Wooden Boat People
By McKenzieDriftBoat.com
Rowing the Grand Canyon
How do you put a subject as big as the Grand Canyon into a story that fits into a box like the one I am typing in. How do you put the grand vistas, the silence of quiet flat water, the thunder of rapids as you approach them or the ever changing beauty in this box.
Like building a McKenzie River drift boat I thought about the process for a long time. In the mid 1980's I was invited to Arizona to row a raft for my friend Dave taking groups of Air Force folks down the river. Financially I couldn't swing it. So I had to pass. By then I had been looking at pictures of huge rafts carrying many passengers all with smiles on their faces in Life magazine. Publicity created by the possibility of damming the Colorado River and flooding the canyon was rampant as Martin Litton, David Brower, the Sierra Club and many, many others worked to stop the event. Now for you younger boys and girls there was no Internet, You Tube or instant media. Coffee table books, not the size of said tables but books placed on tables where presumably you and your friends would sit, drink coffee and share conversations abounded. Now I don't remember the names of the books even though some of them are in my home library they shared the world of rivers and rapids. Obviously dramatic pictures often help sell books so big Grand Canyon rapids like Crystal and Lava got a lot of press. Stories abounded of the danger of these amazing sites and I studied them like I studied the Internet when I decided to build my drift boat. so as I learned more about GC and rowing down the Colorado my respect and in some ways my fear of the unknown grew.
My first foray into rafting resulted in a flipped boat, lost glasses and 125 mosquito bites. I had played as a child on a WWII surplus survival raft in the backyard. It was my treehouse, my fort, my vehicle to take me to far away places. It would sit there benignly and never flip me out. I could go anywhere I wanted in my mind until mom called for dinner. when we went fishing on "Fish Lake" in the Cascades it was a pleasant, safe ride.
I left Ellensburg to "professionalize" my search and rescue experiences, entering Eastern Washington University's Outdoor Recreation Education program. Soon after graduation I had an opportunity to participate in administering a "managing the Search Function Course for the National Park Service at Albright Training Center on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I got to rub shoulders with the folks that conducted SAR operations throughout the the park service. Evenings spent in the bar at El Tovar Hotel were filled with many exciting stories of rescues and adventures, some of which took place far below in the Grand Canyon itself. I was getting first hand details at night and in the day time looking deep into the canyon at the mysteries, the river and rapids that were hidden below. well I never got to "professionalize" my search and rescue because while I was there I was offered a job to teach outdoor recreation at a community college in Spokane. My boss was a fly fisherman and had apparently always wanted to go rafting and fishing. When he asked if I would like to start a rafting program I immediately said yes. Planning, procurement and such followed and by spring trips had begun. While at Eastern I had taken classes in rafting had not only learned a great deal more about safe rafting but had overcome or forgotten the fear associated with flipping a raft. It was incredible to be out floating a real whitewater raft on real whitewater. Mom never called me back home from my explorations again.
As time and river miles progressed we took on bigger challenges and bigger rapids. It was always possible to do "scouting" runs with the schools equipment on new rivers and before the season started so we got to experience big waves and fairly solitary trips. I say we because my friend Dave who eventually invited me to row the Grand canyon with him worked for me. We ranged about Idaho and Oregon floating many miles, often not knowing much about the rivers we were floating because there just wasn't much information available. It was an exquisite time of adventure for us. So we learned about rapids, ourselves and the people we shared the rivers with.
All good parties have to end sometime. A death in a non-related outdoor activity at the college changed their outlook on adventure and along with my desire to continue there. I spent several summers after that working as a guide for Eastern Washington Universities summer rafting program on the Lower Main Salmon River. More people, at times big rapids, lots of sun and fun. This takes us to the invitation to the Grand Canyon as Dave had now started his own program for the Airforce in Flagstaff, Arizona. I obviously turned down the opportunity but the desire and rowing the Canyon was still planted in my brain.
Job changes, kids, earning a living, blah, blah, blah all took about 25 years to accomplish. Now we are at 2013. Do you remember Dave? We are still friends, he spent many years working for a governmental agencies river rangering the Illinois and Owyhee Rivers when he wasn't in Africa delivering food to refugees. Anyway he invited me to to row the Grand Canyon with him on a trip he had been invited on. I said yes, scraped and saved, did odd jobs, cooked for archeologists and did what ever I could to raise the money. Unfortunately the dates of the put in and the 2014 Wooden Boat Festival coincided. The Grand Canyon won out.
