Look around here, and you may find the stupendous. After 16 days on the Colorado, buried in the bowels of this Canyon, my eyes still hunger to see deeper into this colossus of the profound. Layers upon layers rise into cliffs of stark columns. Desert varnish paints the fossilized sediments with a bronzed finish. Ancient ruins whisper mythologies onto the tapestry of history – we listen to the faint voice of their echoes. There is so much to take in. As the author Terence McKenna once said, “The further you go, the bigger it gets.” I think of the first day when we put in at Lees Ferry and have to question whether I was seeing a fraction of what was right before my eyes back then. Now, with little more than 30 miles left between me and rejoining who I once was, I can only hope that my understanding of this Canyon and my place on our Earth has forever improved.

Turn these boats around, boys; we need to drag ourselves back through those shallow constrictions and boulder-choked channels to bring me back to mile zero. We’ll resupply and restart this jaunt into my soul, now that I know something about myself in relationship to All of This. Next time, I’ll be certain to extract a full minute of impressions for every second that ticks by on the clock.

I’m surrounded by blossoming spectacles of nature. On one side of the river, sloping hillsides bathed in green crawl upward to terraces of red and tan sandstone, stained in the patina that comes with age when you are made of stone and live in the desert. On the other side of the river, the surfaces are stripped bare, just the naked sheer rock rising to menacing heights. Between the random forms and chaos of erosion, it becomes apparent why some of the buttes and mesas are called Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. The formations and pinnacles stand in as proxies for the temples that have inspired their names – Hindu and Mayan-looking formations too numerous to list can be imagined in this landscape. For some time, we float past these homes of the gods until the river corridor widens again. Serrated edges and dangerous angles give way to softly rolling hills that only last until the next bend in the river. We then enter the world of Chichen Itza, whose temple pyramids have been rendered right here in our desert Canyon.

Ocotillo and other cacti stand like sentinels guarding the treasures in their presence – it’s also possible they are desert lighthouses guiding us, keeping us safe from the tempest. And what of those bighorn sheep seen earlier in the trip? What were they doing standing atop the highest outcroppings, out on the edge of the tiniest sliver of sandstone? They obviously were not foraging, their front legs standing at the precipice, their necks craning over the ledge as though they, too, were looking for something extraordinary.

Just above our heads, there is another flow, another stream, a river of air current. In its path, butterflies don’t flutter about; they dart along, moving with great purpose. Maybe they are riding their own kind of rapids? Butterflies are the civil air patrol of the middle channel of the Colorado. Birds are more often seen up high running thermals, updrafts, and various other unseen currents or taking it easy over onshore. Slicing a trail between them all are the visitors who come in on the breeze from a different world, flying spiders.

These arachnids are the snowbirds of the Canyon. During the summer, they live up on the forested rims, but as cold begins its approach, the spiders give off a shot of silk before tossing themselves off their high-altitude perches. They hold fast to the thread, and, like a kite, they are airborne. They float on a haphazard random course, looking for providence to deliver them from the approaching snows of winter to the desert floor a mile below.

Sitting in our dories, crawling along at sloth speed, we see shiny glimmers and twinkles of the sun reflecting off the undulating silk lifelines the spiders are clinging to. The silks ripple in the sunlight, mimicking wisps of smoke, and then here and there, a strand falls into a shadow, magically disappearing before reemerging in the sunlight. Many a jumper misses its target on the lowlands, to become an evolutionary experiment in which nature tests the spider’s ability to swim. Others kamikaze themselves with direct hits on our craft. I wonder about the survivors who become stowaways, finding a dry corner to hitch a ride in; then, in a couple of days, they will start a cross-country drive to Flagstaff, Fredonia, Angels Camp, Grand Junction, or any number of stops between, depending on the city and state a boatman calls home.

We are taken to the edge of being hypnotized. The dip of the oar, the warm pulse of the sun, and the hundreds of silver threads weaving a slow dance in the sky charm us into a trance. Capturing these fleeting moments in my camera, where the thinner-than-hair spider silks float in the streaming rays of sunlight, would never portray the enchanting play of nature these sights inspire. Do others know the beauty of our world that the senses are able to perceive? Can a man reveal the raw emotions able to be brought on by his encounter with the natural world? Or does he only have some vague idea that something is different? We must learn to swoon in our exploration of the rare; we must let go and let the heart forget what trouble it may have known. We should strive for awareness in these beautiful moments. It’s all love when we are in the wonderful.

I want to extend the view and find treasures never before witnessed. Ones that would allow me to continue my narrative for another 100 pages. I need to enlarge the rabbit hole, tunnel ever deeper, to keep myself falling forever. If I run out of river, will I run out of words? Can separation anxiety be portrayed as a part of my experience without it being a downer? Months ago, when friends had been curious how we would deal with 18 consecutive days of cold and wet primitive conditions, I had remained strong in my resolve and told them it would be easy. Then, a week before we left, I began to question my resolve and fell into doubt that we had fully understood what we bargained for. Now, I’m faced with explaining to my friends how difficult it will be to be amongst them once again. I’ll try to tell them how 18 days in the Canyon were not enough. During the days that became weeks and then months that followed, I sequestered myself in the remembrances of these 18 precious days, requiring another couple of hundred days trying to relate a fraction of what I saw and felt.

This journey should have been sold as the adventure you never leave and that never leaves you. Life-changing, monumentally epic escapes, which take us inside ourselves, happen in terms that may as well be in a foreign language we neither speak nor understand. Perhaps a few of our friends and family members who have experienced similar epiphanies will be able to return the sparkle in our eye or be able to share the knowing smile we offer, which gives a hint at the enormity of growth we encountered. I feel that while I have been awakened, much of humanity will be left simply trying to survive or worrying about the drudgery of routine instead of making time to dream of tomorrow’s adventures.

Yet here I am, trying to extend the cascade of epiphanies, to enlarge my vision and the carrying capacity of my memories. Too many miles have already been rowed today; only 23 miles remain. I have no choice but to start my departure, though my heart may never be ready to leave this experience. While writing these words, I can also see their end, bringing me to the point at which I have to face leaving a second time. There must be some play of color, a contrast of elements, or a layer of earth not yet written of that can be examined in detail, opening a new chapter for my imagination to traipse through and convey on these pages.

Instead, we float. The boatman row. The miles collect. And we close the distance between here and another world – our old world back home. Caroline is out front enjoying her last bow ride on the Lost Creek, rowed by Kenney. The ride wasn’t so much on a rapid as it was on a slightly bigger riffle, but that didn’t diminish any of the delight Caroline took from the most exquisite seat on the dory. At mile 205 a rapid approaches, the last of the “Big Ones.” Good grief, the finality of it all. Mile 209 finds us at Granite Park Camp, and it’s only noon. An early day to allow us the chance to relax and take it easy – which I don’t want to do; I could do that at home on some weekend.

Granite Park is a wide expanse of beach and desert. Sparse plant life sprouts from the living cryptobiotic soil, teeming with microscopic cyanobacteria, lichens, and fungi. A hike is on offer that will take us through this fragile landscape and deeper into the Tapeats layer. As an added bonus, we will be seeing a recently discovered arch named after one of our boatmen. We will be leaving shortly after setting up camp.

Much of the landscape we have traveled through these days has shared the same palette of hues, splashed with flourishes of the entire spectrum of earth tones as though they were painted with the end of the rainbow. And yet, while much of the scenery is likely quite similar to other areas along the river, to me, with senses overloaded, the view is as unique and possibly even improved upon when compared to what I saw minutes or hours before. Motifs surrender their hidden forms from out of the shadows, demonstrating how patterns taken from Earth’s design have influenced the imprint on life. Like looking at the clouds above us to find figures of things familiar, here, too, we can spy the outlines of various creatures and plants in the rock forms. My descriptions of these colors, configurations, and impressions of this living canvas have been hard fought for. My words tell little of the diversity of contrasting nuances that are displayed in dynamic bands, layers, swirls, and punctuations from even this one small corner of nature’s vast inventory. Granite Park is yet another iteration of those qualities that reduce the vocabulary to “Wow!”

“Glorious,” “vast,” “deep,” and “profound” are often among the words used to convey a sense of admiration for this National Park. One could read every line ever penned that has attempted to illustrate the immeasurable Grand Canyon, and still, upon entering this serpentine maze of the sublime, one would know little about what was about to greet their naïveté. Hop aboard, but be prepared, for as you move forward, the world is unfolding. Step ashore and watch as the trail takes you further than your imagination ever dreamt.

With our tents pitched, we are about to walk into another one of these extraordinary visions. We start our hike from the river’s edge. A grizzled and stubborn old tree said to have been here during Powell’s visit has seen firsthand what power the river carries. And while it has a hunched back and obviously looks the worse for wear, this old Goodding’s willow has managed a mighty long visit, judging from the struggle it has made to remain planted here.

Not far up the trail, we come to a panoramic overview of the river, beach, bushes, and towering cliffs in the background – our home for today. Continuing just a short distance, we are soon in the main drainage of the side canyon. It is mostly stripped clean of plants as rock, tree limbs, and debris, carried by the rush of periodic floodwaters, has scoured the channel, leaving behind a rock garden decorated with boulders and stones from further up the canyon. Ahead of us, we begin to see possible paths we might choose to follow. Some routes run into sheer walls that cancel hiking in that direction. A narrow path with a steep climb looks like a potential continuation of our exploration. From our new view, the cliffs that had appeared to be in the distant background have suddenly grown in stature; they are much more formidable now than just 10 minutes ago.

Climbing over ledges and around boulders, we enter the hidden world of a small slot canyon. Two days ago, I had understood that National Canyon was our last slot canyon, but stand corrected. National was to be the last of the “big slot canyons,” this is a mere small one. But small does not diminish its grandeur. The intimacy of finding myself in the narrows of a place where I can at once comprehend its scope and have it act as a kind of blinders to the greater canyon it is buried in leaves me feeling protected. While hiking a slot, there is a sense of being cocooned, of being hidden in a cozy little hideaway, alone and in silence. Like in a cave, yet with the benefit of natural light. I can look around and see it all, move in closer to examine the details of this stone womb, which is not easily done when opposing canyon walls are miles away. Although tranquility can sometimes be deceptive, when the rains come to purge this channel it would be the last place one would want to be caught hanging out admiring the finery.

The trail zigzags as it gains in elevation. Small depressions in the slick rock act like water pockets, one of them feeding a small family of cattails. These plants are powerful reminders of the ancient seas, lakes, and wetlands that no longer exist here, as the environment continues the process of being converted to desert. They are now in their state of winter dormancy, biding their time until spring when warmer days will trigger a signal in the head of the cattail to open with a puff of fluffy wisps that will float off on the wind. Their seeds will fill the sky, looking to find another elusive pool of nourishing water on the way to establishing yet one more foothold before the desert fully takes over.

We reached the vertical rock, but I left my hooves on the dory. To demonstrate where to place our feet, a boatman in flip flops leads the way, and the rest of us follow on a trail that didn’t exist before the imagination of our guides willed it into existence. The thought crosses my mind that we’ll likely be returning this way – but this is not the time to worry about the impossible. We follow in his footsteps and, to my surprise, find ourselves able to leap vertical walls in a single bound or two.

Are those worm fossils? That was the first thought in my head as my eyes tried to decipher what the fossilized tubes might be. Close enough, they are channels in which worms once lived so many millions of years ago. What other remnants of lives past lie just before us that we don’t know how to see, whose shape doesn’t offer a familiar form to give immediate recognition to? Note to self: upon getting home, find the outfitter who brings a geologist, an anthropologist, and a paleontologist to guide us on a return journey of exploring the fossil and historic record of the Grand Canyon, and don’t forget the musicians.

Is that a dead millipede? Sure enough, it is a six-inch-long, desiccated specimen, half curled up in the gravel, and it’s not the only one. Not knowing the first thing about the life cycle of the ‘pede’ species, I wouldn’t be able to explain the autumn die-off that occurred in this canyon. The mystery of the millipede lives on while its life has come to an end.

Basic knowledge of the vast potential of nature seems illusory to my mind. What would basic knowledge consist of when the complexity of existence spans physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, climatology, hydrology, geology, and many other -ologies? How can I hope to have an adequate foundation of information that would allow for a full comprehension of this environment that has recorded the evolution of life? How does the average person gather the knowledge to understand such a magnitude of detail?

Our trail crosses a myriad of layers: solid sandstone, gravel beds, sand, and off to our side on the Canyon wall, shale. Greenish-gray chips of fractured shale fall from the wall, spilling into our path. The pieces we walk on crunch and break underfoot. Over time, they will again turn to dust and be blown to the four corners. Some of these new sand particles we just kicked up will find their way to the river before settling into Lake Mead, further downstream. At some point in the distant future, maybe Hoover Dam will no longer stand where it is today. Maybe, if we are lucky, none of the dams on the Colorado will continue to impound this river, and the sediments can continue their voyage to the sea.

Out of the drainage, our view opens up to the broad expanse that now spreads out around us. We turn left and continue our hike, heading towards the canyon wall further up until, near the sheer cliff wall, if we look up at just the right spot, not too soon and not past a certain stone, we can see Ashley Arch in the distance. This is not an official name but is the name we use on this trip, as the boatmen haven’t been able to identify this weather-worn feature in the literature of what is already known to be down here. It is our very own boatman and guide, Ashley Brown, who spotted the arch on a previous hike, and who has lent her name for its unofficial designation. For the next ten minutes, we mill about. Some small talk is going on between the boatmen and the other passengers, but I’m busy scouring the area for the minute details that stand in the shadow of the arch towering far overhead.

Caroline suggests we start moving down the canyon before the rest of the group so we can stay ahead of the charge back to camp and enjoy a few minutes moseying at our own pace. As we go, we take time to reexamine the sights we had passed on the way in and eyeball what was missed. It begins to dawn on me that this must be a whole new Grand Canyon because it sure isn’t the one I was in yesterday. These rocks are not like others found on previous days in the “other” Grand Canyons. This erosion is not exactly like the patterns I saw back in Saddle Canyon, although there is some similarity. There are cacti here, too, but more of them, as though this were a different ecosystem. The different layering must surely confirm we are in a Grand Canyon unique to river mile 209. Not only have we walked through yet another iteration of the Grand Canyon, but we are also walking through a thousand lifetimes of the amazing.

Entering the Grand Canyon, I had hoped to understand not just a little of something but that I would grow to have become familiar with a lot of everything. While I have grown to appreciate the complexity, diversity, and overwhelming abundance, I feel that I have only peeled open the first layer of the onion, which has given nourishment to feeding a larger curiosity about life itself.

Maybe our group was developing a greater curiosity about where the two of us went because here they came. Just in time, too, as the trail is entering the narrows where, a sure-footed example of where to place our next step would certainly be appreciated. This is not the place to take unnecessary, potentially dangerous risks beyond what we already agreed to by putting ourselves in wooden boats to ply the whitewater of the Colorado. A broken bone of any sort and the flying ambulance is summoned to pluck us out of paradise, to be whisked, dirty underwear and all, to the fluorescent-lit, polished vinyl floors of a sterile clinic, where the crash with reality would probably be more painful than the broken limb.

Here we are again, witnessing the perfect timing boatmen are able to manifest in the sequencing of events. As we are reentering the wide open, flat desert we call camp. Clouds as massive as the Canyon itself have become sponges for the setting sun. Flames stop short of leaping from the fiery sky. This is hardly a sunset; it is the glorious stage performance of a jealous heaven, having played second fiddle to the earth below, that has garnered our undivided attention for too long. Time to stop and enjoy the play, to stand in awe that not only is this Canyon full of wonder, but the sky, too, contains a magic that is capable of taking our breath away.

Dinner. This word is wholly inadequate to describe what we enjoy this night. Dinner is what is eaten as the last meal of a routine day. Tonight’s indulgence can easily be called a miracle. Filet mignon last night was yummy, a real treat for sure, no complaints there, but what do you call this fresh homemade baked lasagna? Don’t go getting the idea that I am ecstatic about a frozen Italian treat that was pulled out of an ice chest and tossed into the fire. This is the real thing, made fresh using ricotta, mozzarella, and dried noodles – from out of the secret food store – topped off with fresh tomato and fresh basil. The vegetarian option? Of course, it is here, too. Fresh squash, zucchini, and onions form the foundation of this lasagna, and like the meatatarian version, it is layered into a Dutch oven and baked for our dining pleasure while we are “roughing it” in the Canyon.

Compliments must be paid to Ashley for this mouthwatering delight. While she and Rondo were our cooks tonight, it was Ashley who put down the oars and donned the chef’s apron to give us what seemed to be everyone’s favorite meal of the trip. My taste buds are eternally indebted. Ashley whipped up the culinary equivalent of the magnificent arch now unofficially named after her. The beautiful sunset that parked over our camp must have been a reflection of all the warmth and care she demonstrated in doing her part to ensure our fun and comfort – on that account, Katrina, Andrea, Linda, and Frank must also be included as beneficiaries of my gratitude.

A great meal in the Canyon would rank a notch below that description without the accompaniment of great stories or music, and tonight, we have both. Jeffe has another command performance up his sleeve for us, with a reading from Robert Service. He bows his head; when he comes back up, Jeffe is a gruff frontiersman telling us the story of “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.” Sitting in the dark around the crackling fire, we are listening to the voice of an old miner. Drifting through history, we are lost in the distant tale of an ancestor.

By the time the poem is finished, the fire is starting to fade; it sputters and dims. Someone stokes the ashes and adjusts the last log that was thrown on top. We snuggle in to keep warm. Katrina brought out her guitar and picked up where Jeffe left off. As she serenades us, Jeffe brings over his guitar, and the two of them offer us the folk music lullaby that we will drift off to sleep with. Music never sounded so good; they could have played on till the early morning.

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.

I wanted to proclaim this as the Big Day; the truth is this is the 15th Big Day. What it will also become, though, is the longest day. The now-familiar propane tank’s metallic whoosh fueling the stove lets us know that coffee is on the way. Caroline stirs and we both wake from a light sleep; it’s 4:40 in the morning. Out of the sack, we waste no time rolling up the sleeping bags, mats, and collecting everything else lying around before stuffing it all into our dry bags. With a toss, our stuff is outside the tent before the wake-up call goes out. It must have been the impending reality of this class 8-10 rapid known as Lava Falls, considered to be the most difficult rapid on this trip, that made for a tough night of sleep for all of us. When we exit our tent, I can see that the others are also awake and readying themselves. The boatmen must feel we are all on the move, as no one made the rounds to ensure we were up and packing.

There’s a strange quiet amongst us. At the coffee table, we talk in hushed tones as though we might disturb those who are still asleep, though no one is. There is a flurry of passersby delivering their bags to the rafts. Breakfast is offered in silence; the other passengers continue walking by, off to grab the rest of their gear as they glance over to confirm that food is now on the table. A soft greeting of good morning is exchanged between those eating and those on the move. Another peculiarity of this day is the darkness; not a hint of daybreak has begun to brighten the black sky. Headlamps illuminate the brush, sand, and us. Stray beams of bright white LED lights crisscross the trails. Trees are painted with streaks of the searching, head-mounted torches; the scene is one from the movies when the search party is looking for signs of something – or someone – lost in the forest.

Finally, the crack of a loud voice breaks the quiet, “Last call for breakfast, last call for bags to be loaded on rafts, last call for the Unit, last call for everything!” The kitchen will soon disappear, the dry bags are mostly on the rafts, and the camp will be given the once over to make sure nothing is being left behind. The sky is transitioning out of dark blue. A last-minute lineup at the facilities is delaying our departure. If you think a family sharing a single bathroom is tough, try dealing with 22 people sharing one metal can. As the crowd thins at the Unit, we line up at the dories and rafts.

With some light in the sky to see where we are going, we push off in the Sam McGee. Caroline and Jakki are upfront, and Jeffe is at the oars. I have tightened and retightened the straps of my life jacket, tugged on the elastic bands of my waterproof jacket and pants to seal me in as much as that is possible, and zipped up the jacket until it sits under my chin. My breathing is shallow and rapid. I tell myself it is because of the tightness of the life jacket, recalling our boatmen’s credo, “If you can’t breathe, you can’t drown!” My hands tire as I practice my grip and imagine where I might be holding on when we run Lava Falls.

