My brain commands my fingers to remain motionless lest the movement tears painful cracks into my parchment-thin, dry skin. Zippers are wicked little devices best operated by nimble digits, not sore, numb fingers on the verge of a blood offering. Still, someone must zip up our gear and finish packing. As bad as it is now, it is going to get worse. The clasps that secure the tent to the tension poles must be undone. Our fingers want to fail; they are unable to apply the strength needed to unlatch the locking mechanism, so we try the side of a knuckle or edge of the thumb to give leverage, hoping that there will be enough spring in the downward compression for the hook to pop up and away before we can tackle the next clasp.

Our hands may be what suffers most on this trip. The boatmen are unambiguous when it comes to clean hands, “We do not want any type of potentially debilitating virus to infect one of us or worse, the entire group.” This has happened in years past and motivates our guides to ensure it doesn’t happen now. The need to have a Groover nearby and ready to be deployed at all times due to explosive “number 3s” is a challenge. We do not want fecal contamination from unwashed hands to grind our river trip to a halt, as one’s own inner river of fury is a rapid no one wants to ride. Everyone must wash their hands following toilet use. Before getting in line for food, we must wash them again, even if we just came from the handwashing station near the toilet. Then there are the two hot meals a day that require us to wash and rinse our dishes.

Regarding the dishes, I should take a moment to describe how our kitchen operates. Three collapsible steel tables are used for breakfast and dinner preparation and presentation. One table holds the stove where water is boiled, a grill set up, pots, pans, and skillets are staged. On the same table, a Dutch oven will stand ready to hold warm pancakes or other delectables as they are set aside until enough are ready to be served to the group. The second table serves two purposes; first, it is the food prep area where a small number of people may lend a hand to slice and dice veggies, then, when the meal is ready, it is transformed into the serving table.

The third table holds another bane of our hands: the dishwashing station. On top of the table sit four galvanized tin washtubs. On the ground at one end stands a trash can for the food scraps left on dishes. Prior to our meal, water was taken from the river and allowed to settle. Some of that water is then brought to a boil on the stove before being used to fill the first three of the tubs. The fourth one contains cold water, with a splash of finger-eating bleach added as a disinfectant. Each dish and utensil undergoes a four-step cleaning process. In the first soapy basin, the dish is scrubbed free of food; then the dish enters the second soapy basin for another scrubbing; from there, it is rinsed in the hot, soapless water and then transferred to being disinfected in the bleach water before ending up in a mesh bag strung under one of the other tables to drip dry.

Add this up. Wash your hands after the toilet, wash them again before eating, and back into the water they go to wash your dishes. On the dories, your hands are going to get wet along with most of the rest of you. Bailing out the dory, hands stay wet. Lunchtime, wash those hands again. Back on the river means more wet head-to-toe action. Pull into camp; if you bathe, you are going to get wet, including your hands. Dinner call, time to wash your hands, and when you’ve had your fill, wash your dishes one more time. Last call at the Unit, you know the routine.

I already knew before leaving for this trip that our hands would be wet and cold most of the time, not a good combination, so I did some research on how to best care for these delicate instruments. Internet forums for the obsessive-compulsive hand-washer seemed a good place to start. They recommended Cetaphil hand cream – I bought a pound. We put this lardy cream on no less than twice a day, sometimes as much as four times a day. While our fingers didn’t crack wide open, they were often quite painful and extremely sensitive when they weren’t numbed by the cold water.

Our feet weren’t used for washing dishes or needing to be washed after a visit to the toilet, but they, too, were wet for hours on end. Our first lesson regarding wet feet happened back on Eminence Trail, though we weren’t aware of it at that time. My advice from that experience for future whitewater newbies who want to hike the dusty trails: upon arrival in camp, get your river shoes off and start drying your feet immediately. Warm sand works great to that end. During those early days after leaving Lees Ferry, we did not get out of wet river shoes right away, and when we did, we pulled warm socks and our hiking boots over damp feet. With the excitement of our first big hike and the delirium of being in the Canyon, a large part of our logical brains was turned clean off. For this oversight, we paid dearly with blisters that would plague us for the duration of the trip.

The final consideration regarding water would be to give attention to your sensitive bits, especially those areas of skin where friction could create problems. You will be sitting in wet shorts, on wet benches, and not infrequently in lap-deep water. Coming from the river, we often hit the trail in moments where, depending on your particular body architecture, there should be consideration made for when or where diaper rash could raise its magic wand of discomfort. Raw thighs on the trail may give you the cowboy swagger that lends authenticity to an old west persona, but out here, trying to have fun, day after wet day, inflamed inner thighs will not take your mind off the blisters on your feet. Instead, you will feel pain from butt to toe. A lifesaver here that was suggested to me just before our departure was A & D Ointment. Seems that vitamin A and vitamin D suspended in a gooey salve work wonders; just ask any baby.

I may as well make a theme of this and move through more body stuff before putting this topic to rest. In the suggested packing list our outfitter sent us regarding what might be needed on a river trip, we were told to bring resealable plastic bags for our trash. We would be responsible for dragging our own rubbish from the Canyon. There is no central repository for waste on one of the rafts, nor are there campsite trash receptacles. In that very same inventory recommendation was the hint that we might want to consider bringing camp wipes. These are essentially oversized moist towelettes or baby wipes for adults. Camp wipes proved invaluable. As one begins to ripen to a potent odor, bringing offense to the olfactory, a thick, moist wipe comes to the rescue if one is hesitant to dip the parts in cold river water every other day.

The wipes even come with instructions suggesting that you use the man-sized towelette on your face first, just in case you blunder and accidentally use it on your butt before applying it to your face. I’m certain this couldn’t happen more than once. The camp wipe ritual proved almost fun as we would scrub our face, ears, and neck with the towel draped over a hand, creating an ochre-tinted handprint on the once pristine white towel, supplying us with seconds of amusement. The next swipes over various other parts of the anatomy will be left to the imagination of what visual details graced this now disgusting, greasy towelette. Pleasingly refreshed, we stuff the used and unsightly camp wipes into one of those resealable bags.

This process goes on for days. Between the occasional river baths on a sunny afternoon, this method of getting cleaned up, even using the wipes on our itchy heads as a kind of shampooing, proved to be a soothing balm for a person not accustomed to these hygiene deprivations. If this had been a summer trip, I’m sure the phenomenon I am about to describe would have struck us within a few days. The resealable bags, with their evil, despoiled wipes and various artifacts of trash, eventually developed a full-spectrum bouquet. It would only take one time unzipping one of these plastic bags bubbling in fermentation to convince you never to open this particular bag ever again. If you had up until this point been trying to be environmentally friendly and were attempting to use a minimum of these bags to conserve plastic waste, it would be on this day, at this very instant, that you would find yourself tossing that frugality, along with this pouch of wretched stench, into another resealable bag that you can’t zip shut fast enough. You stuff the fermenting pocket of unbearable putrefaction into another bag, and maybe yet another, as you now fear that these bags could somehow break open while packed in your dry bag, with the clothes that don’t smell a fraction as bad as this bag of malodorous rot. Don’t forget to have your spouse smell the thing before sealing and storing it for the duration of your trip.

Time to put the aches, pains, and foul odors behind me and get moving up the trail. We are on our way into National Canyon, the last of the narrow slots that we’ll be able to visit over the remaining 59 miles of our river trip. I feel as though I sipped from the bottle labeled “Drink Me” and have shrunken to insignificance when measured against the immensity of this wonderland. Moving away from the wide expanse of the beginning of the trail, the narrowing path brings us past seashells peering out at us through 335 million-year-old Muav Limestone. The next steps deliver me through the fossilized lungs of some giant stone creature of lore. I am on my way to the heart.

Someone forgot to carve a polite trail through this boulder-strewn oversized artery. We crawl over and around rocks, the size of tanks, walk through the creek’s cool, clear water, and step into the moist sand. Our hike through the canyon pries open the imagination. A single tree stands firm, pushing hard against a slab of limestone as it insists on taking hold of two handfuls of dirt that have collected in a crack on the solid rock. Defiantly, the leaves are coaxing the branches to extend the tree beyond its reach, as though it might one day be successful in finding its way to the sun.

We walk as a silent caravan of nature’s revelers, celebrating our good luck to be amongst a group of like-minded travelers who are showing the demeanor and respect of people in a library, a church, or a hospital. It must be the sense of awe that reduces our need for words, leaving us content to remain speechless. Maybe there is no language for that which is beyond comprehension?

Our muted steps add to the well-worn edges of the illustriously smooth rock terraces. Beauty abounds where man-made noise does not distract the focusing mind. Is this reverence a buried instinct that once allowed our earliest human ancestors to explore their world and leave nothing more than a few mysterious symbols giving notice to others that someone else had passed through this land? Maybe there is no real need to despoil the environment when we are truly in the abundance of nature.

The outdoor, all-natural library of the Grand Canyon offers its vast wealth of knowledge to all who pass its towering bookshelves. All that is required is for us to open our minds to the invisible words writ large on the landscape and turn the page. On that next page, and below the steeple high above us, our walk takes us through the pews in a church, where our prayers are heard by the mighty ears of these canyon walls. The presence of nature is felt easily and experienced in tangible emotional ways. Some see this as the divine making itself known in an affirmation of what they knew was already there, although they might be in need of a reminder. For others, the emotional peaks and valleys of their own mind and soul may be an awkward first encounter with an awakening that is difficult to interpret or define.

The Canyon is also a hospital, offering us sanctuary to heal that which ails us. Psychic surgery is offered on the third floor, rebirth on the fourth floor, while humbling arrogance-ectomies are available free of charge on the first floor after you check in with Dr. Lee Ferry here at the Colorado Plateau Medical Center. Knowledge, spirit, and body are being restored here in the greatest of all intensive care units. Once reaching the 225th floor, you should be fully recovered and able to see life again with renewed clarity and vigor; good day and watch your step.

A little further up the trail, we reach the altar. This wasn’t supposed to be the end of our venture into these parts unknown, but a deep flooded pool is blocking our progress. Ahead, the slot canyon narrows into a twisting passage that leads further back into things begging at our inquisitive minds. Rondo tells us of the beauty that exists just beyond our view. We will have to leave only knowing his story of what has been shielded from our eyes. We are not to collect the cherry on top of the cake of experience this time, but the view we are offered at the end of this trail is sweet and yummy all the same.

