, even if I know that what I saw was, in fact, more brilliant, more dazzling, simply…more amazing. On our visits to the Pacific Coast, this isn’t a problem, as we are usually strolling some long, open beach with plenty of distance between us. The loud crashing surf overpowers our voices, allowing us to wander alone in our thoughts and the sound of the sea. But here in the Canyon, even if we drift off to find some space between us, voices echo and easily bring us back together. We share in what the other has found so stunning and can appreciate that it demanded the attention of our own special moment, delving into awe. Down here, we are joined at the hip and joined at the smiles, too. Eleven days into this, and still, we pinch ourselves at our luck that the two of us love and appreciate equally where we are, what we are doing, and one another.

Time to quiet the romantic chatter starting to fill my head and find the trail so we don’t look as amateurish as we are. And who is going to be witness to our feeble trail skills? This group of people we travel the river with, who are rapidly gaining on us, that’s who. We could try pretending that we were somehow pushing into new territory, scaling extraordinary heights in an effort to explore remote corners far and wide, but our slow, comfortable pace and lost gaze will certainly look unconvincing. Picking up the pace now won’t impress anyone who sees through our shells to recognize the snails inside. Like the Roadrunner and Coyote, a blur passes us with a pronounced “Meep Meep.” We’d break out the Acme Rocket, if we had one, to show them a thing or two, but we’ll just have to commit the path they took to our memory and try to follow with the hope of reaching camp by nightfall.

A word or two should be shared about Stone Creek itself. This is a delightful creek of clear water cascading over rock and sand. In places, it has run for so long that it has carved bowls, small flumes, and curvy twisting shapes that swirl, splashing water into small vortices, spinning in the channel it flows through. Along the way, we pass a few small waterfalls and a larger one known as First Waterfall. I suppose I don’t really know what qualifies as a waterfall, as when we were on our way to Second Waterfall, I’d swear some of these other falls would have been considered as such, which might have then put us at Fifth or Sixth Waterfall, but what do I know? I am not a geologist, hydrologist, or any other -ist of importance besides tourist. Walking along, enjoying the afternoon, we stop at another of the water-carved sluices where the creek is flowing with a hypnotic rhythm, gluing us to the spot where we stand until something snaps us from our trance and puts us back in motion.

Finally, we are once again in camp. We are hot, dusty, sweaty, and probably not just a little stinky. It would be a shame to put this funky body into those fresh, clean clothes that we worked so hard yesterday to wash in the muddy water of the Colorado; this requires a bath. Before plunging into the river, I can imagine, even savor, how refreshing my second Grand Canyon bath is going to feel. Stripped to my drawers, I’m ready to go big and let the grime of the last days dissolve into the already muddy waters that will hide my addition to the murk.

Here I go. Holy cow! That’s a whole lot colder than my enthusiasm said it would be. With the ankles and toes abundantly clean, I struggle to convince the calves that they, too, want to shine and sparkle. Before I can slither away to avoid this torture, my own personal fragrance of persuasion finds my nose, insisting I bring what reeks below to this come-to-water meeting. The cold buckles my knees; the air is compressed from my lungs, and I struggle to take deeper breaths. Maybe this convulsive shiver is a final desperate act calculated to deprive the brain of oxygen, bringing on a panic to force a premature exit from these frigid waters. But the heart comes to the rescue and will have none of this wimpy behavior, and with a short, sharp burst of bravado, I squat deeply to allow water to reach those parts that need this bath a lot more than my ankles and knees. That I didn’t pass out from the shock surprises me, although I was left impressed at how quickly that stuff down there leapt up to the warmth behind my navel. Human anatomy obviously works miracles. Out of the water, I do my best to wrap up in my warm and cozy postage-stamp-sized camp towel. My nose assures me this was all for the best.

An early finish to the day with plenty of sunlight remaining was an opportunity for just about everyone to take a dip on the far end of camp, if not to wash up, then to cool off from the surprise heat that had crept up. Moving quietly about, our fellow passengers seem to be organizing their tents and bags in an attempt to put things in order. Maybe they are taking inventory and calculating how things will be packed up for tomorrow’s return to the river. Finished, we gravitate towards the fire pit to talk, drink, write, or find ourselves lost in the sunset.