After an indeterminable amount of time, we arrive at a small pull-out on river left, where we exit the boats to go scout the rapid. I should be clear here: I will not scout the rapid; I will bow down to its awesomeness and silently beg for mercy. Adrenaline is erasing all senses aside from anxious anticipation. I should be calm, though; we have known for months that this day would come. I have watched every online video of rafts, kayaks, canoes, dories, and the occasional inadvertent body surfer who has left their craft to be tossed through the pandemonium of Lava Falls. Maybe I should have skipped the ones that described the clip with the language of doom, such as Carnage at Lava Falls, Lava Falls Flip, Disaster in Lava Falls, or So-and-So Swims Lava Falls.

Anyway, we have a lucky charm on our side. A week before we were to join this adventure, I saw a video posted by one of the boatmen who, on his 116th run of the Colorado, experienced his first flip in Lava Falls. Everyone survived, and his only injury was a broken nose. As soon as I saw this, the light bulb went on. I called O.A.R.S., “Hi, this is John Wise. In a few days, my wife and I are going to be on your 18-day Grand Canyon dory trip, and I was told about a month ago that a boatman named Jeffe Aronson might be one of our guides.” The woman, with an Australian accent, confirms that Jeffe is indeed on our trip. She also identified herself as Carrie Aronson, Jeffe’s wife. I blurt out how perfect this is and begin telling her, “Jeffe posted a video of his dory flipping in Lava Falls last month. Is it possible to put in an early reservation for two passengers to ride with him on the day we’ll be running Lava Falls?” I’m thinking to myself, what are the chances of lightning striking twice? His will be the safest dory to ride that day. Carrie tells me that she’ll be talking to him in a day or so, as he has left California and is on his way to Arizona. When I called back, I was given the wonderful news that there should be no problem with my request; just remind him when we meet at Lees Ferry.

A short walk delivers us to the overlook above Lava Falls. Out in the Colorado, we see the fervor of rage and maniacal force water is capable of creating. The ominous ledge hole is pointed out, and frightening standing waves are casually discussed, making this all sound as though it were normal. While to me, it all looks like a giant frothing mess, and the furthest thing from normal. Pour-overs and dangers here and there determine that we will make our run on a thin line, river left. I’m trying to picture that within minutes, we’ll effortlessly slice a course through this notorious rapid, exiting with all the grace of a ballerina en pointe.

The four cooler heads determine that Jeffe will be part of the first group to make the run. I don’t hesitate after hearing this and bolt back to the Sam McGee. I check and recheck my life jacket, my helmet, my waterproof closures, and then Caroline’s. My camera is gently wrapped in my fleece jacket and stuffed deep into a small dry bag before being wedged into the hatch behind me. On my right, I have affixed a clamping tripod to the gunwale with my tiny GoPro firmly attached. Extra Velcro straps loop around the tripod legs and are locked tightly before I’m as satisfied as I can be that this camera will still be attached to the dory upon exiting Lava Falls 23 seconds after we enter it. I’m ready.

Here goes the first group, but it’s not my group. A last-minute change determined that Jeffe would be in the second group. I’m too freaked out waiting for our run to consider unpacking my camera and heading back up the hill and video the group that is now running first. I will not be the reason that my boatman is distracted; I will not be the cause of a delay – I stay put, remaining tense, remaining nervous, and more than a little thrilled.

The first group pushes off and floats away. There is no view from this small cove to be able to size up how the other boaters fare once they cross the horizon and disappear into the void. In a few brief moments, a serious Jeffe is moving fast in our direction, “Get in, we’re doing this,” followed by, “Andrea went overboard, but her mom reached in to pull her back onto their raft. Everybody ready?” Startled, I have no time to pop my eyeballs back into their sockets or lower my eyebrows that have shot above my hairline.

Jeffe’s question wasn’t asked with any expectation of an answer anyway. He pushes us off from the shore, steps in behind me, and takes his place at the oars. “We’re going in on the left. When I yell ‘high side’ – be there, and we’ll get through this.” We know the routine by now. No questions, no joking, no distractions. Jeffe asks Jakki to inch to the right to bring the dory into trim; we are level. As if in slow motion, we approach Lava Falls. We are on calm water, so calm that what must be over the horizon doesn’t seem real. Time is dragging me to a halt as every second expands with frenetic anticipation. My grip is fixed, as is my line of sight, on what will shortly trounce all of my senses.

“Okay, let’s pay attention!”

The dory is accelerating as the angle of descent and gravity start to pull the river down into the rapid. I can’t tell if we are on the tongue. I don’t even know if this rapid has one, but as the water starts to whip into white peaks on the left, we are still on a final short stretch of nearly calm water. This all feels too easy. Like a familiar formula unfolding before us, we should go from calm to rushing forward into chaos, then a bit of being tossed about before the exit. But this is Lava Falls.

Then, the frenzy begins. Calm is destroyed, and an infinite field of churn without an inch of pleasantry is about to chew us up. Is that the ledge hole? We drop into the convulsing volcano without ceremony; the waves around us are a blur. A growing lateral beast of water is building an impenetrable wall as we start to turn sideways. There is no time to yell “High side!!!” – we are going into battle with a dory-flipper. Jeffe dives hard to the right, and I follow, just as we had been instructed to do if we can’t hear the boatman’s commands. We are still upright, with all four of us in our seats, as we emerge from the wave that swamped our dory only seconds into our run, but we are completely turned around, plowing through Lava in reverse. The oar that should be in Jeffe’s left hand is missing. While still leashed to the dory, it has jumped its oarlock and is floating outside the boat, too far to reach, as it is being whipped through Lava Falls just as we are.

Blind to what hazards lie in our trajectory, I make a quick decision not to look behind me for three reasons. One, looking back at what should be the front will not help me guide us past whatever approaching horror may lie in wait to yet flip us or smash the Sam McGee to bits. Second, looking around, I might shift the trim of our water-filled dory that is not yet safe to start bailing out. Third, I am transfixed on Jeffe, waiting to see just what he is going to do with only one oar.

I see Caroline and Jakki up front and wonder what is going through their minds regarding our new situation of running Lava Falls backward. During the second that followed our 180-degree turn-around and loss of an oar, the women appeared content watching where we had been and were likely unaware that we were racing through the rapid with but one oar. Two seconds after our fate changing turn-about I become calmer, more relaxed about our situation than I was 30 seconds prior to arriving at the entry to Lava Falls.

I am far from panicking and content in knowing that there is nothing any of us can do but ride into the mystery of the unknown. Early river runners would guide their boats through the big rapids from shore, with attached ropes to “line” the crafts through what they considered unrunnable whitewater. Others would portage their boats. I don’t know which of the two methods one-armed civil war veteran John Wesley Powell employed from rapid to rapid, but I know that right now, we are in Lava Falls, running one-armed in reverse, right down one of the angriest rapids on the Colorado.

Thud, we hit a wave, and water leaps over my shoulders; yet, we are still with our heads above water and moving in a straight line. We run through another wave, but oddly, it almost feels like things are returning to calm. Is the worst over? I’m still apprehensive about turning around. The girls have been looking over their shoulders and certainly know our situation; their expressions are one of, “Okay, that was cool!”

We are near the end of Lava Falls proper, but that means we’ll have Son of Lava to contend with soon. Jeffe jumps into action, dipping left to snatch our fugitive oar from the icy grip of the river. My brain sends me the message, “What if we hit a wave while he’s leaning out there and he falls in? Am I prepared to assume the helm and figure out how, with one oar, we’re going to make it through Son of Lava?” Our luck continues, with Jeffe successfully rescuing the oar and regaining control of the Sam McGee. The tension breaks, and we share a moment of near-hysterical laughter that we have made it. The thought that it was only about 20 seconds ago that this all began is difficult to comprehend. At once, the entire ordeal seemed to have lasted no more than a few seconds, and at the same time, it was minutes before we started to bail.

With helmets still firmly attached, we prepare for Son of Lava. Probably due to its famous namesake, there is no joking or laughter upon entering this rapid. Even after what the giants of hydrology have taught us, we remain serious and focused for what now feels like the Paria Riffle we passed through on day 1.

Fast-cooling lava can form columnar basalt, as seen here. Below the lava, note the gravel layer, which is the former bed of the Colorado River before this lava flow altered its course.

Later, we found out that after Jeffe skirted us past the Hole of Doom, his oar hit a rock, which was responsible for turning us sideways. Now, set up in the wrong position, we were going to slam into that large lateral wave that should have flipped us. Kenney told me that from where he and the other boatmen sat, they were certain we were not going to make it, no ifs, and’s, or buts about it. Had Jeffe not leapt right and I followed, our little dory would have gone over, and we would have had an interesting toss and tumble down the rest of Lava Falls until we either crawled back into our boat or were spat out into the waiting arms of boatmen turned rescue team.

We have now earned the title of ABL – Alive Below Lava. Nothing left to do but float and enjoy the scenery.

Lava Falls received its name due to its proximity to a nearby cinder cone referred to as Vulcan’s Throne. During the previous 725,000 years, lava has flowed possibly four times into this river channel, building dams. The volcanic rock proved to be no match for the Colorado, and before long, the river tore down the blockages and continued its job of slicing through the Canyon. Yet, in spite of all this volcanic activity, Lava Falls was not the creation of molten rock running over the Canyon walls but the work of a major debris flow that washed out of Prospect Canyon in 1939. On our right, evidence of the spilled magma can still be seen in the basalt columns that jut and twist in all directions, creating a puzzle none of us will solve.

We are on the lookout for a sunny beach on the north side of the river; somewhere we can dry off and warm up. Until then, we float. The boatmen row every once in a while, pushing us a hair faster than the current. It is during moments like this when we are witnessing such an amazing display of nature that I want to send out a request to video game programmers and computer animators to put the first-person shooter genre to a brief rest. Create worlds for explorers instead, give those of us interested in history and the sciences a near photo-realistic natural environment that allows us to travel back in time, wander through different eras, and witness nature from throughout Earth’s history. I want the virtual me to have been there on the day when molten lava began spilling over the plateau above the river and into the path of the Colorado. How much lava flowed here before damming the river? As the water pooled behind this obstruction, where might waterfalls have begun spilling over the new rock? What kind of channels would have been carved into the basalt? Computer gaming simulations are approaching the point where the images on our screens are challenging the ideas of what is rendered and what is photographed. Will we use this to practice more killing, or will we venture into new territory in a search to explore our dreams?

Through immersive computer animations, I want to watch torrential rainfalls accumulate, building the force necessary to move debris fields that form rapids such as Lava. Using a 3D kayak, canoe, dory, or raft as my avatar instead of a gun, I would point my craft to shore and exit into a landscape as it may have looked 250 million, 700 million, or 2 billion years ago. I am certain that at some point, we will virtually walk through 3D representations of our past amongst the early life forms to witness how dinosaurs would come to rest in river beds long before they would be found as fossils. And while we are at it, I would enjoy seeing the time-lapse process of organic matter fossilizing on its way to a petrified state. What did the kivas look like when they were in use? And, how were the crops laid out next to the Colorado? Of course, this could be applied to ancient Egypt, Rome, Beijing, and any of the other great cities of Earth, as well as other natural and historic wonders.

Our beach has been spotted. It is glowing in the radiance of the warming sun. In a few minutes, so will we. Upon landing, the boatmen start unpacking the kitchen; we are going to be treated to a hot brunch. Ah, the luxury of it all. While we peel out of our wet clothes to dry our inner layers, our dedicated guides go to work without pause setting up the grill, digging for ingredients from deep within their boats, and putting the kitchen to use. Soon, the product of their efforts will find its way into our hands and then our bellies to warm us from within.

Across the breadth of the beach, our clothes are splayed on rocks and draped over a few tree branches. We each take up the optimal angle to the sun to warm the parts we feel are our coldest. Paul stands far away from all of us, likely to ensure that no one passing him will have their shadows interfering with his absorption of warming sun rays. He has this routine dialed in. Like a cormorant standing on a rock to dry its wings, Paul has his arms fanned out at his side, his head tilted upwards, eyes closed, all the while remaining incredibly still. I’d wager his stillness is used to avoid creating micro currents of potentially chilling eddies of air as he comfortably bakes in the mid-morning sunshine.

Meanwhile, back at Café Sur Le Fleuve, the chefs are fast on the grill, ready to meet the requests of the toasty passengers who have been called in to place their orders. Brunch will be eggs and grilled bagels, with a little of this and a little of that mixed in. With our gullets full, it would be ideal to nuzzle into the warm sand for a short nap; just turn me over before I burn.

Yet the boatmen stay in perpetual motion. As quickly as they finish snarfing their own morsels, they are right back at work, cleaning up and stowing the kitchen before returning us to the river for another beautiful afternoon on the water. Who could ask for more?

As has been the routine during the previous weeks when the river allows, meaning there are no rapids of consequence in our immediate path, a river guide yields the oars of a dory to one of the boatmen who row the rafts. For our afternoon journey to camp at Hualapai Acres, Jeffe turns the Sam McGee over to Katrina. We are continuing our trek through the lava field, at least for a short while, and this includes the still chilly dark shadows, too.

Oh, is that a rapid up there? It sure is. And just where do we exchange our person at the oars for that really experienced person who was at the oars this morning, taming Lava Falls? Precisely where is he, with that little yellow raft? Well, he’s way back there. I shouldn’t worry about Katrina and her boating skills; she’s done great with the raft carrying our gear – no complaints there. But this is a rapid, and we are on a dory.

From where we are on the river, we still have about five minutes to the rapid. It’s called Whitmore, so this much I know, but it is not easy to calculate the size and descent of what is hidden up there. How can I discreetly find out its rating in order to accurately allocate my level of worry? I can’t. We are going to ride this rapid with Katrina, and that’s that. In the back of my mind are the shrewd words of the boatmen: There are three types of boatmen – those who have flipped, those who will flip, and those who will flip again. What type of boatman is Katrina today? She’s a perfect one. Not only does this M.I.T. graduate in geology and physics sing, play guitar, and a mean mandolin, she deftly moves our dory through Whitmore – even if it is a bit on the small side.

The oars dip, pull, and exit the water with the Colorado dripping from the bottom of the blade, and the cycle repeats. Our slow boat to somewhere drifts along until, on river right, a choreography of motion pulls dory and raft alike to a landing. Once on dry land and back in the glowing warmth of the sun, Kenney is leading the way toward the cliffside.

Through a thicket and up a dusty trail, we are on the climb once again. I am soon in a position to experience one of those exquisite overviews offering a panoramic look up the river. If I had but one wish for this trip, it would be that we could have at least one of these views every day. I swing around to see what lies ahead on the trail and spot a rock art panel clinging fast to the cliff face. The others move around to find their best vantage point to both see the rock art and listen to Kenney’s narrative about it. I, on the other hand, continue up the trail, looking at the string of paintings left on this stretch of sandstone, surviving many a decade, maybe even many a century, undisturbed.

My hope is to spot an intriguing figure that I can muse on, dwelling in speculation as to its meaning. In my imagination, I try to envision the person who, after arriving on foot, stood here and took the time to visually describe something from his or her world. As we arrive so many hundreds of years later, it is now up to each of us to take possession of the potential meanings of these paintings. What do these cryptic symbols and characters spell out that could offer a hint telling us who these earlier visitors were?

One thing their visual history tells us is that we humans have an inherent need to leave our mark. Maybe they also are a collection of clever doodles that have no real meaning at all, they are silent symbols meant to intrigue. Stop signs for all those who see them, demanding we halt in our tracks and ponder their meaning. The possible genius is that they are illusions that have tricked their viewers into taking pause right here, at a bend in the river that is nothing less than gorgeous. These early artists, not yet capable of capturing this beauty on canvas or photograph, may have planted these tokens as emblems that say, here is magnificence; this is the art we have found in our gallery of nature.

Back at the river, Katrina remains at the helm of Jeffe’s dory for the final stretch of today’s trek to mile 194. We can’t move slowly enough for me, as I want these hours on the river to forever burn their images onto my retinas and into my memories. The Canyon is quiet this afternoon, with mostly flat water around every corner; the riffles are mild and lazy. If ever there was a time to slow the hands of the clock, that moment is here and now. Two weeks ago, the days before me felt endless. The finish line was standing at a distance that offered no sense of ever reaching it. Today must be enjoyed as long as possible, as long as any one of the first 14 days. I must savor this continuing series of amazements that facilitate my escape from the pull of the artificial reality I call – normal life.

This journey down the Colorado, maybe it, should always remain out of reach for the majority, a story left unread, as not only do the waters strip away layers of earth to create a canyon, but this ecosystem is grinding through human contrivances, stripping away the layers of societal conditioning that have placed artifice in the spotlight, and have painted nature as something false or, at best, a resource to be exploited for our financial gain. You cannot come here and engage yourself in conversation with the Canyon, find its intimacy, explore its beauty, witness the flickers of enlightenment, and not fall in love with this thing that may not be much more than a collection of rocks, water, and cactus to the uninitiated. If one can touch that part of the soul that knows and understands the beauty found in all things and still denies the magic found here in nature, that person cannot be truly human.

As a society, we are condoning cynicism on many levels, and it is, in effect, robbing us of our sense of wonder and hurting our appreciation of the natural world. This blind acceptance of the negativity that cynicism produces is used to push one another into avoiding responsibility for our planet; it is an intellectual act of violence waged against our future. People of today hold the keys to enlightenment, as it is we humans who possess the ability to distill the universe into the observable. We are the inheritors of the creativity that has raised our station on this planet to grand heights. It is time to reawaken these senses of knowledge and imagination from dormancy and prevent their death so that we earthlings can offer our contribution to making the entire world a better place, not just our individual lives. Without bringing someone else, everyone else, on such a river journey, how do we demonstrate or otherwise convey the sense of love and passion found in nature that can be known as intuitively as the lesson that was taught to us at an early age that one plus one equals two? Who does our continued lack of broad knowledge and near halt in learning about ourselves within nature benefit? Is it just me, or are we encouraged to remain in a perpetual state of mental infancy and, in turn, dependent on a herd mentality for our individual validation?

When will society at large learn to understand who their personal boatmen are and what journey they are being guided toward? Why are we taught to be afraid of the mind, the intellectual, the exploration of our own mental canyons, and of nature itself? Might a glimmer of illumination upon the shadowy recesses of the human spirit loft us to a point of happiness and love that can be found here in the Grand Canyon? If you haven’t figured it out yet, I have taken permanent residence on the Colorado River, at least in spirit. A part of me will live here forever. Just as the Native Americans left their imprint on sandstone walls so that they, too, may stay longer than their physical reality allowed, I pen this journal and subsequent book as my pictograph detailing what I found on my visit to this chasm etched on Earth.

I had glimpsed hints of what was in store for me on earlier travels when Caroline and I ventured into National Parks such as Yellowstone, the Redwoods, and Death Valley. Each of these locations, and hundreds more, have all kept some small part of us that then acts as a magnet, tugging at us for our return. But the force here in the Canyon feels like a superconducting electromagnet that will hold our presence, demanding a future return to bring us back to reconnect with what we will leave behind. But how will I ever again find all the tears that have been shed, all the love that has been spilled, and the fleeting images of beauty that were to be had for an instant before having to let them go?

We’ll float a few more minutes before checking in at the Hualapai Acres Beach Side Resort, although the resort side of things never really got a foothold, this being a National Park and all. A sandy patch of land will play home to our tent castle this night; who needs resorts anyway? A beckoning to start the “Parteeee!” is announced over the public address system called Rondo: “All hands on deck, we are meeting on Ashley’s raft. Let’s go; everyone can make it; we’ll get you there.” Armed with a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of scotch, the celebration of being Alive Below Lava is about to get underway on the party boat.

While fairy tales often begin with “Once upon a time,” a boatman’s story opens with, “No shit, there we were!” This is a popular refrain here this early afternoon. Camp is set up, tents pitched, and the Unit deployed before the alcohol starts to flow at 3:00 pm. Within minutes of the first shots from the communal bottles, Rondo bellows off a “No shit, there we were” and then treats us to a story about dangerous rapids, the fate of a blow-up doll posing as a passenger being tossed into the river, and the ensuing panic of the boatman who wasn’t in on the joke.

Andrea Mikus was one of the three boatmen who worked hard to provide any and all assistance required on one of these arduous trips. Their payoff: to be a Grand Canyon guide.

Katrina Cornell. Here in The Big Ditch, the job of river guide is an honor that only the rare individual will ever be awarded. These three women are close to reaching that goal.

Ashley Brown. Expertise, knowledge, heart, and soul are the tools of great boatmen. We were fortunate to have all of that and more from these future Canyon guides, our swampers.

