Grand Canyon Journals - Part 17: The Final Days

April 21, 2000

It was completely socked in with clouds when I woke up but like they always seem to do, they had cleared off by the time we pushed off in the dories. We ate a breakfast of burritos and fruit before helping to get the nine people who are leaving today packed up and sent off ahead in two of the dories. The remaining seven of us took down the remainder of the camp and shoved off an hour later. We floated down to Whitmore Wash in time to see the last helicopter arrive and take the last three people away leaving behind the last of two families consisting of three adults and three children.

Most of the nine people who left had been with our group since day one and it was a change in the group dynamics to not have them anymore. After so much time spent around a defined group of people, the three adults and three children were literally strangers among our group, especially the children who were joining an up until now, adult group. They hadn't shared in our experiences; they had no idea the fears of running Crystal or the hugeness of Lava. The closest I can come to describing what we all felt was that it was like seeing someone from the crowd jump out and run the last mile of a marathon and everyone cheered them on thinking they had run the entire twenty-six miles.

We floated downstream only stopping for lunch. Immediately after lunch the wind blowing upstream picked up and literally howled through the canyon making downstream progress slow and laborious. The oarsmen were all tired by the time we reached camp for the night and I had to wonder if they stopped paddling, how far back upstream we would have ended.

I found a nice rock ledge above camp to call home for the night and then joined a few of the crew for a few beers on the boats to escape the blowing sand on the beach. With the group dynamics now shattered and the mood mellowed, I went for a solo hike in the evening to check out a nearby valley. By the time I got back, supper of chili, cornbread and carrot salad had been served but they had thoughtfully saved a plate for me. Finally after supper, the skies cleared off and the winds died down so we built a fire on the beach. A few of the crew and myself stayed up for awhile talking, the subject of the evening informally being music, and watching the stars. The end of the trip is fast approaching and I already sense that it will be traumatic for me. I want to stay here boating the canyon forever.

April 22, 2000

Clear day becoming quite hot in the afternoon. After a breakfast of peach pancakes and fruit, we helped pack up one of the families that joined us yesterday. The father suffered heart problems during the night and needs to go to a hospital as soon as conveniently possible. We all shoved off in the boats and floated through a few medium sized rapids before stopping for a brief hike at mile 220 to look at the high water mark during the 1983 flood of 92,000 cubic feet per second. While others ate their lunch in the shade, I ate mine while walking about a mile up the canyon exploring. By the time I got back to the boats, I was so hot that I jumped into the river to cool off in the forty-six degree water. I darn near had heart problems myself.

We reached Diamond Creek in mid afternoon where we off loaded a lot of unneeded supplies in trade for a few fresh supplies for the last few days and a couple motors for driving the boats across the Lake Mead Sewage Lagoon. Because the family of four is also leaving here for a twenty-mile drive up the canyon across some of the most rugged country to the nearest hospital, Ote's boat was hauled out and put on the flat bed truck. She will be leaving with the truck and her leaving has saddened me the most of everyone who has left so far. Coyote (her full name) is full of wisdom and a real pleasure to talk to in the evenings around the campfire.

We camped below Diamond Creek rapids along a very rocky shore that made tying up the boats difficult. After supper, I joined the crew for a few beers around the campfire and swapped stories well into the night. It seems as if boatmen never run out of stories to tell and a lot of them begin with, "no shit, there I was...." Only one more day left in the dories and I think the crew sees it in my face. Bronco even offered me a job on the next trip paddling the baggage raft and as appealing as it is, I know I have to go back to the life I left behind, if only for a while.

April 23, 2000

Woke up on the fine Easter morning to clear skies and what turned out to be a scorcher of a day. We stopped only a few miles down the river to explore Travertine Grotto and climb up to a series of waterfalls, with the aid of some rope at times, over multicolored rocks. Very beautiful and though I took a lot of pictures, none of them turned out. Down stream at Travertine Falls, we ate lunch and hiked to another set of falls with plenty of nearby shade. Nobody was in a hurry to leave so we sat around soaking up the coolness for an hour before pushing off one last time into the moving river. We shot through a series of very nice rapids before reaching the stagnate waters of Mead stained with swirls of scum and motor oil. Drifting in the boat is over, pick up the oars and paddled. We set up camp at aptly named Separation Canyon and while everyone was enthusiastically preparing for the nights festivities, I sadly helped the crew create a raft of dory boats to motor across the lake during the night. The rest of us were to be picked up by a large jet boat tomorrow morning and meet the crew at the takeout but I managed to weasel my way onto the dory boat raft with the crew and set off into the night instead.

(See author's December 10, 2004 blog on that experience.)