We throw it in reverse, retracing our steps only to find ourselves in a parallel universe where things are the same, only different. Certainly, we are still in National Canyon, but hiking back to camp, the scenery, while familiar, does not seem to be precisely the one I just walked through. This works in my favor. My return to camp feels like a brand new trail, and the time saved from cutting this morning’s destination from our malleable schedule offers me more time to stroll along in leisure.

I cannot say that I have ever been more aware of the role of reflected light in changing the characteristics of a place as I am here, deep in the Grand Canyon. Up on the rim, it is precisely this charm of light and shadow spilling across the vistas that pulls folks out of bed early in the day to witness the sunrise and then again late in the day when they drop everything to watch the sunset as it bathes the Canyon in reds, purples, and burnt orange.

The late morning light is falling in a cascade of radiance, splashing downward from golden cliffs. The sun inches across the sky, its slowly changing light altering the terrain ever so subtly. The colors, shapes, texture, shadows, and complexity of features are undergoing an artful transformation that will have us questioning if the place we saw 20 minutes ago is the same one we are looking at now. This is a large part of the attraction that begs of us to linger, to absorb all we can in this rare moment we have been offered, to be present in this place.

Consider that during this particular moment, the vibrancy of color, the depth of shadows, and the reflection of what we bring to this experience will be interpreted differently, dependent upon the time of the week, month, or year when the sun is higher or lower in the sky. Clouds may be diffusing the light, or instead of being here in the morning, we might arrive at noon or late in the day. So, if someday you should find yourself standing right here, know that you are seeing the world in a way no one else has ever seen it before. Take a mental snapshot and compare it to what you thought you would see, and you will likely recognize a richness of detail that must have been put on display especially for you in your moment. You may never know this phenomenon, though, if you do not break out of your routine and find yourself somewhere in life, stumbling into the extraordinary.

We look into the infinite, trying to find meaning in the small corner of reality we occupy while simultaneously recognizing that we are sentient beings that have the ability to distill the universe into the observable. This is the wisdom of old nature.

I take a few steps forward, blink my eyes, and rub the disbelief from them. Yes, nature actually does coordinate itself in such delightful configurations. I’m not the only one noting this; Joe stands next to nothing in particular, looking at the rocks. Not just any rocks either; these are rocks that have captured Joe’s wonder. As he investigates the show of color and contrast between the shades and hues and everything else that brought him to a standstill, I stand here equally entranced, watching this man almost 30 years my senior, looking transfixed at the beauty he is taking in, much the same as I have felt so many hundreds, maybe thousands of times during the previous two weeks.

My wife, who I am sure was cut from the same cloth as me, is also lost in searching for details easily missed by the casual glances of those who walk through with nary more than a desire to have been here. Strangely enough, there are passengers who will not put themselves into every situation offered on these journeys, even when very little exertion is required. The impression given is that they may be here to humor someone else whose desire to be here was greater than their own. Caroline pulls me over, taking my attention from watching Joe in his curiosity in order to share with me something she is marveling at.

Water. The reflections, sparkles, ripples, splashes, and delicate sounds created when thin sheets of it are running over wild earth draw Caroline in to lose herself in the subtlety of the scene. In this fascination with detail, we were made for one another. Together, we follow the stream, watching in wonder as it meanders over the gray and purplish limestone. It enters and exits half-bowls and depressions, spills over shelves and ledges, and dips to swirl through seductive contours. Up ahead, it washes over short drop-offs, producing waterfalls an inch or two in height. We smile at each other with eyes that ask, “Can you believe how lucky we are?”

But we do know how lucky we are. The symbiosis found in our love has encouraged us to see the world and all of its beauty through four eyes, two hearts, and two smiles as we walk through life hand in hand. This act of sharing is a large part of the chemistry that has changed our perspective of what lies before us. During our exploration of the Canyon, my thinking matured, with the idea that extending our circle from two to many can have a positive effect on our ability to appreciate even more. Conversely, I believe it is loneliness that diminishes the vibrancy of our vision. Humanity is not programmed to go it alone. It is difficult to celebrate in isolation when you want to rejoice in the life emanating from your fascination. The art of images and the words from our language of exuberance turn to riches when they escape the confines of our hearts and are shared with others.

While I can see the magic of this place at work within my wife, amongst the boatmen, with Joe, Sarge, and the others, any open exchange or sharing of where we are inside is stilted and awkward, as though we have lost our ability to speak of what resonates deep within. It’s possible that nothing meaningful is lost from this lack of expression; intuition may be a more powerful force than we know. Maybe real communication has been crippled due to our obsession with the superficial nonsense of episodic television or worthless statistics easily parsed and used as a poor example of knowledge of important things. How is it that as a species claiming self-cognizance, with an ability to manifest an impact on its own destiny, we have dissolved our sense of community while simultaneously creating ever greater population densities? Why does the mass of an urban society foster anonymity, breaking up hope for a thriving, cohesive environment that should be functioning to bring us together? How can polarization and insignificance be considered an acceptable norm emerging from an intellect that is qualified to do so much more? We are destroying the air, water, land, and the quality of life for other species, and in all likelihood, our own too. Is this how we display the current apex of our hope and potential? How did pettiness, greed, and division overtake our capacity to know better? It has been the compassion, determination, and a love of life that sustained humankind through plagues, disaster, pestilence, starvation, war, and the other deprivations that have haunted our time on Earth; let’s hope our positive attributes can carry us through these difficult times, too.

When will we throw off these shackles of stupidity? When will we remember what true friendship is and begin to move each other off the rock of arrogance, intolerance, and isolation? Our self-respect and sense of belonging need to survive beyond economic disasters, terrorism, and personal tragedy. I want to live in a community where I know my neighbors. I want to share in the telling of our adventures, epiphanies, and educational milestones, and I want to know the stories of my friends – not their viewing habits or the number of kills scored in their favorite video game. People shouldn’t have to feel abandoned and neglected by family and society alike as we race to possess stuff while failing to own the wisdom derived from kinship, positive experience, and community.

I do not purport to want a communist or socialist utopia. I understand that all things are not equal, but I also know how having nearly nothing is more tolerable when a shared sense of standing together with my fellow human beings will not leave me feeling abandoned and alone. Despair and civil ugliness are the only outcomes when the glue of community is weakened, and our sense of self-preservation is exploited. I would rather shed another tear for the beauty of nature and friendship than have to mourn for another random person who had to die in an act of violence caused by greed, intolerance, or fear.

This is where my thoughts are taking me when staring into the reflecting pool of my heart. It is what I see when watching fellow travelers embrace, who are still able to weep when overcome by a shared experience. My dreams, hopes, and aspirations push me to find a string of thoughts that will act as my mantra to maintain this state of perpetual awareness that nature wants us to reach so that we might glean a peek into our higher selves. With the love, sharing, and familiarity I find with my wife and friends, and ultimately with the world at large, I wish to see the day that the power of our hearts and convictions to do what is right will squash what is holding humanity back. If only we were as free as this water coursing over the limestone here in National Canyon, maybe then we, too, could attain this level of beauty.

Eventually, we must leave National Canyon and find ourselves back on the liquid highway, though glide time here is brief. Our trajectory points us to a muddy, wet riverbank and a steep hillside trail. Stepping from the dory into the mire, I wonder how deep I will sink and ask myself if this is the famous suck-mud that doesn’t easily release the extremity it captures. For me, with my camera clutched firmly, the objective is to not fall into the goo. I try to mimic the actions of the water striders that walk on the surface tension with quick light steps.

Once on dry, firm ground, I look back at the strategy of the others. I am impressed and in admiration of those who threw off their shoes and are experiencing all the tactile sensations of stepping into the cold mud gushing between toes and wrapping their feet in earth socks of fine sediment. Orange hard-plastic mallets hammer sand stakes into mud that quivers with every downward blow. With the boats secured to terra – almost – firma, we are ready to conquer another trail.

At the beginning of our hike, we cannot see where we are headed beyond a dozen feet in front of us. This has been true the entire trip, come to think of it. No one announces if we will travel half a mile, two miles, or five hundred feet. Where we stop, turn, or detour is always a surprise.

Thick brush lines the first section of narrow sandy trail until, a few minutes later, we reach a cliff face and a steep, even narrower, rocky path. The majority of the trails we find ourselves on are primitive and, at one time, were likely animal trails or the routes used by early inhabitants of the Canyon. Passing one another here on the cliff-side is not an option; the trail is strictly one way. A funny thing about perspective going up a trail is that they never look so steep. But once atop a spot where one can comfortably pause and catch a breath, looking back to see the others in your party, the sudden elevation gain is abundantly apparent and – for me at least – occasionally intimidating.

Thanks to the now-familiar knowledge that we have been traveling through layers of fossilized sediments, I am always on the lookout for signs of petrified plant and creature remains. Nothing from the distant past stands out here, though I’m sure given some time to do nothing but search for fossils, I would turn up something. Then, lying sandwiched between the sandstone layers next to the trail, an antique! It is a fragment, a piece of something larger; it is the broken metal housing of an outboard motor. This keepsake is the casualty of an encounter between hard rock and not so durable machine. Scratched into the metallic surface are some fading dates that tell us this motor met its end back in 1965. That it has been allowed to stay here, like a treasure sitting on a mantle, for more than 40 years without finding its way back off the river as a stolen souvenir is remarkable. I wish for it to remain a river memento for another 40 years, as a reminder of those pioneering early days of recreational exploration here on the Colorado.

The trail is short, but before we reach the optimal arch viewing area, there are views up and down river that are singing out to be seen. I oblige, giving audience to the symphony reciting this operetta of gorgeous delight. The mud, brush, rocks, cliff, river view, blue sky, and the finishing touch of a crescendo offered by Alamo Arch all work in harmony to bring the piece into a cohesive whole. No longer is the hole in the rock a solo performer, nor is the sight of it the destination. We have been on a miniature expedition, playing a small part in the bigger journey. Even during these brief side excursions, I choose to go further than the most obvious end location. This philosophy is, in large part, the trail I have taken in life’s journey without ever really knowing the final destination.