Laughter is the unifying emotional expression that acts as a temporary remover of burdens and stress; there must be a deity out there just for the purpose of bringing levity. Stories of boat flips, drinking, and broken rules push all of us into rolling laughter. The best stories end with the now familiar “I can’t make this shit up” in place of “and they lived happily ever after.” If you learn nothing else about boatmen, it should be that these people on larger-than-life quests for adventure are full of great yarns that are woven out of a life of chance encounters and peculiar situations. The enthusiasm of our river guides brings us right into these tales as though we were there when they happened.

Jeffe uses a break in the storytelling to leave the group. The determination he departs with tugs at my curiosity, and so I follow. He’s on a mission. First, Jeffe grabs the big orange five-gallon coffee thermos, then heads over to the kitchen. Next, his quest takes him deep into the hull of a dory, digging up an assortment of things. Out of view of the others, he opens four half-gallon cans of pineapple juice and dumps them into our empty coffee pot, along with two bottles of coconut cream and a half-gallon of rum. Then, picking up the thermos and another half-gallon of rum, he returns to the party boat.

“Listen up,” he says. “The tradition down here is to be democratic about how strong we make our celebratory pina colada for toasting being Alive Below Lava. It will be determined by the group how much of this now open bottle I am going to add. Here goes, just tell me when it’s enough rum. Did I mention that I already added a half-gallon? Well now, here we are approaching half of this bottle and if one were to feel that this here pina colada was about strong enough, it would be a good time; oh, the bottle is empty!”

Drink up and be merry. After the group leaves Ashley’s raft to fetch their cups and take a dip from the communal bucket, the girls move back to the raft while the guys take up seats around the fire. As time went on, giggly outbursts would explode from the raft while us guys seriously go about the business of solving the world’s problems. Now, with everything set into motion that would cure humankind’s ills, it is time for another amazing dinner.

I still don’t know how anyone could see through the alcohol to prepare dinner, though this is just what our cooks do. Of course, it is seriously dark by the time we eat – great camouflage for what may not have been flawless, except this really was a perfect meal.

Before digging in, Rondo gets up with a drink in hand, “Tonight, for your dining pleasure, we are having steak made to order, mixed vegetables of baby corn, green beans, fresh broccoli, quinoa, and a salad. After dinner, we will have a light and tasty dessert.” The vegetarian option, a veggie cutlet, Caroline insists, is tasty as well – I offer, “Sure it is; after enough alcohol, you could eat my river shoe and enjoy it.” I am the first one done with the carnivorous extravagance; in all likelihood, this is due to the fact that I may be the only one not moving in alcohol-induced slow motion – I’m not a drinker, but I am, however, a voracious eater. Like a dog, I start milling around the grill, secretly hoping for scraps. Kenney reads me like a book and offers me the last steak – that scrumptious and delectable filet is mine; the feast continues.

Rondo calls out, “Hey, you guys, and especially you new guys. Oh my gosh, what a day! Let’s hear it for Linda, who saved our swimmer in Lava.” A big “Woo-Hoo” goes up. Andrea tries one last time to clarify things about her time overboard in Lava Falls, but the truth will not get in the way of a good story; the legend is already set – Mom Saves Daughter! “During the past two weeks, you have been entertained, told stories, and sung to by us boatmen. In two days, on our last night in the Canyon, it is your turn to entertain us on the ‘No Talent / Talent Night.’ You have two days to prepare. In a moment, Frank and Linda will start delivering dessert, which, of course, is a personal favorite: Dutch Oven brownies. Hey, you guys, I LOVE MY JOB!”

It’s 7:30, and most of us have been going for 15 hours now. Paul and Ellen are the first to stumble away from the fire, laughing into the darkness in their attempt to find the tent they set up five hours ago while still sober. Joe is snoring before his head hits the canvas. To clarify, this 76-year-old guy never once set up a tent. He would unfold a tarp, unroll his sleeping bag, and, as close to the river as he could get, he would sleep under the stars. On the nights we had a bit of rain or high winds, he would pull a second tarp over his sleeping bag and continue sawing logs. Out in the distance, the laughter of the lost campers, Paul and Ellen, keeps us chuckling around the fire. A voice insists the tent is this way, with a giddy answer coming back that it is not to be found over here, either. We decide not to help but to stay here, being entertained by their antics.

The next couple of hours are spent around the fire. There may have been some music, maybe another story or two; it could also be that we listened to the crackle of the fire. But what really stood out was a poem. A poem about life on the river, written somewhere on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, by our boatman Stephen Winston Kenney.

A State Of Grace

All my life I have searched for a Sense of Place
To find the tempo to set my Sense of Pace
River life creates such an amazing Space
Running water finds me in a State of Grace

Those long flat stretches floating on liquid glass
Living in the present and not the past

The water’s silence as you feather your oars
No matter the stretch, it leaves you wanting more

The undulating curves at a rapid’s edge
The serenity fades as you drop the ledge

Once you have committed to the Mother’s tongue
Your fate to the river cannot be undone

The mixture of Power and Fragility
Rapids in their glory are a sight to see

Enjoying low water runs and springtime floods
Running crystal clear, sometimes like liquid mud.

Each time she has a nature all of her own
You never forget the wildness she has shown

The bright Dories running high, wide, and handsome
Taking your everlasting Soul for ransom

Driving a sweepboat down alone in the Church
It’s another place where your soul may be searched

Hearing a Canyon Wren at the break of day
The smell of cowboy coffee floating your way

Catching reflections of the cliff sides above
Side canyon hikes that can’t, but fill you with love

Late afternoon light that envelopes us all
Fiery sunsets which ignite the Canyon walls

The casting shadows at the end of each day
The Quiet that surrounds you in such a way
Our hardships and friendships blend with laughter
Touching so many lives, making them better

The look in the eyes of a fellow brother
Raised apart but wedded to the same lover

Some memories are momentarily lost
But I know the feeling each time I push off

I am blessed to have been shown such majesty
I shall ever dream of her great mystery

In this World, I have found that Sense of Place
Heavenly waters set my Sense of Pace
My River Life creates my personal space
Running water finds me in a State of Grace

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.

My brain commands my fingers to remain motionless lest the movement tears painful cracks into my parchment-thin, dry skin. Zippers are wicked little devices best operated by nimble digits, not sore, numb fingers on the verge of a blood offering. Still, someone must zip up our gear and finish packing. As bad as it is now, it is going to get worse. The clasps that secure the tent to the tension poles must be undone. Our fingers want to fail; they are unable to apply the strength needed to unlatch the locking mechanism, so we try the side of a knuckle or edge of the thumb to give leverage, hoping that there will be enough spring in the downward compression for the hook to pop up and away before we can tackle the next clasp.

Our hands may be what suffers most on this trip. The boatmen are unambiguous when it comes to clean hands, “We do not want any type of potentially debilitating virus to infect one of us or worse, the entire group.” This has happened in years past and motivates our guides to ensure it doesn’t happen now. The need to have a Groover nearby and ready to be deployed at all times due to explosive “number 3s” is a challenge. We do not want fecal contamination from unwashed hands to grind our river trip to a halt, as one’s own inner river of fury is a rapid no one wants to ride. Everyone must wash their hands following toilet use. Before getting in line for food, we must wash them again, even if we just came from the handwashing station near the toilet. Then there are the two hot meals a day that require us to wash and rinse our dishes.

Regarding the dishes, I should take a moment to describe how our kitchen operates. Three collapsible steel tables are used for breakfast and dinner preparation and presentation. One table holds the stove where water is boiled, a grill set up, pots, pans, and skillets are staged. On the same table, a Dutch oven will stand ready to hold warm pancakes or other delectables as they are set aside until enough are ready to be served to the group. The second table serves two purposes; first, it is the food prep area where a small number of people may lend a hand to slice and dice veggies, then, when the meal is ready, it is transformed into the serving table.

The third table holds another bane of our hands: the dishwashing station. On top of the table sit four galvanized tin washtubs. On the ground at one end stands a trash can for the food scraps left on dishes. Prior to our meal, water was taken from the river and allowed to settle. Some of that water is then brought to a boil on the stove before being used to fill the first three of the tubs. The fourth one contains cold water, with a splash of finger-eating bleach added as a disinfectant. Each dish and utensil undergoes a four-step cleaning process. In the first soapy basin, the dish is scrubbed free of food; then the dish enters the second soapy basin for another scrubbing; from there, it is rinsed in the hot, soapless water and then transferred to being disinfected in the bleach water before ending up in a mesh bag strung under one of the other tables to drip dry.

Add this up. Wash your hands after the toilet, wash them again before eating, and back into the water they go to wash your dishes. On the dories, your hands are going to get wet along with most of the rest of you. Bailing out the dory, hands stay wet. Lunchtime, wash those hands again. Back on the river means more wet head-to-toe action. Pull into camp; if you bathe, you are going to get wet, including your hands. Dinner call, time to wash your hands, and when you’ve had your fill, wash your dishes one more time. Last call at the Unit, you know the routine.

I already knew before leaving for this trip that our hands would be wet and cold most of the time, not a good combination, so I did some research on how to best care for these delicate instruments. Internet forums for the obsessive-compulsive hand-washer seemed a good place to start. They recommended Cetaphil hand cream – I bought a pound. We put this lardy cream on no less than twice a day, sometimes as much as four times a day. While our fingers didn’t crack wide open, they were often quite painful and extremely sensitive when they weren’t numbed by the cold water.

Our feet weren’t used for washing dishes or needing to be washed after a visit to the toilet, but they, too, were wet for hours on end. Our first lesson regarding wet feet happened back on Eminence Trail, though we weren’t aware of it at that time. My advice from that experience for future whitewater newbies who want to hike the dusty trails: upon arrival in camp, get your river shoes off and start drying your feet immediately. Warm sand works great to that end. During those early days after leaving Lees Ferry, we did not get out of wet river shoes right away, and when we did, we pulled warm socks and our hiking boots over damp feet. With the excitement of our first big hike and the delirium of being in the Canyon, a large part of our logical brains was turned clean off. For this oversight, we paid dearly with blisters that would plague us for the duration of the trip.

The final consideration regarding water would be to give attention to your sensitive bits, especially those areas of skin where friction could create problems. You will be sitting in wet shorts, on wet benches, and not infrequently in lap-deep water. Coming from the river, we often hit the trail in moments where, depending on your particular body architecture, there should be consideration made for when or where diaper rash could raise its magic wand of discomfort. Raw thighs on the trail may give you the cowboy swagger that lends authenticity to an old west persona, but out here, trying to have fun, day after wet day, inflamed inner thighs will not take your mind off the blisters on your feet. Instead, you will feel pain from butt to toe. A lifesaver here that was suggested to me just before our departure was A & D Ointment. Seems that vitamin A and vitamin D suspended in a gooey salve work wonders; just ask any baby.

I may as well make a theme of this and move through more body stuff before putting this topic to rest. In the suggested packing list our outfitter sent us regarding what might be needed on a river trip, we were told to bring resealable plastic bags for our trash. We would be responsible for dragging our own rubbish from the Canyon. There is no central repository for waste on one of the rafts, nor are there campsite trash receptacles. In that very same inventory recommendation was the hint that we might want to consider bringing camp wipes. These are essentially oversized moist towelettes or baby wipes for adults. Camp wipes proved invaluable. As one begins to ripen to a potent odor, bringing offense to the olfactory, a thick, moist wipe comes to the rescue if one is hesitant to dip the parts in cold river water every other day.

The wipes even come with instructions suggesting that you use the man-sized towelette on your face first, just in case you blunder and accidentally use it on your butt before applying it to your face. I’m certain this couldn’t happen more than once. The camp wipe ritual proved almost fun as we would scrub our face, ears, and neck with the towel draped over a hand, creating an ochre-tinted handprint on the once pristine white towel, supplying us with seconds of amusement. The next swipes over various other parts of the anatomy will be left to the imagination of what visual details graced this now disgusting, greasy towelette. Pleasingly refreshed, we stuff the used and unsightly camp wipes into one of those resealable bags.

This process goes on for days. Between the occasional river baths on a sunny afternoon, this method of getting cleaned up, even using the wipes on our itchy heads as a kind of shampooing, proved to be a soothing balm for a person not accustomed to these hygiene deprivations. If this had been a summer trip, I’m sure the phenomenon I am about to describe would have struck us within a few days. The resealable bags, with their evil, despoiled wipes and various artifacts of trash, eventually developed a full-spectrum bouquet. It would only take one time unzipping one of these plastic bags bubbling in fermentation to convince you never to open this particular bag ever again. If you had up until this point been trying to be environmentally friendly and were attempting to use a minimum of these bags to conserve plastic waste, it would be on this day, at this very instant, that you would find yourself tossing that frugality, along with this pouch of wretched stench, into another resealable bag that you can’t zip shut fast enough. You stuff the fermenting pocket of unbearable putrefaction into another bag, and maybe yet another, as you now fear that these bags could somehow break open while packed in your dry bag, with the clothes that don’t smell a fraction as bad as this bag of malodorous rot. Don’t forget to have your spouse smell the thing before sealing and storing it for the duration of your trip.

Time to put the aches, pains, and foul odors behind me and get moving up the trail. We are on our way into National Canyon, the last of the narrow slots that we’ll be able to visit over the remaining 59 miles of our river trip. I feel as though I sipped from the bottle labeled “Drink Me” and have shrunken to insignificance when measured against the immensity of this wonderland. Moving away from the wide expanse of the beginning of the trail, the narrowing path brings us past seashells peering out at us through 335 million-year-old Muav Limestone. The next steps deliver me through the fossilized lungs of some giant stone creature of lore. I am on my way to the heart.

Someone forgot to carve a polite trail through this boulder-strewn oversized artery. We crawl over and around rocks, the size of tanks, walk through the creek’s cool, clear water, and step into the moist sand. Our hike through the canyon pries open the imagination. A single tree stands firm, pushing hard against a slab of limestone as it insists on taking hold of two handfuls of dirt that have collected in a crack on the solid rock. Defiantly, the leaves are coaxing the branches to extend the tree beyond its reach, as though it might one day be successful in finding its way to the sun.

We walk as a silent caravan of nature’s revelers, celebrating our good luck to be amongst a group of like-minded travelers who are showing the demeanor and respect of people in a library, a church, or a hospital. It must be the sense of awe that reduces our need for words, leaving us content to remain speechless. Maybe there is no language for that which is beyond comprehension?

Our muted steps add to the well-worn edges of the illustriously smooth rock terraces. Beauty abounds where man-made noise does not distract the focusing mind. Is this reverence a buried instinct that once allowed our earliest human ancestors to explore their world and leave nothing more than a few mysterious symbols giving notice to others that someone else had passed through this land? Maybe there is no real need to despoil the environment when we are truly in the abundance of nature.

The outdoor, all-natural library of the Grand Canyon offers its vast wealth of knowledge to all who pass its towering bookshelves. All that is required is for us to open our minds to the invisible words writ large on the landscape and turn the page. On that next page, and below the steeple high above us, our walk takes us through the pews in a church, where our prayers are heard by the mighty ears of these canyon walls. The presence of nature is felt easily and experienced in tangible emotional ways. Some see this as the divine making itself known in an affirmation of what they knew was already there, although they might be in need of a reminder. For others, the emotional peaks and valleys of their own mind and soul may be an awkward first encounter with an awakening that is difficult to interpret or define.

The Canyon is also a hospital, offering us sanctuary to heal that which ails us. Psychic surgery is offered on the third floor, rebirth on the fourth floor, while humbling arrogance-ectomies are available free of charge on the first floor after you check in with Dr. Lee Ferry here at the Colorado Plateau Medical Center. Knowledge, spirit, and body are being restored here in the greatest of all intensive care units. Once reaching the 225th floor, you should be fully recovered and able to see life again with renewed clarity and vigor; good day and watch your step.

A little further up the trail, we reach the altar. This wasn’t supposed to be the end of our venture into these parts unknown, but a deep flooded pool is blocking our progress. Ahead, the slot canyon narrows into a twisting passage that leads further back into things begging at our inquisitive minds. Rondo tells us of the beauty that exists just beyond our view. We will have to leave only knowing his story of what has been shielded from our eyes. We are not to collect the cherry on top of the cake of experience this time, but the view we are offered at the end of this trail is sweet and yummy all the same.

We throw it in reverse, retracing our steps only to find ourselves in a parallel universe where things are the same, only different. Certainly, we are still in National Canyon, but hiking back to camp, the scenery, while familiar, does not seem to be precisely the one I just walked through. This works in my favor. My return to camp feels like a brand new trail, and the time saved from cutting this morning’s destination from our malleable schedule offers me more time to stroll along in leisure.

I cannot say that I have ever been more aware of the role of reflected light in changing the characteristics of a place as I am here, deep in the Grand Canyon. Up on the rim, it is precisely this charm of light and shadow spilling across the vistas that pulls folks out of bed early in the day to witness the sunrise and then again late in the day when they drop everything to watch the sunset as it bathes the Canyon in reds, purples, and burnt orange.

The late morning light is falling in a cascade of radiance, splashing downward from golden cliffs. The sun inches across the sky, its slowly changing light altering the terrain ever so subtly. The colors, shapes, texture, shadows, and complexity of features are undergoing an artful transformation that will have us questioning if the place we saw 20 minutes ago is the same one we are looking at now. This is a large part of the attraction that begs of us to linger, to absorb all we can in this rare moment we have been offered, to be present in this place.

Consider that during this particular moment, the vibrancy of color, the depth of shadows, and the reflection of what we bring to this experience will be interpreted differently, dependent upon the time of the week, month, or year when the sun is higher or lower in the sky. Clouds may be diffusing the light, or instead of being here in the morning, we might arrive at noon or late in the day. So, if someday you should find yourself standing right here, know that you are seeing the world in a way no one else has ever seen it before. Take a mental snapshot and compare it to what you thought you would see, and you will likely recognize a richness of detail that must have been put on display especially for you in your moment. You may never know this phenomenon, though, if you do not break out of your routine and find yourself somewhere in life, stumbling into the extraordinary.

We look into the infinite, trying to find meaning in the small corner of reality we occupy while simultaneously recognizing that we are sentient beings that have the ability to distill the universe into the observable. This is the wisdom of old nature.

I take a few steps forward, blink my eyes, and rub the disbelief from them. Yes, nature actually does coordinate itself in such delightful configurations. I’m not the only one noting this; Joe stands next to nothing in particular, looking at the rocks. Not just any rocks either; these are rocks that have captured Joe’s wonder. As he investigates the show of color and contrast between the shades and hues and everything else that brought him to a standstill, I stand here equally entranced, watching this man almost 30 years my senior, looking transfixed at the beauty he is taking in, much the same as I have felt so many hundreds, maybe thousands of times during the previous two weeks.

My wife, who I am sure was cut from the same cloth as me, is also lost in searching for details easily missed by the casual glances of those who walk through with nary more than a desire to have been here. Strangely enough, there are passengers who will not put themselves into every situation offered on these journeys, even when very little exertion is required. The impression given is that they may be here to humor someone else whose desire to be here was greater than their own. Caroline pulls me over, taking my attention from watching Joe in his curiosity in order to share with me something she is marveling at.

Water. The reflections, sparkles, ripples, splashes, and delicate sounds created when thin sheets of it are running over wild earth draw Caroline in to lose herself in the subtlety of the scene. In this fascination with detail, we were made for one another. Together, we follow the stream, watching in wonder as it meanders over the gray and purplish limestone. It enters and exits half-bowls and depressions, spills over shelves and ledges, and dips to swirl through seductive contours. Up ahead, it washes over short drop-offs, producing waterfalls an inch or two in height. We smile at each other with eyes that ask, “Can you believe how lucky we are?”

But we do know how lucky we are. The symbiosis found in our love has encouraged us to see the world and all of its beauty through four eyes, two hearts, and two smiles as we walk through life hand in hand. This act of sharing is a large part of the chemistry that has changed our perspective of what lies before us. During our exploration of the Canyon, my thinking matured, with the idea that extending our circle from two to many can have a positive effect on our ability to appreciate even more. Conversely, I believe it is loneliness that diminishes the vibrancy of our vision. Humanity is not programmed to go it alone. It is difficult to celebrate in isolation when you want to rejoice in the life emanating from your fascination. The art of images and the words from our language of exuberance turn to riches when they escape the confines of our hearts and are shared with others.

