Part 1: Rafting the Rolling Thunder

 By Frosty Wooldridge

                 CHAPTER 1–WHEN FEAR THRILLS EVERY CELL IN YOUR BODY

                 “There will always be one more river, not to cross, but to follow.

                  The journey goes on forever, and we are fellow voyagers on our

                  little living ship of stone and soil and water and vapor–on this

                  delicate little planet circling round the sun, which human kind

                  call Earth.”                                                          

                                                                                               E. Abbey

          An anxious thrill surged through my body as if I was about to be buried alive in an avalanche!  But, in this case, a mountain of angry whitewater rumbled toward me–seething with power and deadly intensity.  It possessed the force of a herd of stampeding buffalo thundering toward me. 

One mistake and our raft could flip, and all of us would become pinballs in nature’s merciless game of rolling thunder. 

          We dropped down the cool calm of the ‘tongue’ toward the rapids.  But the closer we came to the first ‘roller’ my eyes grew to resemble two fried eggs on a hot skillet.  It towered above us ten feet high!  What my eyes saw translated into excitement–which shot adrenaline throughout my body in seconds.  But there I was, a rookie captain of the raft and in charge of taking us through 1.7 billion years of erosion—on the raging Colorado River in the middle of one of nature’s prettiest creations : the Grand Canyon.

          Moments earlier, Gary said, “Why don’t you captain the boat?”

          “You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said, hopping up to grab the oars.

          I grabbed the big, heavy wooden oars on Gary’s raft.  Ahead, the quiet canyon grew into a loud roar as we neared Badger Rapid.

          “Make sure you bring the boat in sideways in the middle of the tongue,” he said.  “As you head into it, be sure to turn the boat down river and stay in the middle of the rapids…watch for signs of disturbed water where the big boulders are hidden.  Rocks are bad for the boat.  Try to dive directly into the rollers head first….”

          “Got it,” I said, eagerly.

          “For every rapid,” he continued. “Stand up and see what you have to navigate.  You really need to see where the tongue is located and if any laterals are coming in from the sides.  The big key is to watch for big rocks that could hang us up or dump us.”

          “Okay,” I said.

          Getting it and doing it proved a challenge.  There’s a knack to being a boatsman on a wild ride down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon.  I followed Gary’s directions.   I angled the boat sideways down the tongue of Badger Rapid.   It’s amazing how the raft floated on quiet, still, peaceful water until we headed into the tempest.  I cranked on the boney oars and spun the 16-foot raft headfirst.  For a moment, the bow of the boat shot skyward like the lead car on a roller coaster.  In that few seconds, Gary and his lady, Julie, crouching in front and hanging on to the ropes, watched a wall of water slam over the top of the raft and shatter like a plate glass window in the movies—all over them.  Instantly, they nose-dived over the top of the wave and I shot skyward with both oars out of the water.

          They plunged downward into the maw of hell.  Only ten feet behind them, I followed with the reluctance of a lamb being led to the shearing shed.  The raft bent in front as it hit the bottom of the second roller.  Shooting skyward, like the Challenger launching off the pad at Cape Canaveral, the raft bolted into the vacant blue sky above us.  Water engulfed our raft in a million crystals of liquid excitement.  Julie screamed with delight.  Gary, ever the veteran rafter, hung on with sheer pleasure.

          Water drenched us.  No matter!  We floated in the belly of the beast and I worked the oars to keep from tipping over.  I dug the oars into the raging, boiling white water to keep the raft bow down river.  We shot through several more six-foot rollers and quickly glided toward calmer waters.

          “Yahoo!” I yelled. “What a rush!”

          “I’d give you a–B,” Gary said. 

          “We lived, didn’t we?!” I answered.

          So began one of the greatest adventures of my life—running the roiling, heart pounding waters of the Colorado River through the magic of the Grand Canyon.  At no time have I been more thrilled through fear and excitement than when I sat as a passenger or commanded the raft on one of the world’s greatest adventures.

          Brenda, a long-time friend, called me months ahead, telling me that she had won a permit to raft the Grand Canyon and she invited me.  I’ve rafted many rivers around the world, so I thought it wasn’t THAT much of a big deal.  I accompanied her on the Green and Yampa years before.  My rafting experiences included Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Alaska, and South America.  I told her I would get back with her.  Gary called a day later, and told me to say “Yes,” before she asked someone else to go.  He said it was the greatest raft trip in the world, and, that I wouldn’t have too many more chances because the waiting time to obtain a permit exceeded 10 years.

          “I’m going,” I told Brenda on the phone.

          “Great,” she said. “Good to have you in our group.”

          Driving out to Page, Arizona creates a sense of barren nothingness in the mind. 

          “Who would want to live here?” I asked Gary.

          “Someone who likes it hot and desolate,” he said.

          It’s too much to imagine a town sprung out of the desert on the edge of the Colorado River.  The landscape might as well have been on the moon.  Red and tan soil along with sandstone rock dominated as mountains rose in the distance.  The river couldn’t be seen except where it backs up behind Glen Canyon Dam. 