Not far downstream from Alamo Arch, Below Red Slide Camp is a mere spit of land at river mile 176 (yes, “Below” is part of the name of the camp). It’s still early in the day but not late enough for the previous guests to have broken camp yet. The others who are hanging out did not arrive by boat or foot; they are intruders who landed on a wing; they are flies. Lots of flies; flies by the gross. A baker’s dozen would have been tolerable, but these pesky waste-eaters smelled a feast rowing in on the wind that signaled our arrival. A buzz of fly-shouting must have been broadcast far and wide that a ripe group was on approach because, by the time the rafts were unloaded and bags delivered to campsites, a horde of flies that had been lying in wait flew out to welcome our presence. The flies let us know in their raucous song of merriment how much they were enjoying the invitation to dine on the funk and detritus we carried to their dinner table. Caroline and I took the fly orgy as a clue that a bath was in order.

Leave the lavender Dr. Bronner’s behind; this cleaning requires the extra-strength spearmint funk annihilator. Stepping into the water, I tremble at the thought of the big day tomorrow and the reason we took an early camp – Lava Falls. This rapid of monstrous proportions is just out of sight, 3 miles downstream, but never too far from our imaginations. All of a sudden, I feel as though I’m preparing my body for the coroner, and the flies are a hint of what’s to come. No matter, I must clean up as I’m reminded of what my mother taught me: wear clean underwear every day, you never know when you might find yourself under the care of a paramedic or doctor. Looks as though the rest of the group shared the same lesson from their own mothers, with most everyone taking the opportunity for a shore-side sudsing this afternoon.

Here we are, sparkling and fresh from our dip in the Colorado, with no side canyon hike or any more rapids today to keep our minds distracted. No action in the kitchen either. Nothing much to do in this early camp but sit here, letting the tension mount and wondering what tomorrow’s white-knuckler at Lava Falls will deliver. About 75 miles ago, after passing through Crystal Rapid, we earned bragging rights that we were ABC – Alive Below Crystal. There can be no one who takes a river journey through the Grand Canyon who doesn’t know about the legend of the Canyon – Lava Falls. Tomorrow, we all hope to be ABL – Alive Below Lava. Our group has been lucky so far: no falls of consequence, no dreaded boat flips, no stomach viruses, no one overboard. If there is a rapid that holds all the potential of doom, it is surely our next ride.

On previous nights, Rondo’s review of the day and preview of what comes next has been held around the dinner hour. Tonight, he is giving his spiel with no food in sight. This can only be part of the tension ploy to ensure our senses are highly alert to be fully responsive early tomorrow. The announcement holds the nugget of surprise that we will be woken at 5:00 am, in the dark of the day. We will need to pack up faster than we have on any of the preceding days. Breakfast will be bagels and lox, to be wolfed down by the light of our headlamps. We are urged to visit the Unit and make quick business of things. The rafts and dories will be untied and launched by 6:30.

The goal is to thrust ourselves into the maelstrom of Lava by 7:30, to experience 23 seconds of controlled, reckless abandon, well, as much control as a boatman, two oars, and years of experience can bring to bear once we enter the madness of Lava Falls. Why so early? The daily water level fluctuations triggered up at Glen Canyon Dam will make Lava Falls more difficult to run as the flow decreases throughout the morning. In spite of my healthy dose of fear and respect for this infamous landmark, there is a part of me that wants us to make the run at minimum gnarly flow, to better flirt with death and danger.

It is now after 6:00 pm, and I lay prone in debilitating anxiety on the sand, writhing in anticipation, not for Lava Falls, but where in tarnation is dinner? The stove is working hard, and the Dutch oven is baking at its own slow, steady pace. Finally, a guitar arrives to serenade us – or to distract us from the long wait. Shortly afterward, the call goes out to wash them hands and start the lineup. Pork in green chile sauce, coleslaw, and the treat of all treats – Dutch oven cornbread – are on the menu.

This isn’t just any old dry, moisture-robbing, semi-edible desiccant one tries to choke down. This special recipe must be the cake Marie Antoinette lost her head for. Tonight, we dine on the deluxe cornbread of the comfort-food gods.

It would be unfair to now withhold this recipe, denying you the opportunity to taste the single greatest river treat I laid taste buds upon. Here it is:

1 Box Krusteaz Honey Cornbread Mix
1 Egg
1 Small Can Diced Green Chilies
1 15 ounces Can of Whole Corn – drained
½ to 1 pound of cheddar or cheddar-jack mix
Just enough milk to make a thick dough, between 4 and 8 ounces
1 stick of melted butter – Who cares about fat down here? We are working hard and are near the precipice of death anyway.

In a large mixing bowl, add the cornbread mix, egg, green chilies, corn, and milk. To add the cheese, break up the block into small pieces – about the size of small coins – and stir them into the batter. If you are making this at home, pour the melted butter into your baking dish, add the cornbread mixture, and bake at 375 degrees for approximately one hour. If you are making this in a Dutch oven in camp, fix a couple of paper towels into the butter-filled bottom to help in the removal of the cornbread. Place about eight briquets under the oven and about 20 on the cast iron lid – this all depends on the size of your oven. Bake for 45 minutes before cracking open the lid, as you do not want to let the heat escape. Stick a knife into the cornbread; if it comes out clean, the cornbread is finished; otherwise, replace the lid and cook for another 10 to 15 minutes. When the cake of corny delight is finished, grab a big stick to fend off your friends and family, who will attempt to come between you and your cornbread.

M&M’s are passed around for dessert as though they are needed. Now, in full-blown, carb-induced ecstasy, the thoughts of tomorrow’s tumult in the bowels of Lava Falls are far away. Approaching fast is a pillow and cozy sleeping bag that want to help celebrate cornbread euphoria – who needs sheep?

–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.

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.

Warning: You may want to skip this chapter; it is a detour from the route you have been traveling with me on this journey. As is the case while en route to any destination, deviations from our path can be time-consuming and frustrating, leaving us wondering why we had to get caught up with the diversion in the first place. But, should you follow this big right turn, you might see something you hadn’t anticipated before leaving the well-traveled stream.

Today is Sunday, both literally and metaphorically. The previous nine days made up the longest Saturday ever. The next nine days will hopefully be the longest Sunday ever but we all know what happens Monday, so I think I’ll hang around here on an extended lazy day with nothing much to do at all. Like all Sundays, it will soon become evident that the weekend was far too short, and I will find myself wishing for another day off. Just who came up with this crazy idea that people should work five days and be afforded a mere two-day sojourn to do for themselves what needs to be done so we can repeat another week tending to tasks that often may not enrich our lives – besides the obvious monetary gain? I suppose in a society that derives so much pleasure from being a passive observer, where we use TV, the internet, or cell phones to watch others play sports, shop, eat, have sex, argue, dance, sing, fish for crab, and a multitude of other observable activities, this passive observation absolves us from full participation in our own lives, while also alleviating boredom.

While we may rarely find enough time for ourselves on weekends, we can take a big step away from routine when on vacation – should we be so brave to take that deserved and well-earned respite of recreation and relaxation. It is within our rights, even obligation, to get out and explore new places, though it is now accepted as the norm that many of us will turn over amassed vacation time back to our employer for the extra cash and skip another year of enjoying an extended break from the treadmill. How many of us are guilty of suffering from our own self-inflicted drama of delusion, where we spout that our company cannot function without us? Then there are those who find their work-a-day lives so jam-packed with responsibilities that as the vacation does roll around, the option is exercised to stay at home and “get caught up,” as though this will prove cathartic in satisfying our basic human need to know our world. And when it finally happens that we do take that well-deserved vacation, we are left bored and faced with the conundrum of what to do with ourselves and all this extra time when we have no hobbies or interests outside of our day-to-day routines.

In many of our communities, there are craft guilds, arts associations, and community colleges where we can join others in the quest to acquire new skills. The internet has brought us Meetup.com to find people with similar interests so we don’t have to go it alone. Walmart sells fishing reels 24 hours a day, but rarely will one have to compete for a good fishing hole on a weekday. A minority of us are getting better at managing our exposure to TV programs and are learning when to turn off the cell phone. More of us are practicing yoga, going to the gym, joining hiking groups, learning to play an instrument, experimenting with cooking an exotic cuisine, or brushing up on a foreign language for a trip abroad, but is this enough?

No. We all need more time to play. We need more storytellers, more photographers, artists, poets, and designers who will weave their perspectives, crafts, and knowledge into teaching narratives shared in a new, as yet uninvented, truly global social network with the potential to foster a renewed sense of community. We need to help one another learn to sing our own song, to speak of the poetry that moves us, to paint the canvas that reflects the beauty of our lives and the places explored. How do we best share our journeys and experiences so that we are nudging our families, neighbors, and communities forward?

We can begin by reigniting the passion to learn and explore. The potential gained through greater cultural and intellectual awareness enriches our lives with opportunities that become tangible as our broadened sense of interest grows. This provides us with new possibilities where music, film, foreign lands, exotic flavors, and outdoor recreation offer options to move beyond the worn and well-known. But if idle consumption and passive entertainment remain the method of filling the space between work and other responsibilities, we will continue our hamster wheel existence and never know what is just beyond our cage of routine.

I suggest you go out and document your life, your hobby, and your fun. Create your own living history, author the story of who you have been and where you have gone, and offer a peek into the potential you hold. The age of information and of being a passive observer is coming to a close; we are on the cusp of the age of knowledge and of being a participant.

Need proof? Sixty years ago, only the most intrepid adventurers explored the Colorado River; today, we do, average people. Forty years ago, a small handful of filmmakers and broadcasters created television content; today, the internet and the likes of Vimeo and YouTube are presenting an extraordinary amount of video made and broadcast by us. Thirty years ago, professional photographers, via big publishing companies, distributed their work to a broad audience; today, Flickr gives every one of us a gallery to display our work. Twenty years ago, a few music executives determined what we would hear; today, the sources and genres available exceed our ability to hear it all. Ten years ago, it was up to a small cadre of publishers to decide what we would read; today, independent bloggers on the Internet and mobile devices, such as the iPad and Kindle, are changing this relationship between authors and readers.

And now, it’s time for the last component in the equation to find change – US! It is our time to embrace the tools of eloquence and put them to work in the employ of creating our very own written and visualized body of knowledge and, when appropriate, to incorporate the shared works of our global community that can add a cultural richness through music, images, art, poetry, and story – a kind of collaborative pot-luck of expressive creativity.