While I can see the magic of this place at work within my wife, amongst the boatmen, with Joe, Sarge, and the others, any open exchange or sharing of where we are inside is stilted and awkward, as though we have lost our ability to speak of what resonates deep within. It’s possible that nothing meaningful is lost from this lack of expression; intuition may be a more powerful force than we know. Maybe real communication has been crippled due to our obsession with the superficial nonsense of episodic television or worthless statistics easily parsed and used as a poor example of knowledge of important things. How is it that as a species claiming self-cognizance, with an ability to manifest an impact on its own destiny, we have dissolved our sense of community while simultaneously creating ever greater population densities? Why does the mass of an urban society foster anonymity, breaking up hope for a thriving, cohesive environment that should be functioning to bring us together? How can polarization and insignificance be considered an acceptable norm emerging from an intellect that is qualified to do so much more? We are destroying the air, water, land, and the quality of life for other species, and in all likelihood, our own too. Is this how we display the current apex of our hope and potential? How did pettiness, greed, and division overtake our capacity to know better? It has been the compassion, determination, and a love of life that sustained humankind through plagues, disaster, pestilence, starvation, war, and the other deprivations that have haunted our time on Earth; let’s hope our positive attributes can carry us through these difficult times, too.

When will we throw off these shackles of stupidity? When will we remember what true friendship is and begin to move each other off the rock of arrogance, intolerance, and isolation? Our self-respect and sense of belonging need to survive beyond economic disasters, terrorism, and personal tragedy. I want to live in a community where I know my neighbors. I want to share in the telling of our adventures, epiphanies, and educational milestones, and I want to know the stories of my friends – not their viewing habits or the number of kills scored in their favorite video game. People shouldn’t have to feel abandoned and neglected by family and society alike as we race to possess stuff while failing to own the wisdom derived from kinship, positive experience, and community.

I do not purport to want a communist or socialist utopia. I understand that all things are not equal, but I also know how having nearly nothing is more tolerable when a shared sense of standing together with my fellow human beings will not leave me feeling abandoned and alone. Despair and civil ugliness are the only outcomes when the glue of community is weakened, and our sense of self-preservation is exploited. I would rather shed another tear for the beauty of nature and friendship than have to mourn for another random person who had to die in an act of violence caused by greed, intolerance, or fear.

This is where my thoughts are taking me when staring into the reflecting pool of my heart. It is what I see when watching fellow travelers embrace, who are still able to weep when overcome by a shared experience. My dreams, hopes, and aspirations push me to find a string of thoughts that will act as my mantra to maintain this state of perpetual awareness that nature wants us to reach so that we might glean a peek into our higher selves. With the love, sharing, and familiarity I find with my wife and friends, and ultimately with the world at large, I wish to see the day that the power of our hearts and convictions to do what is right will squash what is holding humanity back. If only we were as free as this water coursing over the limestone here in National Canyon, maybe then we, too, could attain this level of beauty.

Eventually, we must leave National Canyon and find ourselves back on the liquid highway, though glide time here is brief. Our trajectory points us to a muddy, wet riverbank and a steep hillside trail. Stepping from the dory into the mire, I wonder how deep I will sink and ask myself if this is the famous suck-mud that doesn’t easily release the extremity it captures. For me, with my camera clutched firmly, the objective is to not fall into the goo. I try to mimic the actions of the water striders that walk on the surface tension with quick light steps.

Once on dry, firm ground, I look back at the strategy of the others. I am impressed and in admiration of those who threw off their shoes and are experiencing all the tactile sensations of stepping into the cold mud gushing between toes and wrapping their feet in earth socks of fine sediment. Orange hard-plastic mallets hammer sand stakes into mud that quivers with every downward blow. With the boats secured to terra – almost – firma, we are ready to conquer another trail.

At the beginning of our hike, we cannot see where we are headed beyond a dozen feet in front of us. This has been true the entire trip, come to think of it. No one announces if we will travel half a mile, two miles, or five hundred feet. Where we stop, turn, or detour is always a surprise.

Thick brush lines the first section of narrow sandy trail until, a few minutes later, we reach a cliff face and a steep, even narrower, rocky path. The majority of the trails we find ourselves on are primitive and, at one time, were likely animal trails or the routes used by early inhabitants of the Canyon. Passing one another here on the cliff-side is not an option; the trail is strictly one way. A funny thing about perspective going up a trail is that they never look so steep. But once atop a spot where one can comfortably pause and catch a breath, looking back to see the others in your party, the sudden elevation gain is abundantly apparent and – for me at least – occasionally intimidating.

Thanks to the now-familiar knowledge that we have been traveling through layers of fossilized sediments, I am always on the lookout for signs of petrified plant and creature remains. Nothing from the distant past stands out here, though I’m sure given some time to do nothing but search for fossils, I would turn up something. Then, lying sandwiched between the sandstone layers next to the trail, an antique! It is a fragment, a piece of something larger; it is the broken metal housing of an outboard motor. This keepsake is the casualty of an encounter between hard rock and not so durable machine. Scratched into the metallic surface are some fading dates that tell us this motor met its end back in 1965. That it has been allowed to stay here, like a treasure sitting on a mantle, for more than 40 years without finding its way back off the river as a stolen souvenir is remarkable. I wish for it to remain a river memento for another 40 years, as a reminder of those pioneering early days of recreational exploration here on the Colorado.

The trail is short, but before we reach the optimal arch viewing area, there are views up and down river that are singing out to be seen. I oblige, giving audience to the symphony reciting this operetta of gorgeous delight. The mud, brush, rocks, cliff, river view, blue sky, and the finishing touch of a crescendo offered by Alamo Arch all work in harmony to bring the piece into a cohesive whole. No longer is the hole in the rock a solo performer, nor is the sight of it the destination. We have been on a miniature expedition, playing a small part in the bigger journey. Even during these brief side excursions, I choose to go further than the most obvious end location. This philosophy is, in large part, the trail I have taken in life’s journey without ever really knowing the final destination.

Not far downstream from Alamo Arch, Below Red Slide Camp is a mere spit of land at river mile 176 (yes, “Below” is part of the name of the camp). It’s still early in the day but not late enough for the previous guests to have broken camp yet. The others who are hanging out did not arrive by boat or foot; they are intruders who landed on a wing; they are flies. Lots of flies; flies by the gross. A baker’s dozen would have been tolerable, but these pesky waste-eaters smelled a feast rowing in on the wind that signaled our arrival. A buzz of fly-shouting must have been broadcast far and wide that a ripe group was on approach because, by the time the rafts were unloaded and bags delivered to campsites, a horde of flies that had been lying in wait flew out to welcome our presence. The flies let us know in their raucous song of merriment how much they were enjoying the invitation to dine on the funk and detritus we carried to their dinner table. Caroline and I took the fly orgy as a clue that a bath was in order.

Leave the lavender Dr. Bronner’s behind; this cleaning requires the extra-strength spearmint funk annihilator. Stepping into the water, I tremble at the thought of the big day tomorrow and the reason we took an early camp – Lava Falls. This rapid of monstrous proportions is just out of sight, 3 miles downstream, but never too far from our imaginations. All of a sudden, I feel as though I’m preparing my body for the coroner, and the flies are a hint of what’s to come. No matter, I must clean up as I’m reminded of what my mother taught me: wear clean underwear every day, you never know when you might find yourself under the care of a paramedic or doctor. Looks as though the rest of the group shared the same lesson from their own mothers, with most everyone taking the opportunity for a shore-side sudsing this afternoon.

Here we are, sparkling and fresh from our dip in the Colorado, with no side canyon hike or any more rapids today to keep our minds distracted. No action in the kitchen either. Nothing much to do in this early camp but sit here, letting the tension mount and wondering what tomorrow’s white-knuckler at Lava Falls will deliver. About 75 miles ago, after passing through Crystal Rapid, we earned bragging rights that we were ABC – Alive Below Crystal. There can be no one who takes a river journey through the Grand Canyon who doesn’t know about the legend of the Canyon – Lava Falls. Tomorrow, we all hope to be ABL – Alive Below Lava. Our group has been lucky so far: no falls of consequence, no dreaded boat flips, no stomach viruses, no one overboard. If there is a rapid that holds all the potential of doom, it is surely our next ride.

On previous nights, Rondo’s review of the day and preview of what comes next has been held around the dinner hour. Tonight, he is giving his spiel with no food in sight. This can only be part of the tension ploy to ensure our senses are highly alert to be fully responsive early tomorrow. The announcement holds the nugget of surprise that we will be woken at 5:00 am, in the dark of the day. We will need to pack up faster than we have on any of the preceding days. Breakfast will be bagels and lox, to be wolfed down by the light of our headlamps. We are urged to visit the Unit and make quick business of things. The rafts and dories will be untied and launched by 6:30.

The goal is to thrust ourselves into the maelstrom of Lava by 7:30, to experience 23 seconds of controlled, reckless abandon, well, as much control as a boatman, two oars, and years of experience can bring to bear once we enter the madness of Lava Falls. Why so early? The daily water level fluctuations triggered up at Glen Canyon Dam will make Lava Falls more difficult to run as the flow decreases throughout the morning. In spite of my healthy dose of fear and respect for this infamous landmark, there is a part of me that wants us to make the run at minimum gnarly flow, to better flirt with death and danger.

It is now after 6:00 pm, and I lay prone in debilitating anxiety on the sand, writhing in anticipation, not for Lava Falls, but where in tarnation is dinner? The stove is working hard, and the Dutch oven is baking at its own slow, steady pace. Finally, a guitar arrives to serenade us – or to distract us from the long wait. Shortly afterward, the call goes out to wash them hands and start the lineup. Pork in green chile sauce, coleslaw, and the treat of all treats – Dutch oven cornbread – are on the menu.

This isn’t just any old dry, moisture-robbing, semi-edible desiccant one tries to choke down. This special recipe must be the cake Marie Antoinette lost her head for. Tonight, we dine on the deluxe cornbread of the comfort-food gods.

It would be unfair to now withhold this recipe, denying you the opportunity to taste the single greatest river treat I laid taste buds upon. Here it is:

1 Box Krusteaz Honey Cornbread Mix
1 Egg
1 Small Can Diced Green Chilies
1 15 ounces Can of Whole Corn – drained
½ to 1 pound of cheddar or cheddar-jack mix
Just enough milk to make a thick dough, between 4 and 8 ounces
1 stick of melted butter – Who cares about fat down here? We are working hard and are near the precipice of death anyway.

In a large mixing bowl, add the cornbread mix, egg, green chilies, corn, and milk. To add the cheese, break up the block into small pieces – about the size of small coins – and stir them into the batter. If you are making this at home, pour the melted butter into your baking dish, add the cornbread mixture, and bake at 375 degrees for approximately one hour. If you are making this in a Dutch oven in camp, fix a couple of paper towels into the butter-filled bottom to help in the removal of the cornbread. Place about eight briquets under the oven and about 20 on the cast iron lid – this all depends on the size of your oven. Bake for 45 minutes before cracking open the lid, as you do not want to let the heat escape. Stick a knife into the cornbread; if it comes out clean, the cornbread is finished; otherwise, replace the lid and cook for another 10 to 15 minutes. When the cake of corny delight is finished, grab a big stick to fend off your friends and family, who will attempt to come between you and your cornbread.

M&M’s are passed around for dessert as though they are needed. Now, in full-blown, carb-induced ecstasy, the thoughts of tomorrow’s tumult in the bowels of Lava Falls are far away. Approaching fast is a pillow and cozy sleeping bag that want to help celebrate cornbread euphoria – who needs sheep?

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.

This morning, we were not woken by the familiar rounds of a boatman announcing first-call for coffee. We were sprung out of sleep by a shriek rendered by Ellen, who was having a close encounter with wildlife. A visitor had found its way into her tent and subsequently crawled atop her while she slept. From the fear in that piercing scream, you would have been certain that a mountain lion, rattlesnake, or scorpion was keeping her company – not a little old mouse.

Exiting camp is ever more expeditious as the routine becomes a habit and we master the art of speed packing. We deliver our dry bags at lightning speed to the rafts before a quick breakfast and the preparation of another sack lunch prior to our departure. Into the rapids we go; the first is the namesake of our camp, Olo, which means horse in the Havasupai language. The next rapid would require fixing the helmets to our noggins – Upset Rapid. Both were run with the efficiency and skills we have become accustomed to, not to imply this whitewater business is being taken for granted. The boatmen have not stopped reminding us of our role in maintaining safety and the danger that is never far from snatching one or all of us from a dory should we stop paying attention to the river and the instructions of our boatman.

The Canyon walls are close to the river today, the shadows especially dark. Our time on the water this morning is brief, although we travel 11 miles before our first stop. Along the way, we pass over more of these intriguing river phenomena known as boils. This is appropriately named as that’s just what the river looks like it’s doing: boiling. Below the surface, the uneven terrain of the riverbed or a rock pile alters the flow of water. The blockage allows some of the water to flow downstream over the obstacle while another part is redirected back upstream. Between these two flows, the rest of the water is pushed straight up, creating the appearance of a boiling cauldron.

Briefly, a glimmer of sunlight finds its way into the labyrinth, but before we know it, we are rowing back into deeper shadows, walled in by stone monoliths. Remember, these are not just any old rocks; these are far from boring. Here in the Canyon, it would be foolish not to look closer, even stare, at the rocks. These are the reflections of our history. This is where you are allowed to have your very own peek at prehistoric Earth. If you are interested in Earth’s story, take time prior to your excursion into the Southwest and “bone up” on the mineral and fossil history to be found here. Get excited before starting out on your own journey into a better understanding of our paleontological roots.

Above the river on the cliffside, there appear to be the remains of a cave, but upon closer inspection, it looks like fragments of travertine. Now smashed to bits by rockfalls of cleaving stone and heavily eroded over the centuries, the limestone formations beg for interpretation. The jumble of broken shapes and varied colors appear to have been stalactites, but that will be the most I can decipher as we float by.

When the river is calm, and a burst of direct sunlight falls on the steep cliff-sides buffeting our course, the mirrored riverway ahead of us shines brightly. On the surface of the Colorado, the horizon begins to blur. I scan the river, looking for that perfect window into the opposite view of what is sitting above the waterline. The reflecting glow of the Canyon, topped and bottomed with deep blue sky, asks us to stop, take a deep breath, and savor these moments.

Pulling around the next bend in the river, we are about to witness another iconic location. Our first glimpse of the milky turquoise waters of Havasu Canyon comes into focus. They are flowing out of Havasu Canyon to mix with the sediment-rich Colorado. Back on our first day at Lees Ferry, the river ran clear due to the settling of the sequestered Colorado languishing behind Glen Canyon Dam. Over time, the fine sediments that were collected while carving the landscape north of the dammed river find their way to the bottom of Lake Powell, and what is released from the dam is cold green water. As the river continues its journey, many side channels contribute their streams with their own accumulated sediments to the river that continues scouring the main channel. This big river we travel on is laden with the iron-rich ocher-hued sands for which it was named. With the flow of the Colorado having doubled in the last days, there is even more turbulence in the water, agitating the silty bottom and suspending a fine particulate soup that turns the river into a muddy liquid knife, slicing an ever-deepening path through the Canyon.

Just before entering Havasu Canyon, the boatmen work hard to avoid the pull of whitewater that is Havasu Rapid, delivering us to a rocky shelf on river left. They row the empty dories upstream into the narrow canyon mouth. The tie-up is up against the wall of Muav Limestone. The boats are now parked in what looks like a pool of bluish milk. This image is almost as famous as the waterfalls further up Havasu Creek on the Havasupai Indian Reservation. One of the boatmen takes the lead up the streamside trail, and we are soon on our way to discover another of the many famous side canyons.

Our hopes of finding this golden opportunity to visit Mooney Falls, near the capital town of Supai, were dashed, as the rare commodity of time was not ticking in our favor. As early as the day started, and as fast as the boatmen rowed, we would be hard-pressed to visit a fraction of Havasu Canyon, let alone hike the 7 miles to Mooney Falls and back. Maybe summer visits with 16 hours of daylight could offer enough time for river runners to hike in and out, but then again, they’ll be jogging an often precarious trail in 110 degrees of withering heat. We, on the other hand, will have to make camp today before night descends around 6:00 pm.

The hike into Havasu is on limestone stained red from the iron in the rock layers above. We walk over narrow ledges next to soaring cliffs while the sunshine falls on the opposite side of the creek, with little of its warmth bouncing over to our side. Mind you, it’s not cold, just a wee bit chilly in the shadows – and although it is November, I am still comfortable in shorts and a thin shirt. On our scramble to a suitable picnic location that, at a minimum, should be supplying a perfect view with an impressive backdrop, we will be passing through the creek a couple of times.

The water feels awkward to step into, probably due to its peculiar bluish-chalky color. The spring that feeds the creek is mineral-rich and loaded with calcium carbonate, the stuff of travertine and cave formations. While it is less than knee-deep, we cannot see much more than an inch past its surface and must be especially careful where we place our next step. The creek is also much warmer than the Colorado we left behind. We carefully wade across, facing upstream to avoid slipping in the current flowing over the slick rocks.

After a final crossing, we must pass through a tunnel camouflaged as a cave. We scramble through and emerge into a whole new world. The canyon widens, and the sun is within our reach. It will be here that our hike into Havasu Canyon comes to an end. We pause for lunch and enjoy some time to warm our bones and absorb the beauty of the creek. Caroline and I sit on a rock, dip our feet in the water, and enjoy our meal.

This end of the canyon is but a small part of the ancestral lands of the Havasupai tribe. Havasupai means “Blue Water People.” For more than 800 years this canyon and the surrounding area have been their lands. Near extinction just 100 years ago, today, the tribe is still small, with fewer than 650 members. Tourism into their corner of the Canyon now sustains them, while visitors enjoy the strenuous hike to the famous Havasu Falls further up the canyon.

How do our boatmen see their relationship with these canyons? As I lament the brevity of my time to linger in each location and scheme how I will bring as much as possible from this one exposure back home with me, I wonder if this desire to absorb it all can ever be satisfied. While the boatmen will likely return again and again, they also must know that each of the subsequent visits will only be for brief moments. Neither can they be full-time residents here in this corner of the world they are obviously hopelessly attached to. This desire for eternal memories must in some way explain their lasting relationship with running the mighty Colorado. Why else would so many river runners commit to returning season after season? Running the Colorado is not a path to fortunes unless you consider what your heart and mind are rewarded with. Maybe the real wealth comes from the idea and hopes that something so big might someday be truly known or at least better understood.

Could it be that the real magic to be found in this vast National Park is not to be gleaned from the infinite details or the magnitude of beauty but from how this place channels our inner vision to a focus that allows us to look deeper within ourselves? Maybe the time away from the constant electronic noise and our routine, time-consuming activities offers the mind a quiet opportunity to resolve our own conflicts or bring insight into things we might have been unaware of prior to setting foot into the Canyon. For those who might bring their cellphones or iPods down here to play games during the “boring” parts, I wonder how unfamiliar these folks are with the machinations of their own minds. How did they come to perceive nature and their relationship to it as possibly being enhanced through the display of a small electronic screen that entertains them with tiny little pixels?

The two hours slated for today’s visit to Havasu Canyon soon come to an end. I try to convince myself that what I have taken in was enough, but I’m left wanting more. Not having the chance to visit the falls further upstream, Caroline and I vow to dedicate a future visit to a hike down to Supai village, spending a couple of days exploring more of Havasu Canyon. On that trip, we’ll be able to look back to this lucky day when our eyes first caught sight of the luminous, chalky waters that run through here and how we stepped off the dories from the Colorado River to visit the bottom of Havasu Canyon.

While probably displaying a good amount of obsession, it should also be obvious that I am trying to gather as much from this experience as I can. I look forward to sharing and celebrating the rarity of being one of the few humans who will see what I have seen down here. I tease apart every observable angle to lend more gravity to the weight of these memories. My day job here is to memorize the floor plan with a detailed inventory of all that is extraordinary. During the night shift, my sleep continues to explore the uniqueness of this experience. Although my dreams might prove elusive and forgotten to my conscious mind, I can hope that the sights and sounds of each day, the stories heard, and all of these fully lived moments will work together to paint a riot of beauty in the imagination of my resting brain.

Cynicism finally raises its ugly head, asking me: what remains to be seen? Havasu is left behind. Does any more of the extraordinary exist between us and Lava Falls? And then, what comes after that? Is river life going to turn into a routine where expectations of the familiar kill my anticipation of the wonderful? If this moment were a seed sprouting to grow this line of thinking, I could be setting myself up for boredom as I await the grand exit. Just how many iterations of spectacular and beautiful can be had? At some point, we must run into a broad expanse of dull. We’ll row into the doldrums of a wide, flat river with a dreary desert eating the horizon, diminishing our ability to spot the incredible. My anxiety tells me that it’s probably here, right after Havasu Rapid, up around the corner – the forbidden zone. From there, we will suffer the long, slow approach to the punisher known as Lava Falls, which is laying in wait to stomp us into submission before spitting us over to Diamond Creek. There, the rescue team will try and revive our exhausted spirit before we face the return to what was once known as normal.