          A golf course, replete with lush green fairways presented an unusual contrast as it butted up against rust colored rolling desert sands.

          We stopped at the Powell Museum inside the city.  There, we saw a replica of John Wesley Powell’s boat, the Emma Dean, which in 1869, carried him on the greatest river adventure known in the world at that time.  Powell, a veteran Army officer, lost his right arm in the Civil War.  He faced danger not only from the deadly river, but also from disease, starvation and hostile Indians, and desertion by his own men.  Each day presented him with a new challenge.

          He wrote on July 11^th, “A short distance below camp we ran a rapid, and in doing so, broke an oar, and then lost another, both belonging to the Emma Dean.  We soon approached another rapid.  Standing on the deck, I thought it could be run, and on we went.  Coming nearer, I saw that at the foot it was a short turn to the left, where the waters piled up against the cliff.   We tried to land, but discovered that, being in swift water above the fall, we couldn’t reach shore, crippled as we were by the loss of two oars; so the bow of the boat was turned down stream.  We shot past a big rock; a reflex wave rolled over our little boat and filled it with water. I saw that the place was dangerous and signaled to the other boats to land where they could.  Another wave hit my boat and threw me into the water.  I soon found that swimming was easy.  When a breaker rolled over me, I closed my mouth and was carried through it.  As soon as we reached quiet water, we swam to one side and turned over the boat.  At last, we reached a huge pile of driftwood.  Our rolls of blankets, two guns, and a barometer were in the open compartment of the boat and when it went over, these were thrown out.  The guns and barometer were lost, but I managed to catch one of the blankets as it drifted down, but the other two were lost, and hereafter, we may sleep cold.”

          Gary and I toured the museum with great interest.  Many men and women lived and died plying the tempestuous waters of that ancient river that  cut through the canyon for millions of years.

          “We’re going to put-in at Lee’s Ferry and float 225 miles to the Diamond Creek take-out right here,” Gary said, pointing to the map.

          “Looks good to me,” I said, not really knowing what I was getting myself into.

          “You’re going to love the scenery,” he said.  “Some of the walls are a mile high and we’ll be floating through 1.7 billion years of erosion.  Nature creates a lot of magic in a billion years.  We’ll be seeing a lot of geological creativity.”

          After eating lunch and buying a few last minute supplies for the trip, we headed the truck and all our gear down to Lee’s Ferry.   We dropped down into the Grand Canyon along a deep narrow cliff face, the color of a slice of baked ham, and made our way along the river.  At one point, we crossed over a bridge high above the Colorado.  We drove along red clay rocks and sand.  Sparse bushes grew along the route, and above us, blue sky garnished colorful tan/bronze canyon walls.

          At Lee’s Ferry, we reached the put-in late in the day.  The rest of our five rafts, twelve-person crew busied themselves rigging their rafts on the shoreline.  The Colorado River rolled past us as placid and quiet as a dog sleeping on the front porch on a hot day.

          Gary introduced me to Badger, Wocniss, Strait (three brothers), Steve, Cindy, Rick (married), Brenda, Ivan (significant others), and Sally (with Strait). I already knew Gary and Julie (married).  All were in their forties or fifties.  Everyone enjoyed being veteran river runners.  Most loved the outdoors and the ‘primordial’ aspect of wild living.  Three proved five star hotel types, but they would ‘endure’ the lack of amenities for a short time.  Several like me could live ‘wild’ for months at a time and revel in the visceral aspect of the wilderness.  Those are my kind of people—relishing the “savage” in themselves.

It’s interesting when I meet a group of people.  At first they are faces and bodies; next, they become voices; soon, they become personalities; next comes characters with their passions, problems and dimensions; and finally, they become friends, or simply acquaintances in the grand parade of people who march through my life.  They either become attracted to me and I to them, or we simply share the moment and later, go about our lives.

Many years ago, I read a book about human perfection and how to accomplish it, but when the perfection manifested, humanity found itself bored with comfort.  One man broke out of the ‘perfect’ living paradigm and crossed into the wilderness.  He became a savage.  Most people don’t know it, but Hollywood, Wocniss, Badger, Strait, Steve, and maybe the quiet one, Ivan were like me, ‘savages’, who loved their moments in washing, no, DRENCHING themselves in the waters of the wilderness.  We appreciated the bite of a mosquito, the zipping up of our bag as we slept under a starlit heaven, and a campfire with a boiling pot of stew cooking over the coals and ready for our ‘ravenous’ bellies.   We don’t care if we’re freezing to death or sweating our guts out in 120-degree heat.  We came for the adventure!  Yeah, we burp, fart, pee and love our lives in the woods.  Because, in the woods, uncertainty thrives.

        Hell, I’ve been face to face with grizzly bears, and, at the moment didn’t know if tomorrow would be an option.  I’ve half frozen to death at 18,000 feet and welcomed death, but I didn’t die.   It’s all a random deal.  Still, I’d do it again.

