Grand Canyon Journals - Part 8: Alive Below Crystal

April 13, 2000

I awoke to a spectacular sunrise and a large pit of butterflies in the center of my stomach. Today would be the biggest day for running rapids so far and included the most dangerous rapids of them all; Crystal Rapids. After packing my gear, possibly for my final time, I carried some camp water for Heidi the cook and then read from Edward Abbey's "The Hidden Canyon" until everyone else got up.

After a big breakfast of melon, eggs, bacon and English muffins, we packed up camp and shoved off again into the unknown, at least it was for me. The first big waves were at Salt Creek Rapids but were just an appetizer when compared to Granite Rapids. Everyone got out and scouted the rapids, the guides looking for a way through the turmoil and everyone else looking for the calm eddies where our drowned bodies would wash into below. But eventually the guides had their plans and like doomed men walking to the gallows, we got into the boats and headed for the heart of the rapids.

During our boat ride through the rapids, my mind went into survival mode and shut off the video receptors. Instead, all that remained behind are several snapshots of the moments and even that was a lot for my overtaxed senses. Snapshot 1: I am sitting on the right side of the boat (Jurgen is on my left) and a huge green wall of water is coming at me from the left. Shapshot 2: I am high siding the boat so far over to the left to prevent it from capsizing that I can actually see over Jurgen's head, who is also high siding, and into the water on the other side of the boat. Snapshot 3: I am looking up and to my right and I can see some light through the green water that has completely submerged us. The roar of the river is very muffled. Snapshot 4: Elena our oars person for the day exclaimed, "Nice" as only someone who realizes that something is happening that doesn't normally happen every day can say. I assume she means we are still upright. Shapshot 5: Our boat is lurching down the backside of the wave into the trough and I have to crane my neck to see the crest of the next wave, even bigger than the first, curling towards us. Shapshot 6: More green water and bubbles everywhere. As much time as I've spent underwater, I'm amazed that I am not yet short of breath. Snapshot 7: Third wave hits and more green water. It is like being at an actual demonstration for some shampoo where they are showing how to 'Rinse and Repeat.' My video senses now resume normal functions and I find myself riding out the wave train at the bottom of the rapids and cackling like a raving lunatic while madly bailing out the boat to keep us from sinking. I may have asked the river if that was all it had and I instantly regretted it.

The next rapid was Hermit Rapids, which wasn't as tricky but definitely had bigger waves. Again we got out and scouted the rapids and again I imagined that these moments would be my final ones before I was sent to my watery grave. We slid down the tongue, plowed through the first standing wave and then the second when I sensed something horrible wrong. Our boat had lurched sideways full of water just as we were sliding down the backside of wave number two and into the monster 'hole' at the bottom where the water hydraulics wants to suck the marrow from our very bones. I somehow had just enough time to put my feet on the gunnel beside me and then standing up, grab onto the downstream gunnel with my hands throwing the full brunt of my weight onto the downstream side. It worked because soon we were beached below the rapids bailing out the last of the water and getting our nerves back in order. It was then that Elena said that nobody that she has ever seen has ever gone into the 'hole' sideways and remained upright.

We went through another rapid or maybe several, but the adrenaline was still flowing and I couldn't really be bothered to keep track until we reached the dreaded Crystal Rapids. All adrenaline was mopped up by the fear and the butterflies in my stomach came back with a vengeance. We got out and scouted the rapids again but this time instead of searching for the spot where my body would wash up, I found myself looking at the grand daddy of all 'holes' where my body might stay for awhile should we tip over. I could sense some uneasiness in the guides by their frantic finger pointing and worried scowls across their normal poker faces. My senses were proven correct when a few minutes later they called a group meeting with the clients. The water was so low that unless they off loaded some weight, they wouldn't be able to safely run the rapids, which they mentioned had killed lots of people over the years in the rock garden below and had been flipping one in four boats this year. I almost have a minor in math but didn't need that to realize that with six boats in our party, at least one of them stood a better than average chance of flipping. The weight they wanted to offload was passengers and at least half of us had to volunteer or everyone would have to walk around while the boat guides ran solo.

I have kept mentioning fear in my journal entries but it is more a respectful fear than a lose control of your bowels fear. I wanted to go every inch of the way along the river in a dory boat even if it meant dying trying, so I looked down at my toes and listened for volunteers but everyone remained silent. The threat of us all walking was repeated and again everyone remained silent. I ventured to look up and surprisingly most of the old clients were looking at me along with some of the crew. I saw the look in Bronco's eyes and I knew what had to be done so in as chipper a voice as I could muster, I said that I would volunteer to walk around. Before you could blink an eye, all but a few of the other clients volunteered to walk around as well. As those of us were walking around started off, Bronco pulled me out of earshot and said, "Thank you." There was a lot of meaning packed into those two words and I responded with, "Not a problem" packing just as much meaning back into them. Later I would realize what should have been obvious. The older clients looked towards me as young and invincible and when I had volunteered, they had all sensed the dangerousness of the situation and their own mortality. Bronco had known this and that is why he pleaded with me to volunteer to walk around with his eyes. Later that evening, several crew members and clients alike would pull me aside and out of earshot of the fire to put voice to my theory, proving it correct.

I made the best of the situation and walked down to a rock just across from the 'hole' and told everyone that was going to smile as they went into it so that I could get a picture to send to their next of kin. None of them laughed at this joke. But the river gods were kind to us that day and all six boats made it through intact and upright. I made it through with a new sense of responsibility to lead people, two and three times my age, by example.

Ote and Bob In Crystal

We ate lunch on the rocks below Crystal Rapids but nobody ate much and I think everyone else were still suffering from the same stomach butterflies that I was. But everyone had a smile on his or her face as we kept saying our new mantra of ABC or Alive Below Crystal! The rest of the day was kind of anti-climatic as we mostly drifted to Bass camp on a sandy beach salted with black schist and pink granite rocks. The yellow brittlebush flowers all around stood out in such contrasting beauty that I kept stumbling because I was looking at them instead of where I was walking. We set up camp and then hiked up on top of the nearby band of cliffs to inspect the remains of a cable car that a man by the name of Bass had operated many decades earlier.

Black Schist and Yellow Brittlebush

Jorge (a client from Germany) and I separated from the group heading back to camp and we hiked further up the slopes where we found some old Anasazi ruins. We poked around for a while finding shards of ancient pottery which we left undisturbed where they lay. Back in camp we relayed our find to our guides and one of them who knew just about every ruin in the canyon hadn't known about the ones Jorge and I had found, so I hiked all the way back up in the company of Lee to show him. We poked around and after awhile found a park service tag buried under some brush which meant that we hadn't been the first to 'discover' it but that didn't bother me, it was still neat.

Back in camp and fed, we sat around the campfire swapping Crystal stories but the big day had paid a toll on the older folks and soon there were just a couple of us left. I spent a long time talking to Mary, the assistant cook, about my journals and why I write them. She in turn told me about Alaska where she lived and a place that I have always wanted to visit. Clouds started moving in and was blowing the sand around but I decided to keep my streak of eight nights alive and sleep out under the stars had I been able to see them. I crawled into my sleeping bag in the lee side of a large black schist rock and fell asleep to the sound of drifting sand trickling over nylon.