The Internet provided my mind with new pictures and now videos of Crystal and Lava. I now had moving pictures of these wonderful, yet terrible rapids. Now I'm not the spring chicken I once was, I haven't rowed a heavily laden raft down big water in 20 plus years. A concern then became, can I still do it? I have been rowing drift boats for years, but a lightly loaded McKenzie River boat is like a Formula I race car is to a 30 foot long, heavily loaded work truck on a twisty, bumpy road. I knew I could row, but could I row the Grand canyon with a big, heavy raft?
Now, I could say, stand by for the next part but I won't. I could bore you with details of organizing, planning, purchasing more camera gear and replacing my old rafting gear that had shrunk while I stored it all these years. The drive from Spokane was very rainy and snowy, not what I expected of Utah in the spring. I had never met any of the people I would be spending the next 14 days with so it was with trepidation that we met in Flagstaff and made our way to Lee's Ferry to the put in. You want to see a picture of the group? didn't think so. By the way, Dropbox is great place to share a bunch of photos, we have 1500 plus stored there. Let me know if you want to see them all.
Back to rowing and floating the Colorado. Lee's Ferry doesn't have a ferry there anymore but it does have a huge parking area and a large ramp for unloading and assembling gear. Our group only needed a big truck, a trailer and bus to haul us. We had contracted a "complete" package from Moenkopi River Works. We worked with them to select our food, and they handled the logistics of buying food, packing all the gear a group of 14 or so people would need for a two week trip, paying for all the fees to the Park Service and the Hualapi Indians required. ($40 a person to set foot on their lads at the takeout) They had the blaster for heating water, the groover and the ammo cans to haul out our human waste, the umbrellas, the raft gear, the Paco Pads, and everything else we needed. Outfitting private river trips is quite a deal. We took a small mountain of gear and packed it on to our five rafts.
In the background you can see one of the commercial operations rafts waiting on shore for the passengers to arrive the next morning. These Death Stars, an oarboatmans name for one of these behemoths obviously came from Star Wars. Some thing else we wondered about was, were any of the scenes from Star Wars movies come from a screen writes trip down the Grand Canyon? Was this view upstream from the Navaho Canyon pedestrian bridge suggest a scene? Remember Luke Skywalker taking his Starfighter down those deep canyons in preparation for sending a bomb into the center of the Death Star?
Enough speculation, anticipation builds as we load our rafts, get to know each other and wait to see if the "Ranger" will soon be by to give us the "Talk." All private trips get to learn all about safe and clean camping methods to be used while in the canyon. Stings, bites, sharp thorns, sharp rocks, how to do your dishes, washing your hands, using the groover, river safety, etc. All good stuff to know. Time passes, the ranger doesn't show up so we jump in the boats and travel 200 yards downstream to unpack everything and setup camp for the night.
Morning approaches way too soon and we are greeted by the soon-to-be familiar "Blaster". To quickly boil water for coffee someone has invented a propane powered stove that while not quite as loud as a jet plane sure seems to sound like one at 5:30 AM. The oft repeated ritual of making coffee, breakfast, using and tearing down the groover, stuffing your dry bag and packing the rafts takes about two and half hours each morning. We get the lecture from the ranger, finish packing our rafts and now the trip begins.
We are finally on the river. For some of us like the "Coach" who was drawn for the permit to run the river well over a year before it has been a reasonably short wait. For me it was almost 50 years since I first looked at the pictures so long ago.
(To be continued.)
Rick Newman
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Weston on
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what, now we have to wait. gee Rick, how long. I want too read more so hop to it buddy. great story, thanks.
JW
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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on
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Okay John, I'll give you some more. Don't forget that it took 50 years for the story to unfold, I hope it won't take 50 years to write about it. Why didn't I row a wooden boat on this trip? Because a. mine isn't yet modified to take on big water, no floatation, no drain system etc. b. The trip was organized around a two week window and keeping the logistics simple was important. It was a pleasure just showing up and loading the boats. For past long trips such as 13 days on the Main Salmon it took most of the summer to get everything done.