          My friend John Muir said it better, “…No healthy man who delivers himself into the hands of nature can possibly doubt the doubleness of his life.  Soul and body receive separate nourishment and separate exercise, and speedly reach a stage of development wherin each is easily known apart from the other.  Living artificially in town, we are sickly, and never come to know ourselves.  Our torpid souls are hopelessly entangled with our torpid bodies, and not only is there a confused mingling of our own souls with our own bodies, but we hardly possess a separate existence from our neighbors.”

          It’s when a person relinquishes his/her attachment to the known by stepping into the unknown of nature that the world opens up endless possibilities.  So few take the chance.  Because it’s safer in the known even if it’s boring and continues for years.  That’s why people keep the same jobs.  They might heed the Buddha when he said, “Find a job you like and you won’t have to work a day for the rest of your life.”  If a person engages life–life opens its magic, wonder, exhilaration and fullness.

          Nonetheless, I always walk away learning something from everyone on such a journey.  Every single person on this trip taught me a lesson whether they knew it or not.  Some of the lessons were positive and some were otherwise.  All proved valuable.  For each lesson, I am thankful the person provided it.  I only hope I helped them on their life journey as they enlightened me.  It all depends on whether or not they were listening, watching or interested in learning.   If not, I’ve learned to enjoy without attachment.  I’ve learned that everyone is what he or she has chosen to be.

          After introductions, everyone busily prepared their rafts for the next day.  Gary backed his truck down to the river.  We unloaded the raft and gear.  Soon, we too, had our gear spread along the shoreline like a big garage sale.  We prepared the raft.   We set up with a foot pump and stomped on it hundreds of times until the raft took shape.  From there, we lashed the aluminum frame to the raft and began placing the cooler, drinks, 16 days of food supplies, seats, bags and straps onto the raft.  Slowly, Gary’s raft took shape.  The extra oars locked onto the sides of the raft.   We filled the drink bag and tossed it into the 47 degree water to keep it cool.  The raft was a self-contained, 16 feet long, and 7 feet wide, gray with red/black trim lines–river running adventure craft.  One sobering item—it wasn’t a self-bailer.  That meant the person in front bailed when the rapids dropped hundreds of gallons of water inboard.

          We embarked from Lee’s Ferry.  Prospectors and travelers crossed at that point on the river in the 1850’s through to 1929.  John D. Lee operated a large flat boat.  Horses, Indians and cowboys crossed for mere pennies per trip.  In 1912, a steamer named the Charles H. Spencer hauled coal to Lee’s Ferry, but sank on the third trip.  It’s still sunk in the bottom of the river.

          Next to us, a group of twenty-somethings rigged their boats and talked loudly.  Before our eyes, they unloaded 102 cases of beer.

          “Are you going to drink all that beer on this trip?” I asked.

          “You got that right,” one of them said.

          “We used to drink that much, too,” Brenda said.  “But our crew has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, prostate problems, weak livers and one heart attack.”

          “That’s TOO funny!” one of the younger women shot back.

          “It’s not if you’re the one with the heart attack,” Badger said.

          “Right on!” one of the twenty-something said.

          “Ah,” I said.  “As the writer Emerson said, “Youth, it’s wasted on the young.”

          Later, we set up our tents in the tree line by the river.  The ranger drove down to give us notice that he would return in the morning to present an orientation on rafting the Grand Canyon.  The guy’s size rivaled one of those balloon floats at a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. 

          We ate dinner at a restaurant near Lee’s Ferry.  It catered to river runners with pictures on the walls of white water rafts splashing through the rapids and being upended.  The pictures looked wild, but still, I didn’t have a clue.

          Back at camp on the river, Julie arrived with Sally.  Rick picked them up at the airport.  Our group was complete!  I walked around the ruins that had been a small town, complete with post office.  Miners in the 1850’s tried to ore gold from the hills, but failed.  As I walked back, I read a sign from the park service, “Down the river lies heart pounding adventure.”

          Above me, the sky glowed with golden hues along with streamers flying across the heavens from wispy clouds skittering on their indolent journey to places around the globe.  They were on a sojourn, too, and probably just as important to them.   As I stood there, watching my new friends talk and work–the last light of the sun shown like burning torches lighting up the canyon walls in burnished browns, reds and tan.   Happy voices!  Hands gesturing!  Laughter! Great expectations!  All felt good in the world—at least, our part of it.

          I walked over to my tent.  Once inside my bag, I sat up and took one last look at the river.  A quiet, black sheet of glass spread before me.  I placed my life into its hands for the next 16 days.  

          “Heart pounding adventure,” I muttered to myself.  “Works for me!”

          Sleep came quickly in the wilderness.  Better than a five star hotel!

Chapter 2: getting underway

Excerpt from: Rafting the Rolling Thunder by Frosty Wooldridge, copies 1 888 280 7715, Kindle, www.amazon.com , www.frostywooldridge.com

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