Our layover is approaching its end, and as if to punctuate the occasion of these two relaxed days, we are offered a celebratory feast of pure Americana. Barbecued burgers and bratwurst with all the fixings, coleslaw freshly chopped and prepared in camp, and baked beans. The great American barbecue, on a great American river in one of the greatest National Parks – the Grand Canyon. Life is good; who could ask for more? Okay, here’s more: it’s called the icing on the cake; well, it’s actually on the bottom, and we call it pineapple upside-down cake. We have scored another of those Dutch oven camp wonders, baked fresh before our eyes and noses.

Our group pulls in closer around the fire for some storytelling while the majority of the crew retires early. The entertainment duties are hoisted upon the shoulders of one boatman, Bruce, our impassioned speaker for the evening. The subject is Lake Powell and the environmental issues of building dams. Tonight’s topic is poignant, as later this evening, the engineers who operate Glen Canyon dam will be ending a two-month steady flow release of water.

The steady flow study is called Beach Habitat Building Flows, or BHBF. In this experiment, scientists are working to understand shoreline erosion and how beaches are faring within the Grand Canyon. They are examining how sediments are being distributed within the river. By varying water flow over measured periods of time, they can analyze the dynamics affecting the ecosystem of beach health and sediment accumulation.

The reason behind this experiment in water flow is that Lake Powell has turned into a sediment pond behind Glen Canyon Dam. This giant body of water pulls in the equivalent of 100,000 train cars of sediment a day. The majority of deposits end up near the head of the lake, at the opposite end of where the dam is. Before dams were built on the Colorado, the river carried the silt-laden waters to the sea, building up shores and beaches along the way. Today that is no longer happening; only the occasional trickle of water reaches the vast Colorado River Delta in Mexico. While this has implications for the viability of the delta, it also has a direct impact on everything from the life span of the many dams that will ultimately be holding more sediment than water to the quality and even the existence of riverbanks and beaches within the Canyon for us visitors to camp on.

Because the water released from the dam is sediment-free, the only sources for maintaining the beaches along the Colorado River are the various tributaries feeding the river, along with the monsoonal floods that wash debris down the Canyon walls. Under normal conditions, many of the tributaries run clear, but when they do flow full of mud like the old Colorado described by J.W. Powell as “Too thick to drink, too thin to plow,” only then might we see beach building events.

That 1983 Canyon flood mentioned earlier not only helped build Crystal Rapid into a monster, it also started stripping away much of the sand that made wide beaches available to people running the river and the many hikers who scramble over the rough terrain looking for that special place to enjoy some camping next to the Colorado. What little sedimentation was left in the Canyon was quickly washed about 260 miles downstream into Lake Mead, the next sediment pool on the Colorado.

Back in 1991, Bruce had the opportunity to run the Green River from the town of Green River, Wyoming, to its confluence with the Colorado in Canyonlands National Park. From there, his journey continued through Cataract Canyon, where the river disappears into Lake Powell. Bruce rowed across the lake before rejoining the river in the Grand Canyon below the dam and finishing this adventure on Lake Mead above the underwater Mormon town of Callville, Nevada. Bruce wasn’t alone; traveling with him on an important 12-day leg of this 42-day river trip was Luna Leopold. His name isn’t easily recognizable, but his legacy and his lineage are worth noting. Luna was the son of the famous environmentalist and author of A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold. Continuing his father’s commitment to conservation and the ecological conscience, Luna, whose formal training was that of geomorphologist (the scientific study of landforms), had been involved with a study referred to as the Colorado River Storage Project or CRSP as far back as the 1950s.

Luna, aged 75 at the time of the 1991 trip, was here to read the river depths and study how sedimentation might affect the dams holding back the mighty Colorado. This was controversial science then, and it is still controversial today. In question is the health of these dams and their consequences. The engineers who designed these corks thought they were building 500-year legacies to their engineering prowess; what the natural sciences were telling them was you may have 200 years of use of these dams, and possibly even less than that.

