Rafting the Rolling Thunder: Getting fat on Nature's visions

 By Frosty Wooldridge

“One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature—inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste.  And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out.  It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty.”

                                                                                              John Muir

            We ate cold cereal, packed up and headed across the river to Deer Creek Falls the next morning.

            The falls was SO confined by the rock that it looked like it was flowing through a huge test tube about five feet in diameter.  But when it hit 100 feet below, into a deep blue pool, it sent out a white spray that created a cool breeze even on the hottest day.

            Steve, Rick and I (alias, the Grand Canyon Fairies) grabbed our water bottles and cameras, and headed up a rocky trail to the source of the falls.  We labored over Cadillac-sized boulders until we made a trail that switch-backed up to the left side of the falls.  Up we climbed through pinion bushes, Fishhook cactus and brush.  We climbed through a world of baking heat, layered rock and dusty terrain.  At 300 feet above the river, the morning sun created a gauzy haze over the canyon.  The Colorado River shimmered in a dream-like state with several other rafts floating through the mist.  At 400 feet, we reached solid rock that let back into a narrow crevasse.  We walked along a trail that hugged the cliffs.  Below us, the river had cut ribbon-like waves into the rocks for millions of years.  We heard the water, but couldn’t see it because it was hidden by the waving action of the rocks and many layers that protruded outward.

            The trail hugged tightly to the wall and one slip would drop a person a hundred feet in seconds.  The trail undulated along the wall much like a child’s snaking racecar track.  Further along, the river appeared again.  It was running wild through twists and turns in the rock floor.

            Still further we hiked in until the river drew closer and closer to the trail.  The polished rock smoothed into a playground slide where the river continued cutting its path.  Presto!  The creek that fed the falls raced under our feet and fell from yet another falls near a band of trees 50 yards further back.  Behind the falls, the desert spread back to high canyon walls.   The waterfall dropped into a small pool that drained into the rock bed.  I jumped in and took a cooling shower.

            The trip back dropped us down to the bottom of the falls where the spray rushed horizontally across the pool.

            Upon seeing the same sight 131 years ago, Powell wrote:  “Just after dinner, we passed a stream on the right, which leaped into the Colorado by a direct fall of more than 100 feet, forming a beautiful cascade.  On the rocks in the cave-like chamber are ferns, with delicate fronds and enameled stalks.”

            Here it is a century later and the same falls has been cascading down this rock face with the ancestors of the same plants delighting our eyes and spirits.  What Powell saw, we enjoyed, too.  What he wrote about, I too, get to write about.

            Isn’t that the wonder of being alive?  Each of us explores his or her world in whatever way is available in their lives.  In a free country, any of us may become whatever it is that burns with passion inside our hearts.  Gary has become a fantastic dancer in the middle of his life.  Wocniss is an amazing artist and plays the guitar.  Strat creates songs that he shares with all of us.  To me, he’s James Taylor all over again.  Brenda is a social activist on the environmental front.  Steve is a big time hiker.  Julie teaches kids to skate.  Badger expounds on wisdom.  Ivan works toward his Alpaca farm.  Rick and Cindy take adventures around the world.  Sally educates on the environment.  All of us follow our hearts and passions.  Like Powell, I am blessed to be able to write about my adventures.  We are SO lucky to have such good fortune. 

            After pumping three seven-gallon containers full of filtered water, we shoved the boats into the middle of the river.  The day was on, and our flotilla of winged river birds glided down the Colorado.  Gary dug his ‘wings’ into the water as we surged down the glassy tongue of Deer Creek Rapids.  That familiar rush of water sucked us down and pulled us into the wildest ride of the day.

            We oared without incident until we arrived at Matkatamiba.  We pulled ‘river left’ into a beige colored canyon just before a rapid.  After tying up the boats, we entered a very narrow walkway, almost tunnel-like, and ate lunch on some gray rock ledges.  A small creek about one foot across and six inches deep rushed downward past us. 

            While we stood around eating lunch, a small bat crawled along the canyon wall.  It was injured and couldn’t fly, but it pulled itself toward a corner of the rocks.  Once there, it placed its wings over its head and rested.

            “Poor thing,” Cindy said.

            “It’s probably going to be scorpion dinner tonight,” Steve said.