First Attempt At Exiting the Detour.

Another beautiful day in this glorious Canyon. Not a lot of miles will be covered today; only five rapids will be run. There are no side canyon hikes, but still, it feels like a full day of action and fun. Caroline opted to ride a raft and joined Katrina for the half-day we were spending on the river. I was on board the Shoshone with Rondo for a leisurely day, floating past the sheer black cliffs of Vishnu Schist streaked with pink granite veins. Considering the epiphanies of yesterday, day 10 is not a foundation shaker, which is fine, as reconciling the largesse and depth of that experience is still weighing heavily on my being. I can’t stop myself from wondering whether Rondo is fully aware of the impact of Blacktail Canyon on some of his fellow travelers. Is he keeping the pace of the day to a minimum, allowing us this opportunity to sink deeper into contemplation about what the secrets of the Grand Canyon might mean?

And so it was, in the days following the trip, while at home and trying to write about day 10, that my mind would be as blank as it was this day on the river. My journal entry is, but a partial page, and my wife’s notes are just as brief compared to other days where line after line of details were written into the margins. If it weren’t for photos and video, much of the day would have been lost in the introspection I was drifting on.

There would be no monumental intrusions into my sense of the aesthetic. It is as though the volume of my mind was turned down another notch. If there was any cognitive activity that might stand out, it would be the question: is this close to where a boatman lives? Meaning, why worry about issues outside of your immediate situation that you have no bearing on and that have no bearing on you? Why analyze this relationship to the Canyon? It is what it is. And why drag who you are when at home and at work down here to the river?

Those are easy questions to answer long after the trip is over. In retrospect, it is obvious that much of who one is should be left at Lees Ferry. While still onshore, stop for meditation and cast off your mental baggage, then enter the dory with a still mind. My fear and anxiety will not guide the boatmen’s oars with any more precision than the experience they bring to their task. Start this journey without thought or expectation, and leave the over-analytical mind at home. Do not lament bad weather conditions; embrace all that presents itself. Even injuries become part of the experience that will be your story down here. As for me, this would prove a gradual awakening of awareness that would only be fully realized after leaving the Grand Canyon.

The brochure will tell you what to bring so that you might be physically prepared, but it fails to inform you of what to leave behind. Worried about the cold water? Who cares?! You are going to get wet, real wet, deep down wet, and deep down cold. But you’ll dry off, and the excitement of having made it through another rapid will distract you from the shivering. Considering using camp wipes to avoid getting into the frigid Colorado River to bathe? Forget about it! You will go in if for no other reason than that you recognize that this unique opportunity may not present itself again in your lifetime. Maybe you’re apprehensive about the metal boxes sitting riverside under the clear blue sky, you know, the Unit? Throw out your worry, walk up boldly, drop your pants midstride, and sing a song to celebrate what you are about to do. Nobody cares that you are using an outdoor, visible-to-the-world toilet, and should you have the gumption to sing, you are likely adding one more moment of magic to the story others will share with friends when they get home and relate the story of the singing crapper who would perch at dawn, chirping a song of glee.

A popular refrain from those we told of our adventure was that they would not be comfortable camping for this duration or – in some cases – any duration! To them, I have to say it is nothing more than the internal dialogue that stops you from embracing the new that stretches you outside of your comfort zone. It is possible that you will never see why you should have broken through your shell of isolation from nature or even your distance from yourself. But there is also a chance that before you pass through this life, you will awaken to this very human desire to connect with nature, to have done something that you thought to be beyond your capability, beyond your fear of the unknown.

Our brief lives, as counted by the number of days, may appear short, but the number of moments is incomprehensibly large. Earlier, I explained how we have roughly 29,000 days of life; counted as seconds, this amounts to approximately 2 billion of those fleeting moments. While this is a grand number in comparison, the experiences we extract from them, will often only amount to but a few isolated moments that stand out as extraordinary. If this is acceptable to you, then, by all means, go on about your life of routine, but should this strike a chord and resonate within you, embrace each day, each moment, and make the most of it. If your work is mundane, spend a half-hour a day learning a new skill, craft, or language. Ask for more time off and go on a hike or go skiing. Have you turned 40 and needed something challenging that you never thought you’d do? Take surfing or scuba lessons, and get on a skateboard before your hips and knees stop you from trying. Take cooking classes, learn to edit videos, pick up the harmonica, garden, or learn to knit.

Wondering if you might be interested in a few days of snowshoeing in Yellowstone? Go to YouTube and search for “How to snowshoe.” Think you might have the inclination to better express yourself in the digital realm? The websites Video2Brain.com and Lynda.com offer online training for dozens of creative software titles. Have you ever heard of the John C. Campbell Folk School? Maybe now is the time to check it out and consider learning something about blacksmithing, broom making, tanning leather, woodworking, or a number of other folk arts and crafts. Going to Florida any time soon? Ever been kayaking? There are terrific calm waters on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts to learn on. For almost everything we could consider doing these days, there are free online tutorial videos or websites that will start us on our way.

By The Way – We Are Detouring Again.

The point is many of us sit at home or work dreaming of what we would do someday if only we had the time and money. But what if those two conditions are never in perfect alignment? For my wife and I, this became a matter of forcing the conditions. If the money wasn’t there, we would travel close to home and stay in the cheapest motel in the smallest town we could find. If time was the limiting factor, we would leave Friday night, knowing we would be comfortable driving a maximum of five hours. This would let us spread out in nearly any direction to a distance of about 300 miles. It has not been beyond us to jump in the car at 4:30 in the morning on a Saturday to drive west to California, arriving in Los Angeles mid-morning. We would have enough time to visit Little Tokyo, Chinatown, and Hollywood, and then finish the afternoon with a walk on 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica to find dinner before a quick stroll on the beach. With the evening upon us, we would point the car east for the 390-mile drive back to Phoenix, with several coffee breaks to keep us going. Sure, we were exhausted when we got home, but with only one free day, we were happy to stuff three days’ worth of fun into it.

Once in the habit of extracting more from less, it became apparent that frugality was taking us on a path of riches, while economically, we were surviving on the single income of a web programmer. The thing is – when the two of us worked, we had little free time and even less ambition to throw ourselves at the task of making plans. Downsizing from conspicuous to experiential consumption, our lives found a groove that delivered a more consistent sense of fun and satisfaction. We stopped collecting stuff that only took up space on a shelf and started a more focused effort at finding tools that we could learn from or that would lend themselves to helping us better express ourselves. A loom and a spinning wheel, a fermentation crock, and a food dehydrator moved in. Things that required more than a single push of a button on a remote control became increasingly interesting. Television was becoming less and less important and was finally moved from the backseat to a thrift store. Hiking, snorkeling, exploring our environment, these things were taking the wheel up in the front seat. Our internet connection became our lifeline to determining distances between points of interest. It could direct us to inexpensive lodgings and show us what there was to find in any geographic area that attracted our curiosity. In moments, we knew about the best and funkiest restaurants, favorite trails, and roadside curiosities. Online would also be where we would have our first encounter with dories. That chance meeting was the material of dreams – only not ours at the time. As far as we could tell, dories existed for a class of wealthy people who went on expensive, exotic adventures; to us, this looked distant and near impossible. To our eyes, a whitewater rafting trip with dories on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon was a journey too far beyond our reach and the cost too far beyond justification.

And yet, incrementally and slowly, we ventured further and further away from the thoughts and things that limited the scope of our wildest dreams. Within a few years, we visited 50, then 100, and before long, more than 150 National Parks and Monuments. A visit to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan completed our goal of visiting the entirety of the continental United States – and not just by dropping into an airport. We were becoming familiar with the three coastal regions, crossing (and, on occasion, stepping into) America’s major waterways, visiting the White House, standing in the crown of the Statue of Liberty, or in Lebanon, Kansas, the geographical center of the U.S. – the more we saw, the more we wanted to see. Our overarching familiarity with the breadth of this land awakened our desire to discover more of the granularity of what created the whole.

Every day and every weekend became precious. We knew to request the days before and after long Holiday weekends well in advance – before coworkers figured out what they might be doing at that time. At Christmas, we put in for days off around Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. In early spring, we requested a couple of days off around Labor Day. Near Memorial Day, it was time to request the days off around Thanksgiving, and as Independence Day rolled around, we put in for time off at Christmas and New Year’s. We often had no idea what we would be doing on these short four-, five-, and six-day vacations, but now we had something to plan toward. Holidays that fell on Thursdays and Tuesdays, when the company was likely to kick in Friday or Monday as a bonus day off, became coveted holiday weeks. Our determination never waned when thinking of making another request, the three days before or after the holiday, that would give us a nine-day window for a vacation that only necessitated taking three days of personal time off. With proper planning, we could turn 17 days of PTO into 45 days of vacation during a single year. Add the occasional weekend, and we could find ourselves traveling between 60 to almost 80 days a year exploring the U.S. – and who says Europeans get more vacation?

Attention: Numbers Ahead.

So here we are; we figured out the time part of the equation, but what about the disposable income? My wife and I have yet to own a cell phone, nor do we watch TV anymore. These two facts alone have saved us no less than $25,000 since the year 2000. We do not look at expenses as monthly occurrences; they are yearly, decadal, and lifetime costs to our happiness. Here’s the breakdown: two cell phones at $70 per month cost $1,680 per year, that is $16,800 every ten years, assuming zero inflation, or a cool $100,800 from the time you turn 20 until your 80th birthday.

We make do with one car. At times, this is an inconvenience, and on occasion, situations have arisen requiring us to rent a car, sometimes for a month or more. Still, we have learned how to coordinate appointments, activities, and even work schedules during the many years of our long relationship. Here, the savings have been extraordinary. If we had indulged ourselves in owning two cars over the last decade, more than likely, we would have had to replace that car at least once. Thus the car purchased in the year 2000 would have been replaced around the year 2005. Had we purchased cheap vehicles costing $15,000 each and not financed them but instead paid cash, we would have committed to a $30,000 outlay – there are already enough numbers here without adding finance charges. Add $7,000 for insurance during those ten years, plus $120 of gasoline per month, adding up to $15,400 of fuel costs per ten years. With oil changes, tire replacement, brake jobs, car washes, routine maintenance, and other miscellaneous costs, you add at least another $500 per year. The sum of these costs: a whopping extra $57,400 for owning a second car. I appreciate that this is not tenable for a family of four with doctor appointments, school programs, pets suffering an illness, and all the other demands put on us by busy schedules, but I also have known many a young family to overextend themselves with pricey cars that serve demanding egos more than any transportation needs.