Nightmares, the folly of our fears. Fortunately for me, I am quickly woken from these fiendish traumas of the imagination. My reawakening occurs on the other side of the river bend. The light here is doing that Grand Canyon thing, where high golden cliffs dip reflections into the river ahead, bringing on a state of visual bliss. We are entering the mirror, passing to the other side where our fairy tale continues. A minute ago, a negative voice rose from dormancy to cast doubt on my ability to see that great brilliance is always just around the corner. How do I sear the lesson of optimism into my memory?

Our next mile sees the sun moving lower, ratcheting up the shades of gold, and delivering even greater wealth without so much as a wish. Days ago, back at Redwall Cavern, I wondered about the boatmen’s impeccable sense of timing; here we are again approaching one of those junctures. As the Earth spins us toward evening, we are passing through the late afternoon on a stretch of river with sparkling sunbeams leaping off whitecaps that rise out of a shimmering black highway to another world. Just as quickly as the glimmers spring into my eyes, they are equally fast to subside, extinguished with their fall back into the Colorado. As the river works to steal the sun, it also absorbs any ambient noise, aside from the slip of the oar. I am left with the idea that I am floating in space with a billion shining stars pulling me further into the universe. The oars are the propulsion system for our spaceship. Legends arise out of these moments; mythologies gain epic scope from this display of imagery, transporting us across space and time into the infinite.

Up to this point in the story, I have shared one of the difficulties facing me on this trip: my fear of heights. There is one other issue that nearly stood in the way of being able to make it this far – I have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a condition that stops me from breathing while I sleep until I briefly wake and gasp violently for air. These episodes are particularly bad in my case, lasting for 19 seconds on average. My wife had complained about my snoring for years, often telling me of my struggle to breathe during the night. Since I did not believe her, she recorded me and then frightened me with what I heard. A doctor’s appointment and a sleep study later, I was set up with a CPAP device and have been well-rested ever since. Sleep apnea need not be a huge problem; it is easily treatable – as long as one has access to electricity, which I do when at home or in hotels. However, these dories do not travel with generators, there are no riverside outlets, no opportunity to recharge batteries, and during the short days of fall, not enough sunshine to effectively use solar panels. Add to this that we plow through rapids daily, where solar panels would exit the boat lickety-split or at least be destroyed by the water crashing over the bow. Yet I needed a solution that would power my CPAP and enable me to sleep soundly for at least a majority of the 17 nights we would be in the Canyon.

For months, I was not able to find useful information beyond hunters using their truck batteries for a couple of nights or folks in storm-prone Florida who had tried various one- or two-day options during occasions when the electricity was knocked out by a passing hurricane. As the weeks went by and it grew closer to the date when we could still cancel with the hope of seeing some refund of our investment, I was getting nervous. I even read of someone who dragged two 40-pound deep cycle marine batteries on a raft for his Grand Canyon trip. Prior to his departure, he had also arranged to have two fully charged replacement batteries delivered by mule to Phantom Ranch, the halfway point, with the two depleted batteries to be carried out using the same expensive four-legged method.

It was looking as if people with sleep apnea had given up on exotic adventures that required them to go off-grid for any period of time. Then, just a couple of weeks before we would have to cancel, I spoke with Chris, the owner of TheCpapShop.com. He thought he might have an answer in the form of a nine-pound 10”x7”x3” battery. What he didn’t have was concrete information on how others had fared with this compact and relatively lightweight potential solution. He had sold this type of battery before to travelers going off the grid, once to someone who was taking an African safari and another time to someone who was trekking the Himalayas – unfortunately, they never got back to him regarding the battery’s performance. Chris was willing to work with me to determine the best solution that could meet my needs, so I ordered a test unit.

After four weeks of keeping meticulous records of the number of hours and minutes that I used the battery, I calculated that I would need to bring two of these units with me into the Canyon. A few days later, I received the second battery. I packed both into a waterproof, crushproof Pelican case with room left over for the CPAP unit, almost a dozen batteries for my camera, batteries for my GoPro waterproof video camera, and my wife’s waterproof camera. I also found space for batteries for our GPS, headlamps, and a small tent lantern. Oh yeah, and my writing materials and my 70-200mm zoom lens, although it didn’t stay in there long. The entire setup weighed in at 38 pounds – two pounds lighter than one marine battery, and no need to employ the pricey mules.

The batteries were to supply my CPAP with a hair more than 40 hours each. This would give me five hours per night of restful sleep, leaving me with one night to rattle my fellow campers with bombastic snoring. I thought I could live with this, and I did. For my efforts, I was able to offer sound advice regarding a lightweight remedy to a problem more and more people are starting to deal with while making this trip that much more enjoyable for my wife and me. The generosity offered by Chris helped me put together a solution that would bring us to new adventures in locations where electricity is not to be found and where bulk and weight limitations have to be taken into consideration.

So, if you should find yourself wanting to experience the trip of a lifetime, but an ailment is giving you pause, I suggest you dig deep into resolve and find a solution and way to live your dreams regardless. Talk to outfitters to determine if they have a record of other clients who had to deal with an issue similar to your own; search the internet and find what it will take to overcome personal challenges that might be inhibiting you from full participation in the adventure of life. However, one defines adventure.

This brings me to another story of overcoming adversity, and it stems from the efforts made by one of our boatmen, Jeffe Aronson. Jeffe founded an operation known as Jumping Mouse Camp, where he and many other volunteers, including Joe Biner, brought people with special needs, and in some instances life-threatening illnesses, into the world of whitewater adventure. For some of these lucky adventurers, it may have been the single greatest opportunity to connect with nature. For others, it was the chance to better understand their own place in the scheme of things and find a kind of peace with their situation. These journeys of the heart enabled the participants to share the tears of accomplishment in a world not known for sharing the emotions of personal challenges. These specially crafted, laborious life trips were not to last – the program ultimately came to a halt. For those lucky enough to have participated they gathered the strength and manifested the necessary gumption to board a raft, be shot over the whitewater, and explore the Grand Canyon. As they survived Lava Falls, Crystal, and the inner Canyon, they were also busy surviving life. I am certain the memories of this epic mouse tale live on in their hearts.

My sleep apnea was an easy obstacle to overcome; the inner strength of a person locked into a wheelchair without the use of their own arms or legs to take such an adventure is an act of courage that should be an inspiration to all of us. It was Bruce who read us the story of Jumping Mouse from the book There’s This River…Grand Canyon Boatman Stories. Caroline and I had read this story in the months prior to our departure and promptly forgot the names of many of the characters until now. We had not realized that it was this very boatman named Jeffe who was so instrumental in forging these legendary experiences – now a hero in our eyes.

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.

We wake to chaos. Who would have guessed that two days in the same camp would make us so comfortable that our home away from home would have time to fall into disarray? But this is just how the inside of our tent looks this morning – chaotic. Clothes that were hanging out to dry yesterday were tossed in late last night due to the boatmen’s prediction for a dewy night. Good thing we brought the laundry in because their read on the weather was spot on. Had we left the clothes outside, we would have had to pack them, still damp, into one of the gallon Ziploc bags we were told to use for our stuff in case of dry bag failure. Clouds stopped short of forming in our toasty tent while the dew painted the nylon walls with streamlets of moisture and speckled the ceiling with a smattering of water drops. Reluctantly returning to the routine of a quick clean-up and packing our gear, we bring the tent down and watch two days of fine-grain sand merge with enough water to make clay. No time to sweat the small stuff, though; we were told to be ready for an early exit from camp today.

After a quick breakfast of hot 9-grain cereal with dried cranberries and almonds offered as deluxe add-ins, we turn around to make a sack lunch, as today’s plan is to bring lunch with us on our hike. This is probably a good dieting routine – after getting my fill of breakfast, the sandwich I make is much smaller than if I were to make one at lunchtime, where my need to stave off hunger until dinner usually encourages me to stack my sandwich high with two of everything. Right after breakfast, I am still able to act responsibly and tread lightly on indulgence.

Initially, the plan was that the most robust hikers would take off on a difficult seven-mile trail that would consume the better part of the day. This type of hike requires one of the boatmen to accompany the overland travelers to our common destination four miles downstream. With one of our boatmen not available to row, one of the boats would need to be left on shore here at camp. Once those not out on the hike arrive at the rendezvous spot, two of the boatmen would have to hike back to retrieve the boat left onshore upstream. Remember that phrase, “Indecision is the key to flexibility?” Well, here it is being put to work; those plans are now no longer our plans. Late last night, the boatmen learned via the satellite phone (the same phone that is used in case of emergency to summon the dreaded air evacuation services) that the folks up at Glen Canyon Dam have decided to increase the flow of water from a steady 8,000 cubic feet per second to a peak of 16,000 CFS. Thus, it was determined that leaving a dory or a raft at Tapeats Creek was becoming too risky, as the rising water could easily unmoor the abandoned craft. To avoid losing one of our boats, the entire group leaves via the river.

On our way downstream, Jeffe, whose dory we are planted in today, notices a waterfall he had never seen before on river right. This catches me by surprise, as I had easily imagined these frequent fliers of the Colorado must have seen it all by now. Here is Jeffe on his 117th journey through the Grand Canyon, and he is seeing something new. I can comprehend how a man on foot would only see a tiny fraction of this Canyon, even after having walked a thousand miles or more, but Jeffe has rowed, floated, or otherwise traveled roughly 25,000 river miles on the relatively narrow waterway carved through this southwest corner of the Colorado Plateau. If by foot or by river, over many a year and an extraordinary number of miles, these old hands of the Canyon are still finding something new, I must accept that no one will ever know the entirety of the Grand Canyon.

When you realize that no one, not a solitary soul, will ever know all of this single National Park, how will any of us ever succeed in knowing much of anything at all about the planet we are living on? Yet people sitting in front of a television are content to act as armchair experts on subjects they may know little of outside of what that box of electronics has just told them. Our lack of meaningful real-world experience doesn’t stop us from forming maligned and uninformed gut feelings that we are allowed to vote on. How does one develop and mature a level of awareness about our natural world and how little we individuals truly understand or will ever know about it? My heart sinks at the thought that after billions of years of life’s progress we humans should wield so much power through ignorance.

Row, row, row your boat quickly down the stream. At lightning speed, we arrive at our trailhead, pulling up to shore to start the ascent up Deer Creek – mile 136.9. The dories and rafts are tied up high in anticipation that the river will be rising dramatically while we are up the creek. Next to the pull-in, not far from where we are about to start a scramble over some rather sharp and jagged rocks, is a gorgeous waterfall exiting a narrow slot high above us. The trail climbs steeply, giving us those views that in and of themselves would satisfy the cost of being here. Hand over foot, we climb what for me seems like a near-vertical ascent until reaching a shelf that will take us deeper into the side canyon.

The group story takes a pause here for me. The exposure, the sheer drop-off, and the loud rushing water, out of sight deep below, are too much for my occasional yet strong feelings of anxiety brought on by a fear of heights that isn’t always easily manipulated by my will. Just behind and below me right here, Deer Creek races on its way to the pour-over to become the waterfall that we admired down at the riverside. In my mind’s eye, I can see clearly how my 240-pound mass tumbles into the stream only to be spit out over the falls, to the shock of sunbathers below. Stunned, they might wonder out loud, “Just what the heck is that fat bearded guy doing?” before recognizing that I am not likely to survive landing on the rocks of the shallow pool I am accelerating towards. With the final scene of my internal movie over and my adrenaline pumping, I consider that this isn’t even the worst part of the trail – it gets narrower ahead. I ponder for two seconds what could be lost were I not to see what was up the canyon. The “Throne Room” sounds intriguing, and another spectacular waterfall is somewhere up there as well, but in what I hope is a wise decision, I opt to turn around now. For a second, I felt I could get over myself and press on; I’d done it before under other circumstances and was happier for my effort, but here and now, in this environment, I do not want to find myself on the other side of something that I might not be able to return from without insurmountable panic. So instead of putting the group, my wife, and myself into a situation where that satellite phone would have to summon a rescue operation, I suck up my predicament and turn to hike back down.

My wife graciously insists that she will return to shore with me. A little reassurance lets her know that I’ll be fine hanging out by the lower waterfall on my own and that she should go on to see this for the two of us. So here is Caroline’s impression of her time in Deer Creek Canyon as she related it to me later:

I continued on with the group bearing some apprehension myself about the width of the trail. They say that when couples are together long enough, they begin to take on the mannerisms and, to some extent, even some of the physical characteristics of their mate. For me, I have gradually picked up on John’s fear of heights – but nowhere to the extent, it affects him. If he thought the part of the trail where he left looked bad, I was happy he made the decision to turn around because further ahead, things got worse. A barely two-foot-wide ledge required us to scoot sideways, facing the cliff wall, gripping a thin rib of sandstone for stability while performing a daredevil crab walk. There were a couple of people who benefited from one of the boatmen offering a reassuring hand behind their back to steady them on this short section that felt inches wide. I focused on my hands holding the sandstone in front of me and kept taking tiny steps to the right. This part of the trail isn’t long and was crossed in just a few seconds, but you are right on the edge.

Beyond this big-time exposure, the trail opened up to the Patio. A group of boaters on their own trip were already hanging out here, giving me the feeling it was a little crowded. While some of our group stayed, I continued on with Bruce and First Light Frank. Leaving the narrows of the slot canyon, we walked into an expansive and lush green valley. I almost felt like we had left the Canyon and had fallen into Zion National Park. All of a sudden, we were surrounded by a dense forest of cattails taller than me, high grasses, cacti, a ton of flowers, and large cottonwood trees. To the side was a small campground. Our hike continued along the creek until we approached a sheer cliff wall where Deer Spring was gushing out of the rock face, producing a beautiful waterfall we were able to walk behind. On the sides of the waterfall grew a hanging garden of dripping plants, busy giving back the water they didn’t require. The view of the valley from behind the spilling liquid curtain was simply amazing. I wished John was with me to see it all with his own eyes since I knew that my camera would not be able to take in all of the details.

A few steps further up the trail, we arrived at the Throne Room, appropriately named, too. It must have taken years and the work of many visitors to rearrange the slabs of sandstone that have fallen from the crumbling cliffs surrounding us into massive chairs – thrones. Unlike at the Patio, we were here alone, taking up the seats of kings and queens before digging into lunch. Rondo and the rest of the group joined us a little later. Fellow passenger Erin and I left before the main group so that we could take photos of the greenery on the way back. This time, we crossed Deer Creek at the foot of the waterfall. Back at the Patio I sat down and had a drink, taking in how beautiful the soft lines of the well-worn sandstone had been massaged as Deer Creek sculpted this slot canyon. In some places, people can get into the water, and that’s just what Sarge did. A quick swim and we were on our way out to go find John.

The way back to the river was scarier than the way in. Yes, it was the same path, but maybe it was the different angle from which we were looking at the trail. This is definitely not a hike for someone with a fear of heights or vertigo. Something I had not noticed on the way in was that on one of the walls right next to the trail was evidence that we modern visitors were not the first to see this incredible location: handprints, probably made using ochre, have remained here as a testament that the Ancestral Puebloans crossed over this very trail long ago. Emerging from the slot canyon, we walked past the spot where John had turned around earlier, and I could see him down by the dories, where it was obvious the river level had risen substantially. I tried signaling him; maybe it was the noise of the river or the crashing waterfall over his shoulder that stopped him from hearing my calls. Someday, I hope we’ll be able to hike into this area from a North Rim trail so he can see how beautiful this all was. Until then, he has my photos and my respect for having the presence of mind to do what was safest for him and the group, even if he did miss a little something. Now, back to John.

With Caroline and the group gone, I realize that I can’t help but feel some disappointment as my fears limit my potential. What am I being denied back there as I leave the shelf, half sulking inside, while the brave go on, and I drag myself back to shore? Better that I pull an old Monty Python tune out of the trunk of memories, dust it off, and give it a play, “Always look on the bright side of life….” It brings a smile to my face every time I think of it. I brush off the pity from my shoulder and start looking for what is going to make my visit to the lower fall of Deer Creek memorable.

I grab a chair and set myself down for some quiet observation, alone here at the river’s edge. Now, what is to be seen here that hadn’t been seen in great detail 30 minutes ago? Water, that’s the first thing. Out on the Colorado, undulating, flapping, splashing water, folding and collapsing as it sends atomized droplets skyward until gravity grips their trajectory, arcing them forward and then back down into the bigger flow they momentarily escaped from. There are no repeatable patterns or rhythms to the timing in which these waves collide with other water, or respond to sunken rocks buried from sight. They create successive dynamic forms, producing temporary artworks the futurists would be proud of.

At my feet, red ants scurry about, tending to business outside my purview of knowledge. Food gathering would be an obvious guess, but I’ll opt to dream of something not as mundane for these busy ants to be doing. But what might the story be? Impending attack on a Lilliputian scale to nab the 40-course human meal as the giant is lost in a daydream, staring at the hypnotic rush of water. Heck, maybe they are on a truly important mission to deliver the ring to Mordor. A giant black bumble bee zooms into the living tapestry being woven before my eyes. The bumbler’s ultimate role would remain veiled, as the ruse of searching for pollination opportunities was obviously transparent. With its cover on the verge of being blown and the dark overlord’s conquest in jeopardy, his death star body evacuates this sector.

Look out, here come the flies, stormtroopers of trash collection. Expendable mercenaries, every damn one of them. Pesky biological attack ships vomiting upon their dinner, doing the dirty work of the Empire. Out of batteries, my lightsaber would prove useless in combating the marauding invaders.

Jar-Jar the Lizard emerges from the deep, dark hole he had taken refuge in. He tries hard to earn my appreciation with his feeble attempts to snatch the stormtroopers from midair. I watch him as long as I can, but he fails to score even one direct hit; life imitates art. The flies continue with their dart-and-land combat techniques that do little besides finding my scorn. Watch out, Jar-Jar, and you stormtrooping winged pests, here comes the Millennium Falcon; okay, so it’s a canyon wren, but the force has obviously imbued this feathered hero, who perches atop the feeding chain, with great mysterious powers. Able to scoop up its enemies with a technologically advanced beak, the wren has no need for sidekicks or lightsabers.

With a snap, a wormhole opens in the space-time continuum, and the Starship Enterprise, disguised in dragonfly cloaking, breaks into my reality. It’s obviously on a reconnaissance mission to boldly go where no insect has gone before. For purposes only the captain on the bridge can know, the Starship Dragonfly darts left, right, back, and forward. With the flight recorder full of new details stored for a future mission, Scotty throws her into warp drive and exits the way she came in. Poof, they’re gone. In a blur, Sulu, Bones, Kirk, and Spock have left this galaxy and sadly neglected to beam me up.

As for the bees and butterflies down here on the river? They played no dramatic role this afternoon. They were on display to emphasize the sensual beauty of pollination and the dance of fluttering. The credits begin to crawl as I leave my seat to see what intrigues await me in the next theater.

The rise in the water level is becoming apparent as the beach is starting to disappear below the encroaching river. High in the sandstone above the tied-up dories, a hidden spring is feeding a seep that, in turn, supports a small hanging garden. A chalky film of salt stains the dark gray, almost black, desert varnish with a crystalline white layer, while streaks of greenish-black moss grow downward to the extent the dripping water is able to support its need for moisture. Around the seep, ferns and various other delicate plants cling to the wall.

Not far from the hanging garden, the red rock wall is barren and dry, although, on a small ledge further up, two prickly pear cacti have taken up the best seats in the house for watching the comings and goings of boats, passengers, wildlife, and the rise and fall of the river. Over to the far left, the Deer Creek waterfall maintains its constant pitch and hum on its way down to replenish the pool that acts as a collection basin. From there, it’s a short run before emptying into the Colorado, where its identity is lost in the bigger flow of water’s existence.

Since it is autumn, I can be happy that the sun finds itself low on the horizon instead of almost directly overhead. However, that doesn’t stop it from bearing down with no small reminder of its more sinister summer oppressiveness: it’s hot down here. In a few minutes, a towering summit on the opposite side of the Colorado will offer a shady break, preventing the sun’s rays from making direct contact with my pasty skin, which would not benefit from a desert varnish tanning. And then, right there, the sun goes out of view, and I’m here in the cool shade. Downriver, I can see the line temporarily separating the world of shadow from that of light. With the speed at which it travels my way, I surmise there might be 15 to 20 minutes of comfort left before putting on the squint again.