It was near the Hite Bridge, part of Utah State Route 95, that Luna was noting river depths of about 8 feet. Near the junction with the Dirty Devil, almost 3 miles downstream from the bridge, Luna’s readings were still showing a depth of about 8 feet, but soon he would find the shocker. His depth readings showed a precipitous 200-foot drop – to the old river bed! The head of Lake Powell was filled with a giant sediment plume! Today, this plume has extended its crawl forward and is now about 2 miles further downstream.

If this has you wondering, how does a lake full of sand affect me? The answer is quite simple. The Colorado River, as it winds its way out of the Rockies, picks up and carves away many soil nutrients, which are suspended within its silty waters. Prior to the creation of the series of dams that now impound the river and distribute its waters to farms, golf courses, swimming pools, and fountains all over the Southwest, it flowed uninterrupted down to the Colorado River Delta south of Yuma, Arizona, before pouring into the Sea of Cortez. Not only is the river delta being destroyed, but the nutrient-rich waters that should be flowing to the sea are no longer available to help feed the Gulf of California. This is important because the Gulf is home to the world’s largest animal, the Blue Whale, in addition to Humpback Whales, Fin Whales, Killer Whales, the California Gray Whale, Giant Pacific Manta Rays, Sperm Whales, Leatherback Sea Turtles, and a plethora of other sea life.

Wherever humanity has built dams, we see the impact on the marine life that had once relied upon the rich, fresh waters that flowed over the land. Salmon in America’s Pacific Northwest comes to mind when we think about the difficulties brought on by our altering of the ecological system that not only sustains us but provides for many other species, too. The Aswan dam that holds back the Nile in Egypt is now recognized to be having a negative impact on the fisheries in the Mediterranean. Nutrients such as phosphate and silicate act as ocean fertilizers that sustain the diversity of coastal life, but these land-derived salts will never reach their destination when sequestered behind a dam in a mountain of sediments. Most wild rivers that once ran to the oceans have been stopped in their tracks for our convenience only, not the other lives that depend on these rivers performing their natural role.

Bruce equates these river systems with something very personal: our very own hearts and bodies. He closed his talk with the following, “The planet’s rivers are the nutrient stream; they are the circulatory system of Earth. If humankind continues to build and maintain these constrictions in nature, just as a poor diet can contribute to clogged arteries leading to heart disease, might we be sending our life-sustaining environment off to suffer a heart attack? It may not seem acute to us because we see time in human terms, but beyond our own short lives, life continues to flow. Unless we do something to change our attitude and short-sighted relationship with nature, will we ultimately be the necrotizing disease that significantly damages the Earth? Is it possible that nature is just too big and complex for our limited perspective to fully comprehend and appreciate?

Over 110 years ago in 1900, the investigation to build a dam on the Colorado was undertaken. Back then, humanity hadn’t yet flown in an airplane. Henry Ford’s Model T was still 14 years from hitting the road. Penicillin wouldn’t start fighting infections until 1928. We’ve come a long way since those days, with cell phones that feature built-in video cameras and GPS that receive data from satellites in low orbit circling our planet. Computers are helping humanity decipher our genetic code while simultaneously running the global electronic library of knowledge and culture that we call the Internet. The sun and wind are being harnessed to supply us with more sustainable energy sources, but we require a healthy environment to be able to enjoy these incredible strides forward. It is time for humankind to look at the decisions made on our behalf and recognize that we have progressed forward from our early scientific roots. We can change our world for the better.

There’s nothing quite like the enthusiasm of someone who invested their heart and soul in what concerns them, to motivate and inspire others. Picking up on his passion, we will carry from this Canyon a greater desire to know more about many of the things we will learn during this adventure. Back home, Caroline and I read more than a dozen books about the early navigators of the river, the environmental concerns, and the geologic and fossil history. We joined the Grand Canyon River Guides Association to lend our voices and support to those dedicating their lives to protecting the Canyon. I began a blog entry to share what I found, only to find it growing larger than a few online words as it matured into this book.

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.