Look at the total cost of owning and maintaining a second car, the cell phones, a cable bill, TV, and these things for the two of us would cost close to $75,000 – every ten years. Thinking you don’t earn that kind of disposable income? Consider that if you make, on average, $25,000 per year from the time you turn 25 until retirement at 65, you will have earned $1,000,000 over the course of your career. Your lifelong contribution to the financial world is quite extraordinary; it should be to you, too.

How many people in America have $75,000 put away for retirement? How many people spend that every ten years on vacations? Because incremental monthly expenses fit into people’s budgets so easily, they are considered to be a minor ding to their overall income. One day, the consumer pays a contracted fee of $50 or $60, followed by 29 days of pleasure – the equation is simple. And this is what the vendors and corporations who supply these services need us to feel: that the costs we incur are but a small fraction of our monthly budget and, hence, are worth it.

Warning: Dangerous Curve. Seriously, This Detour Is Far From The River.

Sorry, just one more indulgence with the numbers. As an exercise for myself and, subsequently, a blog I was ghostwriting for, I looked at the cost of conventionally and organically grown foods versus processed frozen meals, along with restaurants, both sit-down and fast food. I wanted to know just how much more expensive it was for my wife and I to eat locally grown, all-natural products. What I learned shocked me.

I, probably much like many others, thought I was spending a good premium to indulge my palate with organic foods. Anyone who has ever shopped at Whole Foods knows what a single bag of groceries can cost there. It would be folly to argue otherwise, or would it? My first step was to find what I thought was the cheapest possible meal, starting with what is typically our biggest meal of the day – dinner. Don’t suggest the dollar menu – three items and tax is over $3.00. I needed to go to the king of low prices – Walmart. At the time I wrote my article, a Marie Callender’s frozen meal of Salisbury Steak with Potatoes and Green Beans was costing $2.77 on sale. How could anyone compete with a fourteen-ounce box of frozen instant gratification? Well, let’s look at what your money buys; two and a half ounces of meat, almost eleven ounces of veggies, the rest I assumed was the gravy.

In season, you can find organic green beans for about $3.00 a pound, organic carrots as low as $1.00 a pound, and organic potatoes sell for the whopping price of $1.50 a pound – compared to conventionally grown potatoes that are often on sale for as little as $1.00 for a ten-pound bag, or just 10 cents a pound. Conventionally raised chicken is cheap at $1.59 a pound when compared to those free-range organic pullets yanking $4.25 a pound from your wallet. From all-organic ingredients, I prepared a meal similar to the frozen dish for comparison: thirteen ounces of fresh veggies consisting of four ounces of carrots, three ounces of green beans, and six ounces of potatoes, plus a four-ounce piece of chicken, small but probably reasonable. This calculates to 42 cents for the carrots, 56 cents for the green beans, 66 cents for potatoes, and $1.06 for our happy all-natural chicken. This fresh, healthy meal costs us $2.70 – how can this be? We saved seven cents compared to the Marie Callender’s meal and are eating organic food that has never been processed or frozen. This is about a pound of food for dinner. How much would we pay for this meal in a cafe? $7.95, maybe $10.95? If it were organic, like I prepared here, this meal would likely cost us between $12.95 and up to $21.95 if the chicken is bathed in a 60-cent drizzle of honey balsamic reduction.

For the sake of truth, our $2.70 cost is indeed on the pricey side, as the meal prepared with conventionally grown meat and produce costs only $1.55 a portion, or about the cost of a medium order of fries from McDonald’s. One more example, and I’ll stop this part of the number stuff and start to bring this all together with a point. Maybe you have heard of Meatless Mondays? The initiative was started by marketing professional Sid Lerner in association with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health back in 2003. The idea is to focus on making healthier decisions for our diet one day a week, with the side benefit of greatly reducing the impact on our environment due to the water and energy needs of supplying meat. But there are more benefits than just those. Let’s concoct a mostly organic Meatless Monday meal plan, starting with a breakfast of two eggs and four ounces of potatoes for a cost of $1.19. At midday, we’ll have a grilled cheese on 9-grain bread and a banana; lunch costs 69 cents. Dinner for our hypothetical Meatless Monday will be 3 ounces of sautéed green beans with onions and garlic, 4 ounces of sliced tomatoes, 2½ ounces of steamed carrots, a side of roasted peppers, and a few ounces of steamed brown rice for a total price of $3.04. Our food bill per person for a Meatless Monday would be $4.92, while that Number One Combo of Double Burger, Fries, and a Drink at our favorite burger joint costs $5.75 plus tax – for one meal.

Maybe I’ve grabbed your attention, and you are starting to wonder if this could be true; as Mr. Reagan said, “Trust but verify.” Without being saints and living in strict austerity, we can make changes, dramatic changes, in our food budget while eating healthier. Maybe we only start with Mondays, but if we were to seriously consider how we are spending our food dollars, we could begin to save thousands per year and start moving away from convenience and closer to healthy. The added benefit is that we will find more money in our bank accounts for the really important stuff.

Of course, there are the time requirements to shop, cook, and clean, which I have not added to my calculations – but I’m not looking for convenience; I’m looking for luxury. If we can learn to live comfortably, and one of us in a relationship has the time to visit local farmers markets, cook, care for the car, take care of banking, laundry, house cleaning, and the other household necessities while our spouse or partner is at the nine to five, we then find the time to research cheap motels for a weekend getaway and monitor cheap flights to New York City, Florida, Seattle, Paris or London. We can find upcoming events or workshops that are happening in the next few months. Classes, concerts, opportunities to volunteer, or other means that can enrich our lives can be found and planned for – with this, I’m on a path to luxury. This is obviously more difficult for a single person. Better time management might need to be practiced. Take a weekend a month to prepare a couple dozen meals that can be frozen. Connect with like-minded people who can share travel, entertainment, education opportunities, and tips for what’s coming up in your community. Tell your friends to tweet about useful stuff and forget telling you about the trivialities of the day.

Think about this: is life supposed to be about convenience, or should we bask in luxury? Down in the Grand Canyon, we sacrificed some convenience in order to live in luxury. To spend more than a week snowshoeing in Yellowstone two years in a row, my wife and I had to make sacrifices – each of them usually around a convenience. The person who wants to start their own company knows success comes from sacrifice, little convenience, and lots of hard work. Shortcuts typically do not work when one is striving for accomplishment. To get to the top of Everest, there is but one path. So why is it that when it comes to our private lives, we can justify our lack of inertia with a litany of reasons why we must indulge our cravings for convenience? Convenience is the biggest impediment to finding luxury unless you are already wealthy, with a bank account full of idle cash.

What kind of unrealistic life expectations do we entertain, and what are the repercussions of living under the tension that instant gratification should always be within our grasp? Is happiness really just a purchase, a candy bar, or a beer away? Can isolation, depression, or tragedy be fended off by exercising the credit card on late-night internet shopping? Does splurging for dinner, or even a cheap fast food drive-thru after a hard day, offer anything more than a momentary convenience of immediacy that will be nothing more than so much excrement in 24 hours?

Wonderful experiences are not forgotten in an hour or a day; should we be lucky, they will pay dividends to the memory by enriching our lives in the years ahead. Who forgets what it was like learning a major new skill like skiing or snowboarding or the first time they went to Disneyland? What about that first concert we went to as a teen or our first love? Experience is everything, but if we become distracted by a habit of convenience, giving in to moments of instant gratification, our ability to focus on longer-term projects, plans, and epic adventures are never realized. We are conditioned to want and demand our pleasure with an unrealistic immediacy. We want it now.

Patience, persistence, and prudence bring us closer to realizing big dreams. Big dreams are the domain of humanity. During the long history of our developmental stages, humankind has acted like a giant, nearly cohesive unit, building the tools that have allowed us to explore our world and invent processes that have delivered shelter, clothing, warmth, running water, and better access to food. Communication on a global scale is being transmitted by invisible frequencies rippling through the air around us, and the world of knowledge is brought directly into our homes via little copper wires or pulses of light through a strand of glass. But things are changing. We are moving away from the mass of bodies that once were required to build railroads and ships; we no longer employ swarms of people to cultivate crops. The big dream of the new frontier is self-actualization through experiential economic activities and greater personal expression. If an aspiring author wants to bring a story of, say, “Mountain Biking in Mongolia” to the social network of knowledge, it will be with the understanding that instead of buying another energy drink and a pack of smokes, this person is going to have to recognize the value of those $9.00 in bringing them closer to their goal. Humankind has always made sacrifices to succeed, and the last few decades have witnessed many of us losing sight of that struggle – and its rewards.

The newest new economy, from my perspective, will be that of experience and sharing our intellectual resources. It will be our spin on how we perceive where we have been and what we have accomplished, given our limited resources of time for learning and experience. We will move away from the consumption of stuff that fills our homes to buying the tools that allow us to explore our minds and, in turn, offer our perspective to others who may not have access to a wealth of creativity and resources that would allow them to travel our world, or visit diverse locations to learn new arts and crafts. Maybe you have a favorite village and pub in Ireland you think your friends might enjoy – why just speak of the details privately? Why not tell the story in photos, video, the written word, and music, all wrapped up in a digital multiformat narrative? Our opportunity for distribution is global. We no longer require gatekeepers, publishers, or agents, as the internet is allowing everyone to enter the world market.

Should we find ourselves in Peru, watching weavers working their backstrap looms, how will we share with others how these artists exercised their craft? Mind you, we need not go far from home. Maybe near our neck of the woods, we have a rails-to-trails program, where an old, unused rail line was replaced with a foot and biking path that meanders through a beautiful corner of our community. Just because you know it is out there doesn’t mean others know it exists. Who will share it with those people from around the world who may never have the opportunity to visit such a place in North Carolina or Cambodia?

Let’s bring all this together. We have limited amounts of time and money. We have the potential to participate in and find new experiences. Many of us spend an excessive amount of our lives giving in to convenience and instant gratification. What will it take to bring us to the recognition of what the value of play is, and how can we begin to move away from the complacency of routine? When will we embrace the precious commodity of life we have been allotted and see the value in the tools of participation that might allow us to achieve a more dignified means of expression than the addition of a beer tap in the man cave?