I hope that this story gives folks an insight into what a grand canyon trip is like. I also hope that it inspires them to do their own trips. When we were in the final days of organizing the trip, Dave, you remember Dave right, finally accepted the fact that if he rowed or even tried to hold on as a passenger his right arm would once again become dislocated. Seems that when he was traveling down a river in Africa with a load of food for some starving folks a few folks decided to capture him. When they tied him to a tree they damaged his shoulder sockets, one especially bad. Time and a few other incidents have finally caught up with him. So no Dave on the trip. (he's getting surgery when he returns in two months from his current assignment for USAID)
Anyway, I was asked to find another oarsman. I searched my mind to see if I knew anyone that could take several weeks off, knew how to row big water, enjoyed the out-of-doors, etc. After a long search I finally came up with my good friend, Robb Grubb. He fit most of the qualifications and was probably crazy enough to come along. When I caught up to Robb he was in the motel at Marble Canyon. Where might you ask is Marble Canyon? Just few miles down the road from Lee's Ferry. We wouldn't be available to row with us because he was going to row a raft with Greg Hatten and Dave Mortenson because they too needed an oarsman. Darn the bad luck. we talked a while and I said I'll call you when our trip is done and we will compare notes. So we didn't get Robb but JT the trip leader found several other highly competent folks to do the duties.
What is a day like on the Colorado River you are probably asking yourself. I won't bore you with what we did each and every day, which is good because I can't remember and you don't want to read it anyway. Morning start much like the picture above. what I didn't show was Lorie, she was a wonderful person to travel with in many ways. This was her 20th trip down the canyon, she knew what was happening, got up every day to start the blaster for coffee and did a masterful job of cooler and food management. We had cocktail ice left on the day we took out of the river! She would go to the store every morning, I mean to the rafts and assemble the makings for breakfast. Each day a different crew would be responsible for cooking. We had three crews so that you never had the same duty every day. Cooking, groover or relaxing.
We would wander around until the coffee or tea kicked in, cooked and ate breakfast, washed dishes and then took down our camps. (Some folks put up tents every night while other of us slept on the boats, a paco pad over a front or rear deck lid worked pretty well.) Folks would drag their gear down and the ritual of loading the boats took place. It takes a few days to decide exactly where the boatman wants things. We did have a female boatman, in the Grand Canyon it is an honor and the accepted practice to call anyone who rows a boat a "boatman". So the rule is rig to flip. That is strap everything down securely so that you won't lose anything if your rafts gets flipped or worse yet Maytagged. Maytagging is getting caught in a recirculating hole where you might spend a few seconds or more wishing you were someplace else.
About 8:15 everyday we would be ready to float. JT would announce the float plan, who would ride with who and in what order. I was the sweep boat everyday. I was there to pick up the pieces should there be any. we would learn what rapids would be coming up and if there were any special places that we would stop. Now the boatmen and Lorie knew what was coming up everyday because we were memorizing the Colorado River Map, by Tom Martin and DuWain Whitis. Now you probably thought that Tom only built and floated the river. Well, Tom does many things, one of which is Vishnu Temple Press. He and his wife Hazel sell books about the River and the people whom have explored there. He also write about the river. I'll let you explore more about Tom on your own.
Much of the time spent on the river is on flat water, not featureless but flat. There is always a subtle indication of what is occurring in a river if you know where to look. Little current paths are visible that show where there is current flow. this is important if you want to work less and enjoy the river more. We rowed about eight hours a day so reducing the effort was popular. As the day heats up or if you are being punished by the river gods the wind will also blow. Unfortunately it rarely blows downstream. Dependent upon the velocity of the wind it is either a cooling breeze or a major force to overcome. Sometimes it took two people rowing to push downstream. The boatman would sit in his normal place and a passenger or assistant boatman would sit on the cooler facing you. One would push and the pull. Since your trunk, legs and arms have much more combined strength than your arms do pulling gets you down river faster or in the case of rapids allows you to pull away from danger better. So when the wind is light or non-existant pushing works. As you travel through this glorious canyon wonderful sights are continually revealed. Layers upon layers of rock form the structure through which the canyon was sculpted. Everyday day new colors and textures of rock are exposed. The guidebooks and other geological tomes explain all those details. But to my eyes it was just wonderful to see the myriad of views and what was exposed. Rocks of almost every size and in millions of shapes litter the debris fields where they have landed after exfoliating from rocks and sidewalls. Balancing rocks somehow resist gravity and wait above to fall. It wasn't uncommon for shapes to reveal themselves. Hey, someone would say, there's a face or bear or even a set of owl eyes above Owl Eyes camp. You rarely saw the canyon rim and often only saw a slice of the sky.