My solitude of self-imposed isolation comes to an abrupt end with the first trickle of the group returning to the river. I was certain I’d find boredom down here, but instead, the time flew by. I could have easily enjoyed a few more hours of doing nothing more than searching for that which requires idle moments of uninterrupted contemplation and imagination. Pardon me for not explicitly mentioning this yet, but the effect of the Canyon and these days on the river are producing a monumental reexamination of what’s what. My outlook, my look inward, and my place in the hierarchy of life and nature are being shifted. What these changes are precisely, I couldn’t have told you while still down there. Even months later, as I write these words, the magnitude of what has been altered hasn’t been fully appreciated yet.

There are hints of things that are different, such as how heartfelt my emotions have become as I look back at this and nearly any other venture into nature my wife and I have made. It is apparent that I may have taken much for granted. I can now see the fragility in a world too many of us are willing to erase, discount, pollute, and modernize. This idea of modernization cannot be reconciled with progress when it means we must destroy our natural world. For me, the interior of the Grand Canyon became a drug, and upon swallowing its pill, I turned into an overt tree hugger in nature’s matrix.

Time to fall out of the dream. Our group is once again complete, with each member accounted for. They stand amazed that the water level is up almost two feet, and the beach we landed upon is gone. I have no more time to linger; I will have to get back in the dory. This means that I will also be brought closer to the end of the day, the end of the week, and, eventually, the end of this journey. Unanswered mysteries are a more palatable solution to the big questions of life than the knowledge of the known endpoint. Even death will sneak up and happen on its own terms, while leaving the Colorado is a certainty just five and a half days away. Unless I figure out a way to bring it with me.

All Aboard! We’re going to ply a few more river miles down this warm, sunny corridor that is a million times better than any old thrill ride in a theme park, although I do still have a nostalgic love of those relics from my childhood. Maybe someday in the future, a potion will be found that digs into the recesses of my brain to find the many wonderful experiences I have had and forgotten, then amplifies them to beat up and subdue any of the negative ones that have managed to overstay their welcome. With the bad memories vanquished, I could fill the newly found space with more details kept from experiences such as what I am enjoying on this adventure. Today’s remaining miles are spent in blissful delight, floating under the warm sun, watching an ancient play of shadow puppetry on walls steeped in a familiar story of fleeting illumination, except that on this occasion, the performance seems to be for our benefit and our memories.

Camp Olo is the university dorm of campsites. We are nearly stacked one upon the other. If our group had two more people, we’d require two-story tents. The kitchen is set up in Erin and Jerry’s front yard and is put immediately to work in preparation for dinner. This is one of those nights in which the menu should be noted for its indulgent perfection. The appetizer is, of all things, a shrimp cocktail. Let me be clear: the shrimp are not made of dehydrated shrimp powder molded into shrimp-shaped tricks of the mind; they are previously frozen, freshly thawed, and ready for dipping into a bowl of cocktail sauce. The main course is spaghetti with pesto, shrimp scampi, garlic bread, and a fresh garden salad. These may seem like mundane details to a reader, but after nearly two weeks in the desert without a resupply, to be sitting here eating fresh food is the ultimate in luxury.

Tonight’s entertainment program consists of Jeffe reading from the book First Through Grand Canyon by Michael P. Ghiglieri, who shares details previously unreported about John Wesley Powell and his 1869 expedition, revealing surprisingly detailed journal entries and letters penned by other members of the group. The notes suggest Powell shouldn’t have taken all the credit and that historians may have been reluctant to set the story straight. Although it should be clear that he was the man who organized the now historic and important first run through the Grand Canyon, formal recognition should also be paid to J.C. Sumner, William Dunn, Seneca Howland, O.G. Howland, W. R. Hawkins, Andrew Hall, Frank Goodman, and John Wesley Powell’s brother Walter.

I wrote of bringing the Canyon and river with me when this adventure is over. I was afraid I would find myself drifting too far away from the details and emotions of these precious days after our return home. It would be the books we’ve been introduced to during the evening campfire sessions that played a big part in keeping those memories alive. To fill the gaps in the Canyon’s narrative, I searched for a contemporary who had taken one of these commercial river trips, who wasn’t in the canyon as a scientist, a super adventurer finding a new extreme method of riding the river, or some other professional who doesn’t connect with me on a personal level. I wanted to read about the average traveler who was swept up by the emotional impact found in the Canyon. While on one hand, those other stories are important too, the one book missing for me was the story of how one’s perspective and senses are reset and focused anew. I wanted to read of a person discovering their own profound emotional relationship to nature in the Canyon. To find those impressions of awe, I simply had to reflect upon my own memories and revisit the notes I kept during these days in the Canyon. With my thoughts ignited, my mind let the words flow onto the paper, allowing me to come back here to the Canyon, to be in these moments again and again.

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.

The real pleasure of a layover day is not that we will avoid risking life and limb on the river; it is that we do not have to break camp. No rolling up sleeping bags, no pulling down tents, and shaking sand from their interior. The dry bags stay put; the laziness of it all is a great indulgence. With that in mind, this would also be a day to sleep in. Cozy and warm, snuggled into the sack. A morning to linger in dreams.

Ring…Ring…Ring, it’s the bladder calling.
“Go away, let me doze a few more minutes,” I beg.
“Hey John, you awake? Is that the sun coming up? It makes me feel heavy and bloated.”
“NO, not yet; I’m cozy and oh-so warm. Can’t this wait?”
“I think I hear others stirring; it has me feeling like I want to be emptied; I’ll bet that’s what everyone is doing; come on, let’s go.”
“You can’t be serious. Why, on this one day when I get to sleep in, are you barging in with such an unreasonable demand?”
“I can hear water joining other water; is that splashing? You know what this does to me. Come on, let’s go.”

The indignity of being manipulated by a tiny 1.5-ounce organ that has the ability to put such pressure on me. I start to peel out of the bag of comfort. Seems Caroline’s bladder was having similar negotiations with her as she, too, unzips the cocoon for the trip to the river. Dressed, it’s time to take the bladder for a walk. Relief is at hand.
“Thanks, bladder.”
“No problem, now let’s get busy refilling me.”
Time for the first coffee of the day.

Dring….Dring….Dring…
“Hello.”
“Hey buddy, it’s me, the stomach. I swear that bladder was so full I could hardly breathe up here, making it hard to tell you how empty I am.”
“Yeah, don’t worry, I know the routine.”
“So, how about sending down a morsel or two?”
“Come on now, I’ve been telling you this for days: the kitchen is not ours to raid. There is no bakery around the corner, and we didn’t bring a stash of granola bars. You’ll have to wait.”
“But…but…um, this isn’t fair. Growwwl!!”
“Hey, that’s enough of that. Don’t make me get more coffee and fill bladder again to shut you up.”
“Okay, no need to get all angry with me. You know how sensitive I am. I think we both are well aware how that big mouth up there doesn’t like me dis-engorging myself, pushing the flow of bile into reverse.”
“Sorry, I’ll chill, stay calm. Oooh, what’s that over on the griddle? I think I see blueberry pancakes and bacon.”
“Bring it on, John, stuff that pie hole with syrupy goodness and crispy hog. I’m ready to get to work.”

“Hey guys, is all this commotion necessary?”
Jeez, here come the intestines.
“Yo up there, you have the experience to know I can weather the weight of bladder leaning up against me, but that fat-ass stomach is too much.”
“Who you calling fat, you shit sock? Take this; I’ll fill your big trap and shut you up fast. Mmmmm, isn’t that yummy? All that masticated pig, sugar, and dough, get down in there.”
“Go on and keep on pushing, flubby. It’ll only be minutes of this kind of abuse before I rush over and beat on the door of rectum, and John cleans all of us out.”

Just then, rectum takes the mentioning of his name to be roused from slumber, letting off a lazy yawn. Startled, Caroline asks, “What was that?”
“I don’t know, it wasn’t me.”

With that, it was now time to wake from the dream, crawl out of the toasty sleeping bag for real, and start the day. After breakfast, we returned to the kitchen to prepare a sack lunch as the crew was taking the afternoon off. Our picnic packed up, water bottles full, and river shoes strapped on tightly; it is departure time for those of us following Jeffe up Stone Creek Canyon.

As is the routine, the hoof up the trail was not designed for timid slowpokes. This early in the morning, with the majority of the side canyon in shadow, it doesn’t much bother me that we are racing along. I suppose this sprint is an artifact of summer when groups visiting the Canyon must get out early to avoid the heat of the day while trying to get to a destination with enough time to return before the blistering late afternoon wallops hikers with heatstroke. There could be another explanation that is perfectly reasonable, too, which is that our trip isn’t infinite. With a fixed number of days, there is only so much that can be seen. Add to this that our daylight hours are shortened due to the time of year, and it’s probably prudent, from the perspective of our guide, that we should get back to camp before dark.

As logical as this might sound in explaining the speed and time constraints, I still want to find the 120 Days of Pure Indulgence Canyon Adventure and sign right up. My ideal river tour of the Colorado wouldn’t be 120 consecutive days, though. I live in Phoenix, and I know how hot it can be in the Canyon come the middle of July. My dream trip leaves April 1st, putting in at Lees Ferry. For the next 60 days, we only travel a mile and a half on the river per day. This might allow enough time to explore all the side canyons and hang out, examine stuff, look into details missed by everyone else speeding down the river, and remember that there are no awards for those who finish first. After inspecting every nook and cranny, looking underneath rocks and grains of sand, deciphering patterns and clouds, memorizing all the river stories, and living some new ones, two months have passed, and we start our hike out at Phantom Ranch at the end of May, it’s Memorial Day.

The next 90 days are spent in air-conditioned bliss back in Phoenix while reveling in the memories of where we have been and looking forward to our return. Then, a week after Labor Day in early September, to avoid the remnants of the summer crowds, we fix our aim on the North Kaibab Trail for a return to Phantom Ranch. September and October in the Canyon will feel like coming home. This leg of the trip we’ll have to push along at a brisk two-and-a-quarter miles per day to take out at Diamond Creek a few days after Halloween. Maybe then, after such an extended stay in the company of the Colorado, I will start to feel something more than the vaguest familiarity with this place. But then again, I’ll probably still fall short when I consider that Harvey Butchart spent 1,024 days in the Canyon over many a year, hiking over 12,000 miles within these walls and climbing 83 of the Canyon’s summits. I will have to come to grips with the idea that no one will ever really know the extent and absolute detail of this beautiful land.

What’s wrong with these speed demons hiking up front? Can’t they read nature’s stop sign? Don’t they know they are supposed to gawk every once in a while? Is my sense organ that is tuned for astonishment that much stronger than those of the people I am traveling with? I try to reassure myself that I am not an alien from another dimension, operating on a different plane of time. For all I know, their powers of observation are so finely tuned that the story they are writing will make my own descriptions and enthusiasm look like a child’s primer. I’ll have to settle with the idea that they are microwave ovens of sight and remembrance, and I am the slow-cooking crock-pot creating depth and rich flavor.

Hey, you cloven-hoofed half-goats, I think Caroline and I will just stop right here at the second waterfall. The others let off an enthusiastic “Maaah!” and, defying gravity, dart up a vertical wall out of sight. Well, here we are, alone. Just us and the waterfall. And some hanging gardens. And all these colorful pebbles, stones, and boulders. And the water running over polished multihued rock faces with minuscule plants growing out of tiny cracks, crevices, and pits in the surface of really big stones. Just the two of us and all of this nature. Alone, surrounded by this unknowable spectacle of the universe, right here, on a rock in the quiet of the morning. Contented, I sigh.

The bluish light of the early morning fades as the sun moves into its position of prominence in the sky. The still cold, gray shadows are in stark contrast to the already radiant patches of ground that are the first to receive the warmth of the approaching sunlight – soon, the shadows will be no more. Golden tones will briefly paint our oasis until the full spectrum of our star returns to bleach the landscape with scorching white light. The Sun and Earth around me rejoice in meeting once again with a display of their well-rehearsed dance of illumination. Stone monoliths surrounding us maintain their silent vigil, looking over these human forms crawling below them.

Slicing between stone and sun, running over the Shinumo quartz, the flow of the second waterfall deposits its calcium carbonate soup, slowly, imperceptibly forming the travertine that brackets the falling water. Strewn about the ground are rocks, pebbles, and stones, which have been delivered by a succession of storms, whose quick-flowing torrents hauled these loads of debris from higher in the canyon and ejected them over the waterfall. Do the native rocks see this intrusion of foreign stones and boulders as so much litter cluttering their front yard? To our eyes, this all looks like a well-orchestrated and expertly designed work of art. With these irregular shapes and rough surfaces, this is not the nature modern man would design. Where chaos reigns, too often, our compulsion is to flutter about putting things in order, to align, and make homogenous what the efforts of time have so patiently given us.

We try to sit here like rocks, still and silent, but it’s difficult to stay in one place. With so much detail jumping out to greet our eyes, begging isn’t required to encourage us to go on over for an up-close and detailed examination – of everything. We enthusiastically oblige and, upon approaching these little spectacles, find ourselves falling into delight as shifts in angle and height perspectives reveal yet more of what could have remained unseen had we continued the trek up the trail. Walking to and fro, I hover about the second waterfall of Stone Creek like a moth attracted to the light. As I take note of a plant growing out of the face of a rock, it is as if my peripheral vision is being tapped on the shoulder to look over this or that way, with my feet controlled by curiosity and willfully delivering me to another vantage point. I can accept that we did not see what the others will have gazed upon at their stop and that another potentially incredible corner will remain unknown to us, but I am satisfied that this extended visit offered us a wealth of detail that would have never become familiar without allowing time for this sojourn.

I don’t know how long we sat there, how much of the whole we looked at, or how far we walked around this place under the waterfall, but lunchtime came and went before we finally packed up and left. Not that we really wanted to leave, but we didn’t want the rest of our group to come up from behind and push us along back to camp. We were determined to take the leisurely trail, not the race track. And for our effort to separate from the cozy little spot under the falls, our way back was now in full sun. The Canyon walls were illuminated, the flora deep green, and as the temperature climbed into the low 80s, it felt downright hot.

Almost left unseen, held fast to a giant boulder and blending in perfectly on the bottom side of an overhang, we spot nests, dozens of mud wasp nests. These hanging cells are protected nurseries camouflaged by an ingeniously color-matched and stealthy design. On closer examination, it becomes apparent that no wasps are currently residing here and that we are safe to look around. As I peek into the tiny structures, it dawns on me how similar these nests are to the granaries built by Native Americans across the southwest. Tucked up under an overhang, protected from the weather and predators, hidden by the mud that blends into the surroundings so as not to be easily seen from a distance, these earthen cells are very effective in protecting their precious contents, be it seeds or – in this case – larvae.

Further along this desert trail, we see that we are not the only ones out here in the sunshine. A tiny toad hops off the path and out of the way in haste, exerting some effort to avoid the feet of us approaching giants. Its sunbath is interrupted, and the little guy is anxious to leave the stage. No matter how slowly or gently I move closer, this amphibian is not interested in putting on a show and quickly disappears under some brush. Nowhere near as shy is a lizard sitting tall upon a cairn, inches closer to the heat source that warms its cold reptilian blood, giving it the zip necessary to quickly dart away from swooping birds looking for a snack.

There is a phenomenon we desert dwellers never tire of, while those of you who live in a lush green environment may not be able to appreciate our perspective in quite the same way: Shades of green. It happens more often than not: people enter the vast expanse of deserts in the southwest for the first time and see nothing but an endlessly empty landscape painted with a fat paintbrush of tan and more tan, devoid of life. Barren rock, hot sand, skeletons of long-dead cactus, and that impressive thermal flow of shimmering heat rising off the desert floor, known as a mirage. The new visitors may even ask themselves, “What brought me here in the first place?” But after a while, like eyes adapting to the darkness of night, they start to see details that weren’t there at first glance.

The eyes tune in to subtle shades of green found scattered about on the scorched earth. Thriving cacti and low, silver-gray bushes eke out an existence in the desolation. Keep looking, and sooner or later, you’ll find a mesquite tree. Its dark, rich brown bark adds much-needed contrast to this bleached world. Should you come across a palo verde tree out here, you have found the mother lode of fluorescent green, and in bloom, the top of the tree will be ablaze in sun-bright yellow flowers. From here, we branch into the other desert colors, gradually learning to differentiate the shades of tan and brown, finding oranges, reds, purples, rusts, and greens so deep they are almost black, along with variations of copper, silver, and gold that are moving into focused appreciation. All of a sudden, you wonder how you missed all of this back on your first encounter with a space that looked frighteningly empty.

Over time, the rest of our senses join our eyes in this dramatic transition, allowing us to appreciate having taken up dwelling in this seemingly inhospitable wasteland. Fine, delicate sounds find our ears until we are able to hear the scurry of lizards and the flow of wind over cactus needles. Then, one day, after spending a good amount of time learning how amazing the desert is, you are ready for an entirely new perspective – it rains. And when it does, everything changes. That silver-gray bush explodes in a scent, screaming: “This is the smell of the desert here in the Southwest; this is creosote!” It is the intriguing fragrance that tells you that you are at home.

Maybe because this is a desert, the horizon looks fantastically large. An occasional mountain or hill appears squashed under the oppression of a sun that pushes surface temperatures to the burning point. There are rarely enough clouds to fill such a vast expanse, forcing the desert to be satisfied with rain falling on small strips and patches. For those of us lucky enough to put ourselves out there, the play of the weather couldn’t be better. As it rains and lightning bolts throw down, thunder rocks hard, performing its bombastic concert, but just over to the east, or the west, maybe the north, could be to the south, blue sky cuts through the billowy clouds and sharply defined sun rays beam down like a cleaver slicing into the earth. The water that has poured from above quickly saturates the thin, crispy soil to become a flash flood that spreads out and disappears almost as fast as it arrived.

In the rain’s wake, over the following days and weeks, there is a sudden explosion of color. Cacti bloat from the indulgent and rare sip of water offered by the downpour, turning a brighter shade of green. They bloom with white, yellow, red, and purple waxy flowers attracting all manner of insects and birds. Grasses sprout and give it their all to move from seedling to maturity in order to leave their seed for the next generation and the next rain. For a brief time, the desert has a succulent new vibrancy; it glows in electric Technicolor. This spectacular show of life awakening out of dormancy is bedazzling.

It is precisely this weather aftermath that we are walking through today along Stone Creek. At the start of our journey, we had anticipated the browns and tans that could be expected down on the desert floor of the Canyon, but recent rains have given life a boost of water-induced growth to alight our senses in celebration of this rapture of green. There is a humorous side note to this visual stimulation. In previous years, as we were becoming familiar with the desert, we entertained thoughts that we had been witness to the full spectrum of green, but it wasn’t until we found ourselves in the forests of Kentucky or Oregon that we realized that our desert green – even in bloom – is a pale representation of the resplendence of the greens found in areas that receive year-round precipitation. Maybe our green is only truly appreciable to eyes conditioned by this hard-baked, mostly dry sand-and-rockscape.

Drifting in a daydream, our thoughts must have wandered off, and our feet, too. Who stole the trail? A little backtracking, and we are once again on the primitive goat trail we were traveling earlier in the day. Try as we might to see what the boatmen see; as they appear to retrace a well-worn and known path, we often fail to spot where the next step should be put down. Out here on our own, our trail scouting skills fall short of being truly adequate. Of course, the river must be in front of us somewhere, even if we cannot hear or see it yet. So we are obviously pointing in the right direction, and while common sense says: “Follow the creek bed,” that is not always as easy as it might seem due to steep ledges and paths that look like trails but are actually roads to nowhere. Add to this our innate ability to be easily distracted by shiny objects, or even dull ones, and soon we are again off the trail. Maybe we are succumbing to sun poisoning and are too delirious to maintain our focus. Nah, we are mostly lost in our imaginations, wanting to look at everything, wishing for more time.