How many of us justify our possessions as a reward for our efforts and sacrifices made due to what we see as the demands of a job robbing us of our time? We ourselves rob this time by not demanding more financial discipline and better management of our personal resources. Many people will remain in a state of dissatisfaction while putting on all the accouterments we are being told will bring us to consumption nirvana. And when those things don’t deliver, it’s too easy to turn to pharmaceuticals that can massage the way forward to happiness. But for many of us, this isn’t working. And it isn’t working because we are creatures with two legs and two eyes, who are incredibly well adapted to learning and exploring and then using our powers of recollection and language to tell stories and grow. Many of us are not doing this today. We are sitting around, postponing the big things so we don’t have to make an effort while floundering in instant gratification and conveniences, waiting for that wonderful something that never arrives.

The story from a reality television show or a Super Bowl should only have a brief place in our lives. It may be a nice distraction for a short time to share this collective, cohesive moment in a large community, but don’t forget that we are also individuals worthy of our own personal television shows featuring the best of our reality, our lives, and our families. We could document our own version of the Super Bowl in which we present our best moves and our best performances. These would be living documentaries chronicling our adventures. Upon our passing, they would find a place in our family heritage, adding depth to our descendant’s understanding of who their ancestors were. We then become the heroes of our own stories and encourage others to be as well. Grandma’s wisdom would live on.

The quality of what I offer here may not measure up to the entertainment brought on by the words penned by J.K. Rowling, the art of Van Gogh, the narrative of Ken Burns’ documentaries, or any of the number of unknown artists yet to present their palette of expression. These are my reflections on a time when a man found himself in the middle of wild nature and was inspired and compelled to record a representation of that image. These words are my petroglyphs, my cave paintings, my mark on history.

Back To The Story – Again.

Following our leisurely morning, we have one big rapid to run before making for shore to fix lunch and set up camp. Deubendorff, also known as Dubie, is an awfully long-looking rapid that stretches far and wide in a broad expanse of the Canyon. During the fall, when days are short, the cold river most always carries a brisk slap to the senses. But where the sun falls upon crew and passengers after leaving a rapid, its warming rays keep the shivers at bay. Rondo expertly delivers the Shoshone with expert aplomb, allowing us, fore and aft, to remain dry and toasty. We pull into Stone Creek Camp at mile 132. This will be a layover stop, so not only are we at camp early, but we’ll stay here two nights, allowing us to relax, take in a hike tomorrow morning, and have that rare opportunity to become a little more familiar with our surroundings.

While the crew prepares lunch we busy ourselves to once again find the perfect campsite and pitch our tent. The beach here is enormous, giving everyone ample room to spread out. Having the rest of the day free, we are moving rather slowly. The trumpeting conch shell calls us to the lunch table for sandwiches, fruit, and cookies. From midday to early evening, the second half of this day creeps on by. Besides doing some laundry and Caroline catching her second river bath in ten days, we are doing pretty much nothing at all. Looking back now, I can’t recall if we reorganized dry bags, talked with fellow passengers, or just stared at rocks. Probably stared at rocks – and prepared for the evening’s festivities.

Halloween in the Grand Canyon does not preclude the need to don a costume; we had been warned a couple of days ago. No costume, no dinner. Suppose twigs in the hair may have sufficed as being in the costume of a bush. Lucky for us, Kenney travels with a large overstuffed duffel bag filled with bits and pieces of costumes and soon has set up shop on a large tarp for anyone in need of special attire to join in the party. Pirate Rondo brought along plastic Jack-O’-Lantern heads complete with battery-powered lights. Caroline and I had been hiding a pumpkin head filled with candy in our dry bag just for this day. With us campers now bedecked in our frightful best, we grab the candy-filled squash to storm the camp of a private trip, not far upriver, and do a reverse trick-or-treat by giving away our hoard of sweet treasure.

After dinner, our neighbors, rafters from Maine and Canada, join us around our large fire. The luxury of having two guitars, a mandolin, and more than one singing voice makes for a great party. Things get lively, and with drinks, fire, dance, song, and merriment, we celebrate on the eve of All Saints, bringing the last day of October to a close. Tomorrow will be Monday for many outside this Canyon, but it will be another Sunday for those of us down here. Long live the perpetual weekend.

–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.

I wake up and head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. On my return to the tent, I find one of the hikers we shared camp with last night sitting riverside on a large rock. After a demanding hike down the South Bass Trail yesterday, a group of four backpackers quietly set up tents off to the side of our camp and prepared their dinner. The affable guy basking in the early morning light offers a “Hello,” which I return with a wish for a good morning. I ask how their hike has been going, “Tough” is his reply. He asks about the dories, “Amazing,” I offer in return. He introduces himself as Bill Karren. With coffee in hand, we learn where each other comes from: I from Phoenix, Arizona, he from Las Vegas, Nevada. Bill and his nephew Robert are traveling with a friend and his wife. They are here for a long weekend. It appears they, too, have fallen prey to the Canyon. Bill offers up that he has spent quite some time in the Canyon, especially on the rim. This begs my curiosity as to what specifically has drawn him in. It turns out Bill was the lead engineer of the Skywalk out at Grand Canyon West on the Hualapai Reservation. The Skywalk is a massive, million-pound, horseshoe-shaped platform, extending 70 feet off a sheer ledge, standing 4,000 feet over the Colorado River with a view through its clear-glass floor to the Canyon bottom below.

I had made a commitment to myself prior to departing for the Canyon that talks of careers and previous adventures were not going to be part of my dialogue. I would stay in the moment of being in the Canyon without the outside world intruding upon my experience. And so I fight back my rising geeky curiosity and politely refrain from asking Bill for some details or trivia that would take him back to work and out of his own moment of watching the light of day climb into the Canyon with the sounds of Bass Rapid filling the air. I wish him a good day and continue on my way, reminded that we never know who we might meet along our path in life and to not be afraid of saying hello to the people we pass on our journeys.

Within the hour, we break camp and board the dories. It is river time again! In no time, we are leveling the puny Bass Rapid before striding past the mouth of Shinumo Creek and Shinumo Rapid. At 110 Mile Rapid, the river performance award of the day would go to Sarge, who crawled out on the bow of Bruce’s dory. With a roaring hoot and a holler and his feet kicking wildly, Sarge rode the front of Bruce’s dory like a rodeo champ atop an angry bull. His inspired ride arrested everybody’s attention, while his song of yelping delight allowed the rest of us to share in his thrills. Should you one day find yourself on a wild river, retired, in your 60s, with a boatman who invites one of the passengers to take a bow ride, picture and remember this former officer of the law sitting out front on the bow of the dory with feet dangling, bellowing a shriek of gut-busting fun, laughing out loud, full of wild abandon. Remember to get out there on center stage and live it up.

Here a rapid, there a rapid, and in between, I yearn to pull out my camera that is everything but waterproof. The dry bag holding my camera and an extra zoom lens is buried in the dory’s watertight hatch; as the danger of the rapids passes, I dare to pull it out. The timing of this is critical, as I don’t want to be caught fumbling with the repacking of the fragile gear and fail to get it stowed before entering the next stretch of whitewater. At times, we can hear the rapid around the next river bend before we can see it. Other rapids are not heard or seen, but the boatman knows it’s approaching, alerting me to stow the camera.

We pass Copper Canyon without incident, followed by Hakatai Canyon and its rapid, leaving just one more mile until we reach the often difficult run at Waltenburg Canyon. This is another rapid the boatmen will scout. Whether they will read it as being a giant, maybe a little unpredictable, having a big dangerous hole, holding the potential for a collision course with a wall of stone, or an all-of-the-above rapid, I don’t want to know. Do you ever get the feeling after seeing a movie trailer that you just witnessed the entire film, canceling the need to see the other 89 minutes? To me, it is more exciting to enter the rapids without the knowledge of what is about to crash into us. I do not want to hear the boatmen’s assessment or watch them point to the really dangerous sections as, once on the river, a part of my attention would then be diverted to watching the technical precision exercised by the boatmen and how they handle the river’s rage. Right now, I am here for the ride, wanting to walk into this experience clear of expectations other than the unvarnished curiosity to be in the here and now. And this blockbuster titled Waltenburg Rapid? It played well with a strong opening wave; my attention was held through the frothing middle section before rowing into calm waters to deliver a great ending. As the credits roll, we applaud the director at the helm of our dory; the lighting guy in the sky was on it, and the effects supervisor produced whitewater thrills worthy of an Oscar. Special thanks to the producers of this great action adventure over at Grand Canyon Dories and the O.A.R.S. Company – bravo.

Four miles of calm water follow. This is one of the longest stretches of slow-going river in days. On these quiet, still waters, the Canyon is revealed while we drift like a cloud, silently skimming the earth on a slow boat into the mysteries. There is nowhere to rush to, nothing requiring us to brace against a cold splash of an approaching rapid. We do not know our destination, sticking with the theme of remaining indecisive to have the greatest flexibility. Secure in the knowledge that we will stop at what looks promising to the boatmen, we sit back and crane our necks to give our senses the best shot at finding all of the color, texture, sound, and detail that can be had in this place, where so much can be experienced in the blink of an eye.

On river left, I spot an astounding sight: the dry drainage channel of a cascade. It is easily apparent from the smooth-sloping Vishnu Schist that a powerful and abrasive torrent of rushing water has been occurring here during the rainy seasons. Not only is this metamorphic rock being polished to a finish as smooth as marble, but there is also an orchestra section of flutes sitting at the foot of this periodic waterfall. How I wish to return on one of those rare days when the flow of nature’s stormy rhythm is at full volume.

How could I truly share or quantify the expansive magnificence of a landscape my mind is trying to interpret? How does one build a visual narrative when our words manacle allusions of beauty to an impoverished language that struggles to convey what the eyes and mind are able to perceive? The only conceivable solution is for others to put themselves in the time and place where perfection will be witnessed but not contained, not imprisoned, and, ultimately, will not be truly shareable. We must get out of our own way and, on occasion, find ourselves in the unfamiliar.