Here's some Vishnu Shisht and some amazing shapes.
Sorry folks, that's all for now. Got to go and teach some fly tying.
Rick Newman
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Permalink Reply by David Jensen on
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Fantastic!
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David, writing about the Grand Canyon is much like building a drift boat. A labor of love. I really enjoy both.It is a special place and the trip was life changing for me. I'm glad you enjoy my thoughts and meanderings. Now it's time to add some floatation to my boat so I can go row some whitewater with it!
Rick Newman
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Rick, you are a great story teller, I have enjoyed this very much. thanks.
JW
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Permalink Reply by Phillip Westendorf on
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Rick,
Thanks for sharing your experience in the Grand Canyon. Enjoyed it!
Dorf
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Dorf, we haven't even gotten to the good parts yet. Will I row the entire canyon, will I flip a boat, will I swim? Stay tuned.
Rick
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Rick,
I'll be waiting!
Dorf
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Okay, I'll get back to the river. While the canyon doesn't create it's own weather it does influence the local microclimates. As the sun comes up and starts to heat the canyon walls winds can be created. when the river gods and the heating works in the right way the winds will push you downstream. If the gods aren't smiling the oarsmen will be pushing the weight of the rafts with that have poor aerodynamics against the wind, often for many hours a day. The disadvantage is it becomes a lot of work, the advantage is it is a lot of work especially for those oarsmen that need to get in shape! Before the trip my back was wimpy, could have been from an auto accident a few years ago. Anyway the eight hours of a day of rowing soon helped out. Like a treadmill you couldn't off from you either got better or traded off with others. after a few days and one session of bad muscle cramps my back quit hurting and I could row for hours. It has been a good kickstarter for an exercise program for me which I am still doing, walking and biking now rather than rowing.
I am from Washington State where in April it is still light enough to do things until 9 pm or so in May. Arizona runs on the same time schedule as Washington does since they don't observe Daylight Savings Time. So at 8:30 at night being down in a canyon it is getting dark, I mean quite dark. After doing river trips on the Salmon Rivers in Idaho I was used to 10:00 dark time. It was a big difference. However you can still have fun at night in camp. We weren't always as subdued as Greg Hatten's trip was but sometimes we knew how to have fun.
See what I mean about dark, without JT's lantern it was pitchblack. But like a said we had fun too.
Here the General is doing a few moves for us. she entertains at nursing homes and such with a tap dancing group. It's tough to tap dance on sand! We also brought along our own rapper and hip-hop dancer.
For those of you that have done longer river trips you understand the phenomenon of the "river trip group." For those of you whom haven't had the experience it can be either wonderful or frustrating. If the group is copasetic and the stresses of rapids and weather not a factor you find a group cohesiveness that forms with bonds that last long after the trip is over. On the River Runners for Wilderness Rafting the Grand Canyon wiki the concept of tribalism is mentioned under the subject of returning to civilization. I had never thought about it before but a small tribe is actually formed amongst the folks on the trip. You develop your own jokes, adapting terms and slang that fit the groups demeanor. We had a group that got along pretty darn well considering that most of us had never met and were plunged into a potentially stressful situation. Every trip has it's challenges, weather, rapids, wind, heat, food etc. The point though of this discourse is that for a short time we formed our own little society and every day we got to spend time with different folks on our boats, getting to know them for eight hours a day. You can discuss a lot of things in eight hours. How often do you spend eight hours a day talking to your (new) friends? It is an aspect that if you haven't experienced it can be very rewarding and helps to form bonds and build strong relationships. Experiencing big rapids with the anticipation what might happen, the exhilaration of what did happen and the celebration of the successful runs can be amazing when shared.
I have been talking to Robb Grubb about converting my drift boat to big water usage. Not fully decked mind you but with watertight compartment bow and stern like his "green" boat.
I am confident of my skills in big water I am also confident that if I fill my boat with water in it's current configuration I would swamp it. Time to buy some more plywood and get busy!