There is a competition going on between Caroline and me to distract one another from the most amazing thing ever, with an invitation to come over and look at this other most amazing thing ever. Our ideas of what has eclipsed the sense of novel beauty are open to discussion, one not easily resolved. What the other one of us has found should be considered equally amazing in order to eliminate the friction of competition, even if I know that what I saw was, in fact, more brilliant, more dazzling, simply…more amazing. On our visits to the Pacific Coast, this isn’t a problem, as we are usually strolling some long, open beach with plenty of distance between us. The loud crashing surf overpowers our voices, allowing us to wander alone in our thoughts and the sound of the sea. But here in the Canyon, even if we drift off to find some space between us, voices echo and easily bring us back together. We share in what the other has found so stunning and can appreciate that it demanded the attention of our own special moment, delving into awe. Down here, we are joined at the hip and joined at the smiles, too. Eleven days into this, and still, we pinch ourselves at our luck that the two of us love and appreciate equally where we are, what we are doing, and one another.

Time to quiet the romantic chatter starting to fill my head and find the trail so we don’t look as amateurish as we are. And who is going to be witness to our feeble trail skills? This group of people we travel the river with, who are rapidly gaining on us, that’s who. We could try pretending that we were somehow pushing into new territory, scaling extraordinary heights in an effort to explore remote corners far and wide, but our slow, comfortable pace and lost gaze will certainly look unconvincing. Picking up the pace now won’t impress anyone who sees through our shells to recognize the snails inside. Like the Roadrunner and Coyote, a blur passes us with a pronounced “Meep Meep.” We’d break out the Acme Rocket, if we had one, to show them a thing or two, but we’ll just have to commit the path they took to our memory and try to follow with the hope of reaching camp by nightfall.

A word or two should be shared about Stone Creek itself. This is a delightful creek of clear water cascading over rock and sand. In places, it has run for so long that it has carved bowls, small flumes, and curvy twisting shapes that swirl, splashing water into small vortices, spinning in the channel it flows through. Along the way, we pass a few small waterfalls and a larger one known as First Waterfall. I suppose I don’t really know what qualifies as a waterfall, as when we were on our way to Second Waterfall, I’d swear some of these other falls would have been considered as such, which might have then put us at Fifth or Sixth Waterfall, but what do I know? I am not a geologist, hydrologist, or any other -ist of importance besides tourist. Walking along, enjoying the afternoon, we stop at another of the water-carved sluices where the creek is flowing with a hypnotic rhythm, gluing us to the spot where we stand until something snaps us from our trance and puts us back in motion.

Finally, we are once again in camp. We are hot, dusty, sweaty, and probably not just a little stinky. It would be a shame to put this funky body into those fresh, clean clothes that we worked so hard yesterday to wash in the muddy water of the Colorado; this requires a bath. Before plunging into the river, I can imagine, even savor, how refreshing my second Grand Canyon bath is going to feel. Stripped to my drawers, I’m ready to go big and let the grime of the last days dissolve into the already muddy waters that will hide my addition to the murk.

Here I go. Holy cow! That’s a whole lot colder than my enthusiasm said it would be. With the ankles and toes abundantly clean, I struggle to convince the calves that they, too, want to shine and sparkle. Before I can slither away to avoid this torture, my own personal fragrance of persuasion finds my nose, insisting I bring what reeks below to this come-to-water meeting. The cold buckles my knees; the air is compressed from my lungs, and I struggle to take deeper breaths. Maybe this convulsive shiver is a final desperate act calculated to deprive the brain of oxygen, bringing on a panic to force a premature exit from these frigid waters. But the heart comes to the rescue and will have none of this wimpy behavior, and with a short, sharp burst of bravado, I squat deeply to allow water to reach those parts that need this bath a lot more than my ankles and knees. That I didn’t pass out from the shock surprises me, although I was left impressed at how quickly that stuff down there leapt up to the warmth behind my navel. Human anatomy obviously works miracles. Out of the water, I do my best to wrap up in my warm and cozy postage-stamp-sized camp towel. My nose assures me this was all for the best.

An early finish to the day with plenty of sunlight remaining was an opportunity for just about everyone to take a dip on the far end of camp, if not to wash up, then to cool off from the surprise heat that had crept up. Moving quietly about, our fellow passengers seem to be organizing their tents and bags in an attempt to put things in order. Maybe they are taking inventory and calculating how things will be packed up for tomorrow’s return to the river. Finished, we gravitate towards the fire pit to talk, drink, write, or find ourselves lost in the sunset.

Our layover is approaching its end, and as if to punctuate the occasion of these two relaxed days, we are offered a celebratory feast of pure Americana. Barbecued burgers and bratwurst with all the fixings, coleslaw freshly chopped and prepared in camp, and baked beans. The great American barbecue, on a great American river in one of the greatest National Parks – the Grand Canyon. Life is good; who could ask for more? Okay, here’s more: it’s called the icing on the cake; well, it’s actually on the bottom, and we call it pineapple upside-down cake. We have scored another of those Dutch oven camp wonders, baked fresh before our eyes and noses.

Our group pulls in closer around the fire for some storytelling while the majority of the crew retires early. The entertainment duties are hoisted upon the shoulders of one boatman, Bruce, our impassioned speaker for the evening. The subject is Lake Powell and the environmental issues of building dams. Tonight’s topic is poignant, as later this evening, the engineers who operate Glen Canyon dam will be ending a two-month steady flow release of water.

The steady flow study is called Beach Habitat Building Flows, or BHBF. In this experiment, scientists are working to understand shoreline erosion and how beaches are faring within the Grand Canyon. They are examining how sediments are being distributed within the river. By varying water flow over measured periods of time, they can analyze the dynamics affecting the ecosystem of beach health and sediment accumulation.

The reason behind this experiment in water flow is that Lake Powell has turned into a sediment pond behind Glen Canyon Dam. This giant body of water pulls in the equivalent of 100,000 train cars of sediment a day. The majority of deposits end up near the head of the lake, at the opposite end of where the dam is. Before dams were built on the Colorado, the river carried the silt-laden waters to the sea, building up shores and beaches along the way. Today that is no longer happening; only the occasional trickle of water reaches the vast Colorado River Delta in Mexico. While this has implications for the viability of the delta, it also has a direct impact on everything from the life span of the many dams that will ultimately be holding more sediment than water to the quality and even the existence of riverbanks and beaches within the Canyon for us visitors to camp on.

Because the water released from the dam is sediment-free, the only sources for maintaining the beaches along the Colorado River are the various tributaries feeding the river, along with the monsoonal floods that wash debris down the Canyon walls. Under normal conditions, many of the tributaries run clear, but when they do flow full of mud like the old Colorado described by J.W. Powell as “Too thick to drink, too thin to plow,” only then might we see beach building events.

That 1983 Canyon flood mentioned earlier not only helped build Crystal Rapid into a monster, it also started stripping away much of the sand that made wide beaches available to people running the river and the many hikers who scramble over the rough terrain looking for that special place to enjoy some camping next to the Colorado. What little sedimentation was left in the Canyon was quickly washed about 260 miles downstream into Lake Mead, the next sediment pool on the Colorado.

Back in 1991, Bruce had the opportunity to run the Green River from the town of Green River, Wyoming, to its confluence with the Colorado in Canyonlands National Park. From there, his journey continued through Cataract Canyon, where the river disappears into Lake Powell. Bruce rowed across the lake before rejoining the river in the Grand Canyon below the dam and finishing this adventure on Lake Mead above the underwater Mormon town of Callville, Nevada. Bruce wasn’t alone; traveling with him on an important 12-day leg of this 42-day river trip was Luna Leopold. His name isn’t easily recognizable, but his legacy and his lineage are worth noting. Luna was the son of the famous environmentalist and author of A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold. Continuing his father’s commitment to conservation and the ecological conscience, Luna, whose formal training was that of geomorphologist (the scientific study of landforms), had been involved with a study referred to as the Colorado River Storage Project or CRSP as far back as the 1950s.

Luna, aged 75 at the time of the 1991 trip, was here to read the river depths and study how sedimentation might affect the dams holding back the mighty Colorado. This was controversial science then, and it is still controversial today. In question is the health of these dams and their consequences. The engineers who designed these corks thought they were building 500-year legacies to their engineering prowess; what the natural sciences were telling them was you may have 200 years of use of these dams, and possibly even less than that.

It was near the Hite Bridge, part of Utah State Route 95, that Luna was noting river depths of about 8 feet. Near the junction with the Dirty Devil, almost 3 miles downstream from the bridge, Luna’s readings were still showing a depth of about 8 feet, but soon he would find the shocker. His depth readings showed a precipitous 200-foot drop – to the old river bed! The head of Lake Powell was filled with a giant sediment plume! Today, this plume has extended its crawl forward and is now about 2 miles further downstream.

If this has you wondering, how does a lake full of sand affect me? The answer is quite simple. The Colorado River, as it winds its way out of the Rockies, picks up and carves away many soil nutrients, which are suspended within its silty waters. Prior to the creation of the series of dams that now impound the river and distribute its waters to farms, golf courses, swimming pools, and fountains all over the Southwest, it flowed uninterrupted down to the Colorado River Delta south of Yuma, Arizona, before pouring into the Sea of Cortez. Not only is the river delta being destroyed, but the nutrient-rich waters that should be flowing to the sea are no longer available to help feed the Gulf of California. This is important because the Gulf is home to the world’s largest animal, the Blue Whale, in addition to Humpback Whales, Fin Whales, Killer Whales, the California Gray Whale, Giant Pacific Manta Rays, Sperm Whales, Leatherback Sea Turtles, and a plethora of other sea life.

Wherever humanity has built dams, we see the impact on the marine life that had once relied upon the rich, fresh waters that flowed over the land. Salmon in America’s Pacific Northwest comes to mind when we think about the difficulties brought on by our altering of the ecological system that not only sustains us but provides for many other species, too. The Aswan dam that holds back the Nile in Egypt is now recognized to be having a negative impact on the fisheries in the Mediterranean. Nutrients such as phosphate and silicate act as ocean fertilizers that sustain the diversity of coastal life, but these land-derived salts will never reach their destination when sequestered behind a dam in a mountain of sediments. Most wild rivers that once ran to the oceans have been stopped in their tracks for our convenience only, not the other lives that depend on these rivers performing their natural role.

Bruce equates these river systems with something very personal: our very own hearts and bodies. He closed his talk with the following, “The planet’s rivers are the nutrient stream; they are the circulatory system of Earth. If humankind continues to build and maintain these constrictions in nature, just as a poor diet can contribute to clogged arteries leading to heart disease, might we be sending our life-sustaining environment off to suffer a heart attack? It may not seem acute to us because we see time in human terms, but beyond our own short lives, life continues to flow. Unless we do something to change our attitude and short-sighted relationship with nature, will we ultimately be the necrotizing disease that significantly damages the Earth? Is it possible that nature is just too big and complex for our limited perspective to fully comprehend and appreciate?

Over 110 years ago in 1900, the investigation to build a dam on the Colorado was undertaken. Back then, humanity hadn’t yet flown in an airplane. Henry Ford’s Model T was still 14 years from hitting the road. Penicillin wouldn’t start fighting infections until 1928. We’ve come a long way since those days, with cell phones that feature built-in video cameras and GPS that receive data from satellites in low orbit circling our planet. Computers are helping humanity decipher our genetic code while simultaneously running the global electronic library of knowledge and culture that we call the Internet. The sun and wind are being harnessed to supply us with more sustainable energy sources, but we require a healthy environment to be able to enjoy these incredible strides forward. It is time for humankind to look at the decisions made on our behalf and recognize that we have progressed forward from our early scientific roots. We can change our world for the better.

There’s nothing quite like the enthusiasm of someone who invested their heart and soul in what concerns them, to motivate and inspire others. Picking up on his passion, we will carry from this Canyon a greater desire to know more about many of the things we will learn during this adventure. Back home, Caroline and I read more than a dozen books about the early navigators of the river, the environmental concerns, and the geologic and fossil history. We joined the Grand Canyon River Guides Association to lend our voices and support to those dedicating their lives to protecting the Canyon. I began a blog entry to share what I found, only to find it growing larger than a few online words as it matured into this book.

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.

Warning: You may want to skip this chapter; it is a detour from the route you have been traveling with me on this journey. As is the case while en route to any destination, deviations from our path can be time-consuming and frustrating, leaving us wondering why we had to get caught up with the diversion in the first place. But, should you follow this big right turn, you might see something you hadn’t anticipated before leaving the well-traveled stream.

Today is Sunday, both literally and metaphorically. The previous nine days made up the longest Saturday ever. The next nine days will hopefully be the longest Sunday ever but we all know what happens Monday, so I think I’ll hang around here on an extended lazy day with nothing much to do at all. Like all Sundays, it will soon become evident that the weekend was far too short, and I will find myself wishing for another day off. Just who came up with this crazy idea that people should work five days and be afforded a mere two-day sojourn to do for themselves what needs to be done so we can repeat another week tending to tasks that often may not enrich our lives – besides the obvious monetary gain? I suppose in a society that derives so much pleasure from being a passive observer, where we use TV, the internet, or cell phones to watch others play sports, shop, eat, have sex, argue, dance, sing, fish for crab, and a multitude of other observable activities, this passive observation absolves us from full participation in our own lives, while also alleviating boredom.

While we may rarely find enough time for ourselves on weekends, we can take a big step away from routine when on vacation – should we be so brave to take that deserved and well-earned respite of recreation and relaxation. It is within our rights, even obligation, to get out and explore new places, though it is now accepted as the norm that many of us will turn over amassed vacation time back to our employer for the extra cash and skip another year of enjoying an extended break from the treadmill. How many of us are guilty of suffering from our own self-inflicted drama of delusion, where we spout that our company cannot function without us? Then there are those who find their work-a-day lives so jam-packed with responsibilities that as the vacation does roll around, the option is exercised to stay at home and “get caught up,” as though this will prove cathartic in satisfying our basic human need to know our world. And when it finally happens that we do take that well-deserved vacation, we are left bored and faced with the conundrum of what to do with ourselves and all this extra time when we have no hobbies or interests outside of our day-to-day routines.

In many of our communities, there are craft guilds, arts associations, and community colleges where we can join others in the quest to acquire new skills. The internet has brought us Meetup.com to find people with similar interests so we don’t have to go it alone. Walmart sells fishing reels 24 hours a day, but rarely will one have to compete for a good fishing hole on a weekday. A minority of us are getting better at managing our exposure to TV programs and are learning when to turn off the cell phone. More of us are practicing yoga, going to the gym, joining hiking groups, learning to play an instrument, experimenting with cooking an exotic cuisine, or brushing up on a foreign language for a trip abroad, but is this enough?

No. We all need more time to play. We need more storytellers, more photographers, artists, poets, and designers who will weave their perspectives, crafts, and knowledge into teaching narratives shared in a new, as yet uninvented, truly global social network with the potential to foster a renewed sense of community. We need to help one another learn to sing our own song, to speak of the poetry that moves us, to paint the canvas that reflects the beauty of our lives and the places explored. How do we best share our journeys and experiences so that we are nudging our families, neighbors, and communities forward?

We can begin by reigniting the passion to learn and explore. The potential gained through greater cultural and intellectual awareness enriches our lives with opportunities that become tangible as our broadened sense of interest grows. This provides us with new possibilities where music, film, foreign lands, exotic flavors, and outdoor recreation offer options to move beyond the worn and well-known. But if idle consumption and passive entertainment remain the method of filling the space between work and other responsibilities, we will continue our hamster wheel existence and never know what is just beyond our cage of routine.

I suggest you go out and document your life, your hobby, and your fun. Create your own living history, author the story of who you have been and where you have gone, and offer a peek into the potential you hold. The age of information and of being a passive observer is coming to a close; we are on the cusp of the age of knowledge and of being a participant.

Need proof? Sixty years ago, only the most intrepid adventurers explored the Colorado River; today, we do, average people. Forty years ago, a small handful of filmmakers and broadcasters created television content; today, the internet and the likes of Vimeo and YouTube are presenting an extraordinary amount of video made and broadcast by us. Thirty years ago, professional photographers, via big publishing companies, distributed their work to a broad audience; today, Flickr gives every one of us a gallery to display our work. Twenty years ago, a few music executives determined what we would hear; today, the sources and genres available exceed our ability to hear it all. Ten years ago, it was up to a small cadre of publishers to decide what we would read; today, independent bloggers on the Internet and mobile devices, such as the iPad and Kindle, are changing this relationship between authors and readers.

And now, it’s time for the last component in the equation to find change – US! It is our time to embrace the tools of eloquence and put them to work in the employ of creating our very own written and visualized body of knowledge and, when appropriate, to incorporate the shared works of our global community that can add a cultural richness through music, images, art, poetry, and story – a kind of collaborative pot-luck of expressive creativity.

First Attempt At Exiting the Detour.

Another beautiful day in this glorious Canyon. Not a lot of miles will be covered today; only five rapids will be run. There are no side canyon hikes, but still, it feels like a full day of action and fun. Caroline opted to ride a raft and joined Katrina for the half-day we were spending on the river. I was on board the Shoshone with Rondo for a leisurely day, floating past the sheer black cliffs of Vishnu Schist streaked with pink granite veins. Considering the epiphanies of yesterday, day 10 is not a foundation shaker, which is fine, as reconciling the largesse and depth of that experience is still weighing heavily on my being. I can’t stop myself from wondering whether Rondo is fully aware of the impact of Blacktail Canyon on some of his fellow travelers. Is he keeping the pace of the day to a minimum, allowing us this opportunity to sink deeper into contemplation about what the secrets of the Grand Canyon might mean?

And so it was, in the days following the trip, while at home and trying to write about day 10, that my mind would be as blank as it was this day on the river. My journal entry is, but a partial page, and my wife’s notes are just as brief compared to other days where line after line of details were written into the margins. If it weren’t for photos and video, much of the day would have been lost in the introspection I was drifting on.

There would be no monumental intrusions into my sense of the aesthetic. It is as though the volume of my mind was turned down another notch. If there was any cognitive activity that might stand out, it would be the question: is this close to where a boatman lives? Meaning, why worry about issues outside of your immediate situation that you have no bearing on and that have no bearing on you? Why analyze this relationship to the Canyon? It is what it is. And why drag who you are when at home and at work down here to the river?

Those are easy questions to answer long after the trip is over. In retrospect, it is obvious that much of who one is should be left at Lees Ferry. While still onshore, stop for meditation and cast off your mental baggage, then enter the dory with a still mind. My fear and anxiety will not guide the boatmen’s oars with any more precision than the experience they bring to their task. Start this journey without thought or expectation, and leave the over-analytical mind at home. Do not lament bad weather conditions; embrace all that presents itself. Even injuries become part of the experience that will be your story down here. As for me, this would prove a gradual awakening of awareness that would only be fully realized after leaving the Grand Canyon.

The brochure will tell you what to bring so that you might be physically prepared, but it fails to inform you of what to leave behind. Worried about the cold water? Who cares?! You are going to get wet, real wet, deep down wet, and deep down cold. But you’ll dry off, and the excitement of having made it through another rapid will distract you from the shivering. Considering using camp wipes to avoid getting into the frigid Colorado River to bathe? Forget about it! You will go in if for no other reason than that you recognize that this unique opportunity may not present itself again in your lifetime. Maybe you’re apprehensive about the metal boxes sitting riverside under the clear blue sky, you know, the Unit? Throw out your worry, walk up boldly, drop your pants midstride, and sing a song to celebrate what you are about to do. Nobody cares that you are using an outdoor, visible-to-the-world toilet, and should you have the gumption to sing, you are likely adding one more moment of magic to the story others will share with friends when they get home and relate the story of the singing crapper who would perch at dawn, chirping a song of glee.

A popular refrain from those we told of our adventure was that they would not be comfortable camping for this duration or – in some cases – any duration! To them, I have to say it is nothing more than the internal dialogue that stops you from embracing the new that stretches you outside of your comfort zone. It is possible that you will never see why you should have broken through your shell of isolation from nature or even your distance from yourself. But there is also a chance that before you pass through this life, you will awaken to this very human desire to connect with nature, to have done something that you thought to be beyond your capability, beyond your fear of the unknown.

Our brief lives, as counted by the number of days, may appear short, but the number of moments is incomprehensibly large. Earlier, I explained how we have roughly 29,000 days of life; counted as seconds, this amounts to approximately 2 billion of those fleeting moments. While this is a grand number in comparison, the experiences we extract from them, will often only amount to but a few isolated moments that stand out as extraordinary. If this is acceptable to you, then, by all means, go on about your life of routine, but should this strike a chord and resonate within you, embrace each day, each moment, and make the most of it. If your work is mundane, spend a half-hour a day learning a new skill, craft, or language. Ask for more time off and go on a hike or go skiing. Have you turned 40 and needed something challenging that you never thought you’d do? Take surfing or scuba lessons, and get on a skateboard before your hips and knees stop you from trying. Take cooking classes, learn to edit videos, pick up the harmonica, garden, or learn to knit.