Is the boat slowing, the river taking a pause, or is time being pulled into the slow gravitational heft exerted by the Grand Canyon’s weight of beauty? From rim to talus slope, from the edge of the silty river to the crisp blue sky punctuated with white tufts of cloud, the gradations of earth’s rainbow radiate flowing layers of color and sound directly to the sense organs that give us humans the ability to be awed in fascination. I stand transfixed, unable to break my hypnotic gaze after the logical mind takes an exit. The daydream of the child is reawakened. I am without the need for thought or critical analysis as I find and bask in this escape from a harried life that requires me to be nowhere and everywhere at once.

Let this be my heaven, my nirvana, my eternal resting place. To forever find myself floating, content, caressed by a beauty embracing my physical and spiritual being. Grant me my wishes and perceptions as I try to remember what perfection could look like. If this isn’t my last stop in life, then let time stand still another moment, offering this faint sound of water flowing, the breeze whispering, a bird’s wing flapping, and the warmth of Caroline’s hand holding mine. Time to exit the boats.

One short scramble for humankind, another new world for my imagination. A quick hike brings us to a living room-sized canyon stuffed into a small corner, tucked away out of sight, a universe away from modern reality. Elves Chasm, a wishing well and pool of eternal solitude where nature, without the help of man, brought a dalliance of beauty into being with its exquisite waterfall, mysterious dark corners, flowing green mosses, and ferns. For thousands of years prior to man’s recent arrival, it was appreciated by birds, lizards, butterflies, and spiders. By the time Elves Chasm was finished preening itself to this current state of preeminence, man would stumble into its chamber to be given a lesson in the definition of tremendous. Standing here, as one of the twenty-two visitors and possibly the only group that will stop today, it is glaringly obvious I must have won the lottery of golden opportunity. Consider that every sixty days, a million people, on average, visit the rims of the Grand Canyon, almost a mile above, while less than 15,000 people a year will ever have the chance to stand here.

I try to understand this conglomeration of beauty accumulating with each successive impression of delight, stirring my sense of the aesthetic. It is as though I have become entangled in the DNA of the Grand Canyon, which is drawing me in to share its hidden secrets, wrapping me in its code of sensual awareness. Finding myself in this spiritual accretion, I let it take hold of me, shuddering under its enormous mass, which acts as an amplifier of who I am. I come in with love and feel it grow, magnified by the immensity of the place I stand before. Entering with an awareness of the excitement brought by adventure, the exponential growth of that desire propels me into a life where adventure rules – see boatmen for confirmation of this maxim. This echo chamber resonates with my thoughts and dreams. My tears join others’ tears to run down the chasm walls. My joys fall over slopes and across boulders until the emotional wave of intensity pulls me into the depths of the river called Self. My lungs fill to bursting capacity, forcing out a gasp of astonishment that all of this is happening to me.

Andrea goes first, diving under the surface at the foot of the waterfall to check its depths, declaring it safe for anyone interested in leaping from the slippery ledge halfway up the slot wall. She swims over to a dark recess to the right of the waterfall and climbs up behind the wedged-in boulders, emerging on a shelf above. Once situated on the lower boulder, she leaps off to plunge right back into the chilly waters. Caroline watches a few others make the jump before wrestling with her uncertainty to determine if this is something she has the nerve for. She finds her courage and swims through the pool, crawls up under the boulder, and in a moment, my wife stands on the precipice and leaps; popping out of the water below, she is all smiles.

Having seen all that we can see at Elves Chasm during our short visit, we depart on the short 10-minute hike back to the dories. The next stop comes but a few miles downstream. After landing on a wide beach, Rondo demands our attention and offers guidance regarding our next actions. He asks that we show consideration and be respectful of this special location. Here, Native Americans walk in veneration. Under the watchful eye of nature, we are about to pay homage to the spirit of the Canyon.

In quick procession, we begin our hike into Blacktail Canyon without a word being spoken, not a whisper exchanged. The path leads over a short hill, delivering us to a drainage and our first glimpse up this side canyon. The trail narrows rapidly before disappearing around a bend further ahead. Gravel gives way to larger river rocks, demanding we watch our footing as we follow the person in front of us. We are moving away from the sounds of the Colorado, walking into where the silence grows. Sunlight becomes scarce, finding it gradually more difficult to shine its way beyond the closing gap above this slot canyon.

Up ahead, Bruce stops and waits for the group to gather around. We are standing on the Great Unconformity, which, for my sake, should have been called the Great Mysterious Mind-Boggling Unconformity of Astonishment. There, right before my face and within my grasp, I reach out to touch the transition from Vishnu Schist to Tapeats Sandstone. My hand straddles that vast period of missing time, bridging the gap between unicellular life and the beginning of the era of multicellular life that would give rise to fish, plants, birds, bees, dinosaurs, and now us.

From here, still, not far from the Colorado, we continue on our way deeper into the side canyon. The dark walls stand next to us like parentheses, bracketing our trail carved by the numerous flash floods that cut these curves into the layer of Vishnu Schist. Ribs of white quartz thrust upwards through this hard metamorphic rock, giving the appearance that we are walking inside a whale.

A bit further, the narrow path opens into a chamber, my eyes drawn to the majestic elegance of the sculpted walls rising like pillars to the sky. We have entered Earth’s cathedral. Reverence takes hold of our pace, slowly pulling us into the realm of the spirits that inhabit this hall of the eternal. Without exaggeration, a pin drop would be out of place. I have never before been witness to a group this size moving with such quiet as to not let a single sound escape. It looks as though everyone walks alone, the cluster of bodies having pulled in separate directions, giving each individual the space to share a part of the essence one and all must surely be feeling. Heads tilt upward before the eyes trace contours back down to the canyon floor and the small stream that flows over it. The concentrated silence adds to the sense of the holy by anointing us with mute appreciation that such a place still exists in our busy world.

Partway into the Canyon, Katrina, and Jeffe, with guitars and mandolin by their sides, take up seats on a couple of large boulders. They are waiting for us to finish our exploration and return to this passage for a short concert. Most everyone stopped here, or so was my impression since after passing them, there were only a few people ahead of me. Whether the others continued to the end and turned around, I don’t know; I am too preoccupied with my own overwhelmed senses climbing back into the history of the Earth, being drawn in further and deeper. The cragged contours above us appear oddly symmetrical. Turning the corner, a final short walk will bring me to the end of the trail, but not the end of the story.

Here within Blacktail Canyon, far away from our distant sun, deep in the geology of our planet, I walk up to the edge of a small pool. A few feet above my head, a wisp of a waterfall glides through a channel carved into the Tapeats Sandstone to trickle down the rock face and onto the multi-hued Vishnu Schist. I reach out to touch the flow; it is warm. Like the water falling before us, I fall into awe as the feeling rises in me that I am standing before the single most beautiful place I have ever been. Emotions start to swell. I’m struck by the idea that I am in the presence of the very act of creation. Is this a picture of life’s beginnings: water, shade, minerals, warmth, oxygen, and time? In my imagination, that anonymous place where life began its evolutionary trajectory could have looked something like this.

On my right, a small seep gently percolates a carbonate solution, as evidenced by the travertine growing on the wall below. On the left, a drip from high above strikes a ledge, splashing tiny water drops upon my face. If I were below the Earth’s surface in a cave, I would feel that the droplets I had received were good luck kisses. Tears are streaming down my cheeks, bringing the salt of Earth back to the waters that are essential to this circle of life. In front of and above me are the deposits of sand and earth, fossil and rock, representing hundreds of millions of years of evolution that have preceded my own brief time. I attempt to grasp the idea that within each inch of rock, a history of life’s progress can be found.

I search for myself in this soup of biological and geologic history, feeling the spirit of life abounding, exploding within me, one hundred trillion cells, an amalgamation of water, flesh, heat, minerals, bacteria, gases, and a handful of ephemeral, intangible thoughts, imagination, and dreams, struggling to find comprehension. My poor brain is overcome by emotion, nudging me towards weeping – the tears don’t stop. This sense of life has never resonated so strongly within me. My encounter with Blacktail Canyon has opened the floodgates to finding the spirit of life that embodies all that is around and within. I am reminded of the Navajo prayer paraphrased here as, “Beauty before me, beauty below me, beauty all around me, I walk in beauty.” Today, I am alive in that beauty.

I could have stood there forever – maybe I still am. Maybe a part of me will never leave. Did my falling tears evaporate and ascend to the clouds, or did they join the stream to flow into the Colorado and points beyond? Maybe they are on their way to help grow food, or maybe they will add to the drink of another human, plant, or animal, helping sustain life outside this isolated Canyon. Ultimately, my tears and the rest of me will rejoin this earth that has borne me. Knowing that I am returning to my origin in this cycle of life gives dimension to my presence and a better sense of perspective regarding the brevity of my existence laid bare right before my eyes today.

On that last day, when I lay down my life, I hope to know what my contribution has been. I would like to believe that I helped improve the blueprint that brings smiles to our faces, warmth to our hearts and that swirling, giddy sense that we are seeing the beauty in all that is around us, in each and every one of our hearts and dreams. I now see our happiness and fulfillment as more like these fossil layers, slices of experience that are lending themselves to the structure of what I loosely understand as life. You, me, us, them, it, this thing, that object, we all are built in this stack of life, one upon the other like so much sandstone.

Take the time now, do it when you are young, teach your children, and find it when you are older, but don’t ignore the magic of being alive, don’t pass by the opportunities to learn that beauty is not only what the eyes deliver, but, more than that, beauty is what you find within yourself. Is it the flower that inspires that intrinsic value of delight, or is it the very moment in your mind when you have given into accepting that it is, in fact, beautiful? How is an individual flower petal more or less beautiful than any one of the faces you looked upon today? Why are the mountains more attractive than the individual grains of sand that erode from them? What if all the beauty imaginable were to be found in sand? What ecstasy might you hold with a single handful picked up from the beach?

Beauty is there, you once knew it, and our youngest children can still find it. In the grass on a dewy morning, get down on all fours, then lay down. Bring your face close and focus an eye on a lone blade of grass, one that has some dew clinging fast. Now, look into a single drop at the refraction of the surrounding grass blades and sky you are seeing in that tiny orb. It is only water and grass when seen from afar, where you have no need to describe the unseen as beautiful or ugly, but when time and perspective slow down the rush to opinion, we just might see beauty in the mundane. Reconsider how quick we are to give a brand of aesthetic quality to many of the things and people we meet and see. Try to understand that our fossilized remains in a future sandstone layer will not be seen or appreciated for how rich we were or how we appeared to others. We should hope our contribution to life will be known from the qualities and values we embrace and, if we are lucky, by how we improve the planet we live on. We must learn new ways to celebrate this life and help one another find the moments to visit our own personal version of Blacktail Canyon to look deep into who we are.