The whitewater bug has bitten! I want more, having really enjoyed the moderately big waves and been scared by the really big ones. The Lower Main Salmon River calls. No drawings for permits! Warm water, big, big sandy beaches, sun and fun. Right now the river is at 38,000 CFS, no place for me, especially above Slide Rapids.
Anyway, more story to tell, just need to make more time to do so. Once again it is time to go to "work", got to pay for all this play.
More posts to follow.
Rick N
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you had just way too much fun. let's have more of this trip, can't wait.
JW
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A visit to the Grand Canyon is not just rowing, rapids, eating and fabulous night life. I have mentioned the geologic sites, the rocks, the amazing timeline of the canyon and so on. After a few days of travel you try to camp at a place called Nankoweap, we got lucky and got Lower Nankoweap camp. As we were nearing Upper Nankoweap we heard the unmistakeable sound of a helicopter. The sound was coming much closer than any of the others we had heard. Now to the uninitiated the Grand Canyon is not only a National Park but also a wilderness. Amazingly enough boats with motors and helicopters are allowed in this wilderness.
Anyway I am sure that the person that suffered from an unknown bite was glad that the National Park Service helicopter was coming in to assess the severity of their injury and in this case airlift them for free to medical care.
In the picture above you can see the helicopter, an NPS Ranger, a group to the right approaching the helicopter and two groups of rafts tethered to the beach. The left hand group was a "private" and the right hand a commercial group. You might be asking, how did the NPS know to come in and rescue this individual? Well technology has provided an answer, satellite phones. If your phone can see a satellite you have from a few seconds to a few minutes to place calls. Like most parties we rented a phone so if need be we can place calls. We never used it but it was reassuring to know that help could be summoned. Not quite wilderness but I guess you can carry them anywhere you want.
As we traveled down river next to the private group we learned that a member of their party had suffered a bite of unknown origin at the time and that medical care was required. We heard no more about it, hopefully the individual came out okay.
We camped at Nankoweap so we could visit an ancient granary. Nankoweap Canyon is one of the largest side canyons of the Grand Canyon. Archeologists suggest that the Four Corners region, where Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico meet hosted an ancient civilization from 1200 BC to AD 1200. They also surmise that whichever group inhabited the Nankoweap area lived here for approximately 50 years. The people that lived here moved in about AD 1050 and in AD 1100 started moving out. The Nankoweap Canyon has the largest tributary delta in the Grand Canyon. It has been suggested that at some point enough water was available, presumably from a source further up the Nankoweap Canyon sufficient enough that crops could be raised and harvested. To store these crops granary's were built. With a climb you can visit the one shown below.
The next picture will give you and idea of the perspective and the view that those who built here had.
Our camp is located on the far side of the triangular point of land that the trail points to. You can also see a few of our group making their way the final distance.
As you drive to the put-in at Lee's Ferry you cross a bridge over the Little Colorado River or least the river bed of the Little Colorado River. Forty plus miles later it reaches the Colorado River. It is a popular stop.
There are probably 20 rafts lined up to visit the river. Here's why.
Yes, that's blue water! Well, not really. Both the Little Colorado River and Havasu Creek run through sedimentary deposits that are rich in lime, these deposits leave suspended particles in the water. When these particles drop out of suspension they drop to the bottom of the stream bed. Just like in a swimming pool that is painted white but filled with clear water we see blue water.
In addition to the lime scattering light in these streams, the calcium carbonate in the lime coats the bottom of these waters with a white bottom. The white light reflected off objects can be seen when no part of the light spectrum is reflected significantly more than any other color. Thus in swimming pools, the Little Colorado River, and Havasu Creek, the deeper the water the darker the blue color, due to more orange absorption of the sunlight from the water and the white bottom reflecting all colors equally.
Not only is the water "blue" it is also much warmer than the Colorado River. The water temperature deep at the base of Glen Canyon Dam is consistently cold year round. Exiting the base of the dam it is commonly about 45 degrees. Pretty darn chilly. Eventually the river warms up to almost 50 degrees near the end of the Grand Canyon 200 plus miles from the dam. The warmer temperature of the Little Colorado River provides an opportunity for fun.
Yes, JT has his "life jacket" , more commonly called a PFD or Personal Floatation Device on upside down in the diaper position. Any ideas why? No it's not because of any digestive issues. Check out the installment to see why.
Rick N
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In the post below if you want to see a bigger view of any of the pictures, double click on them.
Rick
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