Wondering if you might be interested in a few days of snowshoeing in Yellowstone? Go to YouTube and search for “How to snowshoe.” Think you might have the inclination to better express yourself in the digital realm? The websites Video2Brain.com and Lynda.com offer online training for dozens of creative software titles. Have you ever heard of the John C. Campbell Folk School? Maybe now is the time to check it out and consider learning something about blacksmithing, broom making, tanning leather, woodworking, or a number of other folk arts and crafts. Going to Florida any time soon? Ever been kayaking? There are terrific calm waters on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts to learn on. For almost everything we could consider doing these days, there are free online tutorial videos or websites that will start us on our way.

By The Way – We Are Detouring Again.

The point is many of us sit at home or work dreaming of what we would do someday if only we had the time and money. But what if those two conditions are never in perfect alignment? For my wife and I, this became a matter of forcing the conditions. If the money wasn’t there, we would travel close to home and stay in the cheapest motel in the smallest town we could find. If time was the limiting factor, we would leave Friday night, knowing we would be comfortable driving a maximum of five hours. This would let us spread out in nearly any direction to a distance of about 300 miles. It has not been beyond us to jump in the car at 4:30 in the morning on a Saturday to drive west to California, arriving in Los Angeles mid-morning. We would have enough time to visit Little Tokyo, Chinatown, and Hollywood, and then finish the afternoon with a walk on 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica to find dinner before a quick stroll on the beach. With the evening upon us, we would point the car east for the 390-mile drive back to Phoenix, with several coffee breaks to keep us going. Sure, we were exhausted when we got home, but with only one free day, we were happy to stuff three days’ worth of fun into it.

Once in the habit of extracting more from less, it became apparent that frugality was taking us on a path of riches, while economically, we were surviving on the single income of a web programmer. The thing is – when the two of us worked, we had little free time and even less ambition to throw ourselves at the task of making plans. Downsizing from conspicuous to experiential consumption, our lives found a groove that delivered a more consistent sense of fun and satisfaction. We stopped collecting stuff that only took up space on a shelf and started a more focused effort at finding tools that we could learn from or that would lend themselves to helping us better express ourselves. A loom and a spinning wheel, a fermentation crock, and a food dehydrator moved in. Things that required more than a single push of a button on a remote control became increasingly interesting. Television was becoming less and less important and was finally moved from the backseat to a thrift store. Hiking, snorkeling, exploring our environment, these things were taking the wheel up in the front seat. Our internet connection became our lifeline to determining distances between points of interest. It could direct us to inexpensive lodgings and show us what there was to find in any geographic area that attracted our curiosity. In moments, we knew about the best and funkiest restaurants, favorite trails, and roadside curiosities. Online would also be where we would have our first encounter with dories. That chance meeting was the material of dreams – only not ours at the time. As far as we could tell, dories existed for a class of wealthy people who went on expensive, exotic adventures; to us, this looked distant and near impossible. To our eyes, a whitewater rafting trip with dories on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon was a journey too far beyond our reach and the cost too far beyond justification.

And yet, incrementally and slowly, we ventured further and further away from the thoughts and things that limited the scope of our wildest dreams. Within a few years, we visited 50, then 100, and before long, more than 150 National Parks and Monuments. A visit to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan completed our goal of visiting the entirety of the continental United States – and not just by dropping into an airport. We were becoming familiar with the three coastal regions, crossing (and, on occasion, stepping into) America’s major waterways, visiting the White House, standing in the crown of the Statue of Liberty, or in Lebanon, Kansas, the geographical center of the U.S. – the more we saw, the more we wanted to see. Our overarching familiarity with the breadth of this land awakened our desire to discover more of the granularity of what created the whole.

Every day and every weekend became precious. We knew to request the days before and after long Holiday weekends well in advance – before coworkers figured out what they might be doing at that time. At Christmas, we put in for days off around Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. In early spring, we requested a couple of days off around Labor Day. Near Memorial Day, it was time to request the days off around Thanksgiving, and as Independence Day rolled around, we put in for time off at Christmas and New Year’s. We often had no idea what we would be doing on these short four-, five-, and six-day vacations, but now we had something to plan toward. Holidays that fell on Thursdays and Tuesdays, when the company was likely to kick in Friday or Monday as a bonus day off, became coveted holiday weeks. Our determination never waned when thinking of making another request, the three days before or after the holiday, that would give us a nine-day window for a vacation that only necessitated taking three days of personal time off. With proper planning, we could turn 17 days of PTO into 45 days of vacation during a single year. Add the occasional weekend, and we could find ourselves traveling between 60 to almost 80 days a year exploring the U.S. – and who says Europeans get more vacation?

Attention: Numbers Ahead.

So here we are; we figured out the time part of the equation, but what about the disposable income? My wife and I have yet to own a cell phone, nor do we watch TV anymore. These two facts alone have saved us no less than $25,000 since the year 2000. We do not look at expenses as monthly occurrences; they are yearly, decadal, and lifetime costs to our happiness. Here’s the breakdown: two cell phones at $70 per month cost $1,680 per year, that is $16,800 every ten years, assuming zero inflation, or a cool $100,800 from the time you turn 20 until your 80th birthday.

We make do with one car. At times, this is an inconvenience, and on occasion, situations have arisen requiring us to rent a car, sometimes for a month or more. Still, we have learned how to coordinate appointments, activities, and even work schedules during the many years of our long relationship. Here, the savings have been extraordinary. If we had indulged ourselves in owning two cars over the last decade, more than likely, we would have had to replace that car at least once. Thus the car purchased in the year 2000 would have been replaced around the year 2005. Had we purchased cheap vehicles costing $15,000 each and not financed them but instead paid cash, we would have committed to a $30,000 outlay – there are already enough numbers here without adding finance charges. Add $7,000 for insurance during those ten years, plus $120 of gasoline per month, adding up to $15,400 of fuel costs per ten years. With oil changes, tire replacement, brake jobs, car washes, routine maintenance, and other miscellaneous costs, you add at least another $500 per year. The sum of these costs: a whopping extra $57,400 for owning a second car. I appreciate that this is not tenable for a family of four with doctor appointments, school programs, pets suffering an illness, and all the other demands put on us by busy schedules, but I also have known many a young family to overextend themselves with pricey cars that serve demanding egos more than any transportation needs.

Look at the total cost of owning and maintaining a second car, the cell phones, a cable bill, TV, and these things for the two of us would cost close to $75,000 – every ten years. Thinking you don’t earn that kind of disposable income? Consider that if you make, on average, $25,000 per year from the time you turn 25 until retirement at 65, you will have earned $1,000,000 over the course of your career. Your lifelong contribution to the financial world is quite extraordinary; it should be to you, too.

How many people in America have $75,000 put away for retirement? How many people spend that every ten years on vacations? Because incremental monthly expenses fit into people’s budgets so easily, they are considered to be a minor ding to their overall income. One day, the consumer pays a contracted fee of $50 or $60, followed by 29 days of pleasure – the equation is simple. And this is what the vendors and corporations who supply these services need us to feel: that the costs we incur are but a small fraction of our monthly budget and, hence, are worth it.

Warning: Dangerous Curve. Seriously, This Detour Is Far From The River.

Sorry, just one more indulgence with the numbers. As an exercise for myself and, subsequently, a blog I was ghostwriting for, I looked at the cost of conventionally and organically grown foods versus processed frozen meals, along with restaurants, both sit-down and fast food. I wanted to know just how much more expensive it was for my wife and I to eat locally grown, all-natural products. What I learned shocked me.

I, probably much like many others, thought I was spending a good premium to indulge my palate with organic foods. Anyone who has ever shopped at Whole Foods knows what a single bag of groceries can cost there. It would be folly to argue otherwise, or would it? My first step was to find what I thought was the cheapest possible meal, starting with what is typically our biggest meal of the day – dinner. Don’t suggest the dollar menu – three items and tax is over $3.00. I needed to go to the king of low prices – Walmart. At the time I wrote my article, a Marie Callender’s frozen meal of Salisbury Steak with Potatoes and Green Beans was costing $2.77 on sale. How could anyone compete with a fourteen-ounce box of frozen instant gratification? Well, let’s look at what your money buys; two and a half ounces of meat, almost eleven ounces of veggies, the rest I assumed was the gravy.

In season, you can find organic green beans for about $3.00 a pound, organic carrots as low as $1.00 a pound, and organic potatoes sell for the whopping price of $1.50 a pound – compared to conventionally grown potatoes that are often on sale for as little as $1.00 for a ten-pound bag, or just 10 cents a pound. Conventionally raised chicken is cheap at $1.59 a pound when compared to those free-range organic pullets yanking $4.25 a pound from your wallet. From all-organic ingredients, I prepared a meal similar to the frozen dish for comparison: thirteen ounces of fresh veggies consisting of four ounces of carrots, three ounces of green beans, and six ounces of potatoes, plus a four-ounce piece of chicken, small but probably reasonable. This calculates to 42 cents for the carrots, 56 cents for the green beans, 66 cents for potatoes, and $1.06 for our happy all-natural chicken. This fresh, healthy meal costs us $2.70 – how can this be? We saved seven cents compared to the Marie Callender’s meal and are eating organic food that has never been processed or frozen. This is about a pound of food for dinner. How much would we pay for this meal in a cafe? $7.95, maybe $10.95? If it were organic, like I prepared here, this meal would likely cost us between $12.95 and up to $21.95 if the chicken is bathed in a 60-cent drizzle of honey balsamic reduction.

For the sake of truth, our $2.70 cost is indeed on the pricey side, as the meal prepared with conventionally grown meat and produce costs only $1.55 a portion, or about the cost of a medium order of fries from McDonald’s. One more example, and I’ll stop this part of the number stuff and start to bring this all together with a point. Maybe you have heard of Meatless Mondays? The initiative was started by marketing professional Sid Lerner in association with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health back in 2003. The idea is to focus on making healthier decisions for our diet one day a week, with the side benefit of greatly reducing the impact on our environment due to the water and energy needs of supplying meat. But there are more benefits than just those. Let’s concoct a mostly organic Meatless Monday meal plan, starting with a breakfast of two eggs and four ounces of potatoes for a cost of $1.19. At midday, we’ll have a grilled cheese on 9-grain bread and a banana; lunch costs 69 cents. Dinner for our hypothetical Meatless Monday will be 3 ounces of sautéed green beans with onions and garlic, 4 ounces of sliced tomatoes, 2½ ounces of steamed carrots, a side of roasted peppers, and a few ounces of steamed brown rice for a total price of $3.04. Our food bill per person for a Meatless Monday would be $4.92, while that Number One Combo of Double Burger, Fries, and a Drink at our favorite burger joint costs $5.75 plus tax – for one meal.

Maybe I’ve grabbed your attention, and you are starting to wonder if this could be true; as Mr. Reagan said, “Trust but verify.” Without being saints and living in strict austerity, we can make changes, dramatic changes, in our food budget while eating healthier. Maybe we only start with Mondays, but if we were to seriously consider how we are spending our food dollars, we could begin to save thousands per year and start moving away from convenience and closer to healthy. The added benefit is that we will find more money in our bank accounts for the really important stuff.

Of course, there are the time requirements to shop, cook, and clean, which I have not added to my calculations – but I’m not looking for convenience; I’m looking for luxury. If we can learn to live comfortably, and one of us in a relationship has the time to visit local farmers markets, cook, care for the car, take care of banking, laundry, house cleaning, and the other household necessities while our spouse or partner is at the nine to five, we then find the time to research cheap motels for a weekend getaway and monitor cheap flights to New York City, Florida, Seattle, Paris or London. We can find upcoming events or workshops that are happening in the next few months. Classes, concerts, opportunities to volunteer, or other means that can enrich our lives can be found and planned for – with this, I’m on a path to luxury. This is obviously more difficult for a single person. Better time management might need to be practiced. Take a weekend a month to prepare a couple dozen meals that can be frozen. Connect with like-minded people who can share travel, entertainment, education opportunities, and tips for what’s coming up in your community. Tell your friends to tweet about useful stuff and forget telling you about the trivialities of the day.

Think about this: is life supposed to be about convenience, or should we bask in luxury? Down in the Grand Canyon, we sacrificed some convenience in order to live in luxury. To spend more than a week snowshoeing in Yellowstone two years in a row, my wife and I had to make sacrifices – each of them usually around a convenience. The person who wants to start their own company knows success comes from sacrifice, little convenience, and lots of hard work. Shortcuts typically do not work when one is striving for accomplishment. To get to the top of Everest, there is but one path. So why is it that when it comes to our private lives, we can justify our lack of inertia with a litany of reasons why we must indulge our cravings for convenience? Convenience is the biggest impediment to finding luxury unless you are already wealthy, with a bank account full of idle cash.

What kind of unrealistic life expectations do we entertain, and what are the repercussions of living under the tension that instant gratification should always be within our grasp? Is happiness really just a purchase, a candy bar, or a beer away? Can isolation, depression, or tragedy be fended off by exercising the credit card on late-night internet shopping? Does splurging for dinner, or even a cheap fast food drive-thru after a hard day, offer anything more than a momentary convenience of immediacy that will be nothing more than so much excrement in 24 hours?

Wonderful experiences are not forgotten in an hour or a day; should we be lucky, they will pay dividends to the memory by enriching our lives in the years ahead. Who forgets what it was like learning a major new skill like skiing or snowboarding or the first time they went to Disneyland? What about that first concert we went to as a teen or our first love? Experience is everything, but if we become distracted by a habit of convenience, giving in to moments of instant gratification, our ability to focus on longer-term projects, plans, and epic adventures are never realized. We are conditioned to want and demand our pleasure with an unrealistic immediacy. We want it now.

Patience, persistence, and prudence bring us closer to realizing big dreams. Big dreams are the domain of humanity. During the long history of our developmental stages, humankind has acted like a giant, nearly cohesive unit, building the tools that have allowed us to explore our world and invent processes that have delivered shelter, clothing, warmth, running water, and better access to food. Communication on a global scale is being transmitted by invisible frequencies rippling through the air around us, and the world of knowledge is brought directly into our homes via little copper wires or pulses of light through a strand of glass. But things are changing. We are moving away from the mass of bodies that once were required to build railroads and ships; we no longer employ swarms of people to cultivate crops. The big dream of the new frontier is self-actualization through experiential economic activities and greater personal expression. If an aspiring author wants to bring a story of, say, “Mountain Biking in Mongolia” to the social network of knowledge, it will be with the understanding that instead of buying another energy drink and a pack of smokes, this person is going to have to recognize the value of those $9.00 in bringing them closer to their goal. Humankind has always made sacrifices to succeed, and the last few decades have witnessed many of us losing sight of that struggle – and its rewards.

The newest new economy, from my perspective, will be that of experience and sharing our intellectual resources. It will be our spin on how we perceive where we have been and what we have accomplished, given our limited resources of time for learning and experience. We will move away from the consumption of stuff that fills our homes to buying the tools that allow us to explore our minds and, in turn, offer our perspective to others who may not have access to a wealth of creativity and resources that would allow them to travel our world, or visit diverse locations to learn new arts and crafts. Maybe you have a favorite village and pub in Ireland you think your friends might enjoy – why just speak of the details privately? Why not tell the story in photos, video, the written word, and music, all wrapped up in a digital multiformat narrative? Our opportunity for distribution is global. We no longer require gatekeepers, publishers, or agents, as the internet is allowing everyone to enter the world market.

Should we find ourselves in Peru, watching weavers working their backstrap looms, how will we share with others how these artists exercised their craft? Mind you, we need not go far from home. Maybe near our neck of the woods, we have a rails-to-trails program, where an old, unused rail line was replaced with a foot and biking path that meanders through a beautiful corner of our community. Just because you know it is out there doesn’t mean others know it exists. Who will share it with those people from around the world who may never have the opportunity to visit such a place in North Carolina or Cambodia?

Let’s bring all this together. We have limited amounts of time and money. We have the potential to participate in and find new experiences. Many of us spend an excessive amount of our lives giving in to convenience and instant gratification. What will it take to bring us to the recognition of what the value of play is, and how can we begin to move away from the complacency of routine? When will we embrace the precious commodity of life we have been allotted and see the value in the tools of participation that might allow us to achieve a more dignified means of expression than the addition of a beer tap in the man cave?

How many of us justify our possessions as a reward for our efforts and sacrifices made due to what we see as the demands of a job robbing us of our time? We ourselves rob this time by not demanding more financial discipline and better management of our personal resources. Many people will remain in a state of dissatisfaction while putting on all the accouterments we are being told will bring us to consumption nirvana. And when those things don’t deliver, it’s too easy to turn to pharmaceuticals that can massage the way forward to happiness. But for many of us, this isn’t working. And it isn’t working because we are creatures with two legs and two eyes, who are incredibly well adapted to learning and exploring and then using our powers of recollection and language to tell stories and grow. Many of us are not doing this today. We are sitting around, postponing the big things so we don’t have to make an effort while floundering in instant gratification and conveniences, waiting for that wonderful something that never arrives.

The story from a reality television show or a Super Bowl should only have a brief place in our lives. It may be a nice distraction for a short time to share this collective, cohesive moment in a large community, but don’t forget that we are also individuals worthy of our own personal television shows featuring the best of our reality, our lives, and our families. We could document our own version of the Super Bowl in which we present our best moves and our best performances. These would be living documentaries chronicling our adventures. Upon our passing, they would find a place in our family heritage, adding depth to our descendant’s understanding of who their ancestors were. We then become the heroes of our own stories and encourage others to be as well. Grandma’s wisdom would live on.

The quality of what I offer here may not measure up to the entertainment brought on by the words penned by J.K. Rowling, the art of Van Gogh, the narrative of Ken Burns’ documentaries, or any of the number of unknown artists yet to present their palette of expression. These are my reflections on a time when a man found himself in the middle of wild nature and was inspired and compelled to record a representation of that image. These words are my petroglyphs, my cave paintings, my mark on history.

Back To The Story – Again.

Following our leisurely morning, we have one big rapid to run before making for shore to fix lunch and set up camp. Deubendorff, also known as Dubie, is an awfully long-looking rapid that stretches far and wide in a broad expanse of the Canyon. During the fall, when days are short, the cold river most always carries a brisk slap to the senses. But where the sun falls upon crew and passengers after leaving a rapid, its warming rays keep the shivers at bay. Rondo expertly delivers the Shoshone with expert aplomb, allowing us, fore and aft, to remain dry and toasty. We pull into Stone Creek Camp at mile 132. This will be a layover stop, so not only are we at camp early, but we’ll stay here two nights, allowing us to relax, take in a hike tomorrow morning, and have that rare opportunity to become a little more familiar with our surroundings.

While the crew prepares lunch we busy ourselves to once again find the perfect campsite and pitch our tent. The beach here is enormous, giving everyone ample room to spread out. Having the rest of the day free, we are moving rather slowly. The trumpeting conch shell calls us to the lunch table for sandwiches, fruit, and cookies. From midday to early evening, the second half of this day creeps on by. Besides doing some laundry and Caroline catching her second river bath in ten days, we are doing pretty much nothing at all. Looking back now, I can’t recall if we reorganized dry bags, talked with fellow passengers, or just stared at rocks. Probably stared at rocks – and prepared for the evening’s festivities.

Halloween in the Grand Canyon does not preclude the need to don a costume; we had been warned a couple of days ago. No costume, no dinner. Suppose twigs in the hair may have sufficed as being in the costume of a bush. Lucky for us, Kenney travels with a large overstuffed duffel bag filled with bits and pieces of costumes and soon has set up shop on a large tarp for anyone in need of special attire to join in the party. Pirate Rondo brought along plastic Jack-O’-Lantern heads complete with battery-powered lights. Caroline and I had been hiding a pumpkin head filled with candy in our dry bag just for this day. With us campers now bedecked in our frightful best, we grab the candy-filled squash to storm the camp of a private trip, not far upriver, and do a reverse trick-or-treat by giving away our hoard of sweet treasure.

After dinner, our neighbors, rafters from Maine and Canada, join us around our large fire. The luxury of having two guitars, a mandolin, and more than one singing voice makes for a great party. Things get lively, and with drinks, fire, dance, song, and merriment, we celebrate on the eve of All Saints, bringing the last day of October to a close. Tomorrow will be Monday for many outside this Canyon, but it will be another Sunday for those of us down here. Long live the perpetual weekend.

–From my book titled: Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon about our journey down the Colorado back in late 2010.