Next, explore the meaning and value of time. While we are still able to see, walk, talk, read, write, learn, play, and think – recognize that our time is short. Not depressingly short, but certainly soberingly brief. The math is simple. How long do you think you might have on this Earth as a sentient being? 75, 80, 90 years? I’ll cross my fingers and opt for a good, productive 80 years. Multiply the number you come up with by 365, the number of days in a year. My calculation, using 80 years, gives me a total of 29,200 days of life. Don’t panic, but don’t do nothing, either. As I write this, I have already spent 17,425 days of my allotment, leaving approximately 11,775 opportunities to do and see all that life has to offer.

Now, let’s put this into some perspective. If each day of my life is represented by a single cent, I will start with $292 worth of coins or 584 rolls of pennies. How old am I today? Multiply that number by 365 and remove the result from the pennies in the main stack. I have about $117 left. Now, I try to recollect the most meaningful days of my life so far and put a penny to the side for each of those memorable days. How much did I move to this pile?

With this in mind, are your days and potential for experiences only worth a penny you would be willing to toss to the side? Or are they worth a nickel, a dollar, or maybe, like mine here in the Grand Canyon, are they each worth a small fortune? Every day a penny is spent, will you have bought another day in front of the television, more time texting, another night forgotten in drunken loneliness? Or will you explore the map of the unknown, not-yet-experienced opportunity within you? Take inventory of your pennies and account for them well: this savings account does not pay interest. Cherish your days, invest your time wisely with family, friends, fun, travels, new hobbies, learning, sharing a meal, and a smile; it is from these things we enrich our lives. After all, $292 isn’t exactly rich.

Today, we have reached the halfway point of our trek through the Canyon. We are passing the equidistant mile marker figuratively placed between Lees Ferry and Diamond Creek. It will be here, in Blacktail Canyon, that I stumble into the deepest depths of myself and where I will have to start the process of crawling out of me. I have stood here before the waterfall for an indeterminable amount of time, waiting for the intensity of my emotional reach to fade and allow my eyes to dry. Caroline approaches, placing her hand on my shoulder; I wrap my arms around her. I try to suppress the tears but feel that her touch has reopened the dam. I am certain she must feel the buried convulsions shuddering through me as this uncontrollable need to weep takes over my ability to hide behind the requisite image of manhood that has been instilled in me.

While Caroline consoles me, I see that fellow traveler Steve is in prayer; his head bowed; he, too, is finding reverence in nature’s shrine. Another passenger, Joe Kutter, is also here with us under the waterfall. As though right on cue, he finds an open window in our shared moment, and with all the grace and benevolence befitting this quiet man, he sings “This Is My Song,” which is also called “Finlandia.” The lyrics are:

This is my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
May peace abound where strife has raged so long;
That each may seek to love and build together,
A world united, righting every wrong;
A world united in its love for freedom,
Proclaiming peace together in one song.

After a short pause, he offers a prayer in song with a recital in Latin of Agnus Dei – “Behold the Lamb of God,” who takes away the sin of the world.

Caroline, too, is now in tears. Try as I might, I find it nearly impossible to turn down the wellspring of emotion, but eventually, I find my composure. With eyes drying, I use this opportunity to pull my hat over my brow before turning to start the hike out. The first person I passed was our trip leader, Rondo, who said something to me that I failed to note and later could not find in my memory, though the exact words are not as important as the sense of his gesture that will stay with me. His demeanor is reserved; his eyes seem to keep their distance, allowing me passage without disturbing where and what I am coming from. There is an implicit acknowledgment in his nod that he understands where I have been and what I am carrying with me. Simply writing these words now, so many weeks later, brings me back to those moments – my eyes start to pool, filling yet again with the waters of Blacktail Canyon.

On my return approach to the bigger passage, I begin to hear the quiet song Jeffe and Katrina are performing. I hope to pass through discreetly, not wanting to disturb the mood. The other passengers remain in personal silence, each taking in whatever it is that is speaking to them. No one looks my way; maybe they sense the weight of my stride and the fragility of emotions as I cut the widest path possible to avoid a hello that could wring yet more water from these tear ducts that have worked harder today than in many a year. Fading behind me is the sound of the instruments, with Katrina’s voice growing distant as she sings “Pony” by Kasey Chambers. Ten days ago, this ballad was unknown to me; today, I have a fondness for the song that has become part of my Grand Canyon soundtrack.

The sound of the river becomes audible again as we approach the mouth of this side canyon. With each step forward, the light is getting brighter, I am moving out of the shadows. The sun, which is now low on the horizon, shines onto the north-facing cliffs; it will only maintain its warming vigil for a few more minutes. Clouds, small and fluffy, are painted on the deep blue ceiling of the sky overhead; they don’t move, but my tears do once again. In these moments of leaving Blacktail Canyon, the story of the evolutionary creation of life completes its cycle; from the dark, damp shadows, life emerges out of the safety of its hidden corner to find the light of day, seeing for the first time the bigger world and the breadth of sky with its source of illumination – the sun. It is as though the primordial memory of life is encoded within me, that on this day, a playback mechanism was triggered, allowing me to witness the magic and joy, the mystery and ecstasy of when life had come into being, taking a step forward in its adaptation for survival, still unencumbered by thoughts and anticipation of what comes next, it was “in the moment.” It is here and now that everything feels new, beautiful, and full of love. It is here, in these moments, where I would wish to stay forever in the magic of time unspoiled by my mind, with only my heart and eyes acting as the guides to my being.

Now that I have left the trail, it is time to rejoin my fellow travelers. Before I can do this, I must first try leaving the depths of myself still exploring Blacktail Canyon, trying to make sense of this experience. As I have come to understand this, in some small way, the weight, the hardness of stone, the narrowness of the passage, and the towering walls encapsulating me all worked in concert as nature’s reflection of what was already deep within me, and likely carried by each one of us human beings: Our time of innocence, when love and warmth still radiated all around us.

As adults, we have become jaded by our fears, our familiarity, our mistrust of the world, and our cynicism as we struggle to survive in a cold, violent world that is of our own making. How many of us are guilty of mindlessly allowing our children to witness the cruelty that will make them pull inwards, become mistrustful, and share our own cynical view that one is effectively alone in this life? We are perpetuating our own misery and passing on an imprint where love is but a small part of a busy day. Today, I had to cry. I wept. The tears washed away the blinders that had isolated me from feeling love all the time.

It may, in part, be due to our own laziness that, with our tacit agreement, we encourage our media to inundate us with a barrage of small-mindedness, war, and violence. If we are to truly enjoy life, how will this be accomplished by filtering our daily experiences through the unhealthy fetish of voyeuristic pandering to the sense of the absurd, bizarre, and violent depravity demonstrated by a species that is supposed to be capable of so much more? Maybe it is time to turn off the violence of crime dramas and the news, time to change the radio station from hate-talk camouflaging itself as the voice of the truth. Stop our own dialogue about how bad our job or day is, stop the gossip about the terrible neighbors or coworkers, and halt the insinuation that many around us are nearly incompetent or simply too different to tolerate. Instead, explore everything that celebrates this incredible opportunity of finding ourselves alive and able to create, beautify, share, listen, and learn of our planet and one another. It is certain that we must know and be aware of mankind’s dark side to help us see where to lift ourselves and our fellow human beings out of the abyss of monsters, but it is also important that during our time on Earth, we should find the path to stroll in the forest of artists, thinkers, teachers, mentors, shepherds, storytellers, and the insights of the wise. We must reset our compass and get back on track to continue our ride into the setting sun, where not a sign of a corrupt civilization is found on the horizon, where we are all explorers of the frontier found inside of us, treasure hunters looking for the wealth buried within, hidden underneath thick skin and callous minds.

Back riverside, Kenney’s dory has taken flight while left on its own. Fortunately for us, the Colorado hasn’t taken it very far, and it is found nearby swirling in an eddy. Kenney corrals it, and soon, we are again traveling the Colorado River. As will be the late-day theme for most of the remaining days of our trip, we are rowing into the sunset: after traveling south for the first seventy-five miles, we are now heading west.

The dory is our pram, the Grand Canyon our home, the river the sidewalk leading us to our friends and neighbors. Boatmen teach us how to be safe and are nearby to tend to our injuries. They make all of our meals, ensure we have enough to eat, and remove our waste. We are brought into new experiences. These guides are our teachers, imparting a new vocabulary into our speech; we become familiar with gunwales, dories, oarlocks, trim, first light, and intrusive dikes. We learn of boat construction, geology, river hydraulics, the anthropological record of those who were the ancestral stewards of the place we are visiting, and most importantly, we learn about ourselves as we grow up just a little bit more each day.

During our early childhood, everything was new and nearly incomprehensible. Our time here on the river follows a similar path – it is too monumental and bewildering for us to retain all that we have seen, thought, and experienced. The lore shared with us these days and nights regarding others’ experiences in the Canyon, and specifically, the stories of Blacktail Canyon told tonight by Rondo and Kenney, are lost in the immensity of information. There is no rewind or repeat button for this performance. I am finding a new appreciation for the stories told by our guides, and wish them to be told over and again. It is indeed sad that we belittle or diminish the enthusiasm of our friends, family, and the elderly who want to tell us their stories over and again, for if they should only be told once, they would be quickly lost and forgotten. Isn’t this need to tell and re-tell our stories and those of others a fundamental element of our humanity? This need could be an instinct protecting our survival, giving purpose to the spoken word that is at the center of being human. For if we were only in need of voicing our immediate desires, I’m certain that crying, a bark, a meow, or some other primal sound would suffice in carrying us through meeting our needs. Fortunately for us, we have this voice, this written word, poetry, music, and the ability to create pictures that allow us to share, to find excitement in our experiences, to bring others into the vision of how we are affected by our world, love, nature, and each other’s story.

We are rowing into the next frontier, following the sunset, looking for our place amongst the stars.

–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.