            The cruel truth was that the bat would most likely die because it was unable to fly.  It didn’t know it, but it was on its deathbed.  There was nothing any of us could do.   We left it alone.

            We started to walk into the canyon after lunch.

            Strat who had rafted the canyon before, said, “This little piece of God’s handiwork probably took millions of years, but it’s one of His best.”

            “Lead on,” I said.

            The creek had cut through thousands of layers sedimentary rock.  We walked through a cut of what could pass for the world’s largest stack of pancakes. Some layers were thin cakes and others thick.  All had sand and rock between them. It was interesting to note that one day, all our bodies would be part of some geological rock layer a million years into the future.

            Walking up, the clear stream moved from flowing over gravel into flowing over solid rock.  Above, 1,000-foot canyon walls dwarfed us.  Tiny cacti grew from the layers. 

            While stopping to take pictures, the group left me behind.  I followed the creek until I turned a corner where a five-foot waterfall fell over green/black rock with four Japanese rice paddy terraces that caused the water to tumble to the bottom.  Red stone cut inlays through the green that was enhanced by the water.  Right after the falls, the little canyon wound like a ribbon in the wind on both sides into a blended mirage—as if I was seeing one of the funny mirrors at a carnival. 

            I followed the water over smoothly polished rock to another waterfall that snaked down from ten feet and fell into a five-foot wide pool and a foot deep.  I climbed still further until the creek vanished into a rock narrow less than two feet wide.  It felt like being in a cave.  I followed upward.  Then I saw the creek again racing toward me and downward like a roller coaster.  Up I climbed.  A large boulder that had crashed into the creek had stopped the wild ride of the water.   No matter.  The water backed up and then raced past the rock with another waterfall.

            Past the tiny dam, the water once again spiraled through the rock like a runaway coaster. 

            “My God, but Nature is astonishingly creative,” I muttered to myself.

            I traveled up this marvelous winding mystery tour until yet another waterfall.   After climbing it, I followed the creek through more cuts through the pancake layers until it rushed out of a dead end canyon amphitheater.  I walked into a natural kiva with ferns, trees, flowers and bushes set in an almost elegant living room that you might see on “The Rich And Famous.”

            The creek rushed out over flat rock and formed three pools before knifing through the rock again on its journey downward.  A few large boulders stood in indolent elegance after having fallen from far above.  All around me—red, tan, brown, gray rock painted the kiva in earthtone contrasts. 

            Around the amphitheater, the pancake layers were cut so as to form a stadium seating for anyone who wanted to watch the magic show before them.

Above us, a slender, roughly lined sliver of blue sky with swallows flying across it was our ceiling.  I sat down on the bleachers wondering who wrote the master plan for this amazing piece of landscape architecture?   No human could have achieved it—because it took several billions of years and the work is still in progress.

            We continued up the canyon where it once again widened and astounded our eyes.  The sheer rock cliffs rose 2,000 feet above us where red rocks collided with blue sky.  The stream flowed over rocks and sand on its way to the Colorado.

            The group left me again as I took more pictures and tried to capture the beauty in my mind.  I walked back down into the kiva where the pools of water flowed into each other and the rock was polished like a rich man’s granite kitchen counter top.  I sat on the rock bleachers.    As I sat there, I could  not have imagined that a tiny stream could cut such a mighty and extravagantly gorgeous canyon into an amazing piece of paradise.   Sure, it had help from flash floods, winter freezing and erosion from the rain—but it was the river that cut, inch by inch, century after century, millennia upon millennia—into the rock that formed the canyon that formed the pools and place where I sat.  I settled back to gaze upon my surrounds and felt only—humble.

            Gary awaited me at the boat.  The rest of the group had gone.  I was exhausted from sensory overload. 

            “Let’s go,” he said.

            “This trip is the greatest gift you’ve ever given me,” I said.  “I couldn’t thank you enough in a hundred years.”

            Gary smiled.

            Later that evening, I found a point on the river away from everyone. Sitting there under the star spangled canopy of the universe, I pondered if it was possible to get enough of this kind of wonder?   Could I over load, over eat, over indulge Nature’s banquet?  Is it possible to get fat on Nature’s visions?  Can I over do myself? 

If it’s possible, I will have done just that on this 16-day journey on this great river of time.