Food is often just that, food. But here, where you wouldn’t expect culinary frills, the ritual of the meal has become theater. Can the kitchen performers best their earlier stage calls? They can, and they do. It is not necessarily that what is offered here can be said to be of gourmet preparation, nor is there anything exotic on the menu. Last night, we dined on barbecued ham with mac and cheese. Tonight, the boatmen will boil spaghetti to be served with a meat sauce and garlic bread. And this morning we are enjoying blueberry pancakes and sausages, but what strikes a chord are the fresh strawberries that have found their way into a fruit salad with sliced kiwi. Fresh strawberries on a nearly barren desert beach, five days downriver! Did someone parachute them in while we slept? Somewhere deep in the bowels of a raft or dory must be a magic compartment where avocados materialize, lettuce never wilts, and tomatoes don’t bruise. When will the pouches of dehydrated astronaut food come out for boiling? Or will our cooks soon resort to hidden caches of canned food stashed riverside by a supply raft that plies the river stealthily during the cover of night?

Fireside hors d’oeuvres on the river? Sure, if you are on a spring or fall trip. After all, who would dare dream of a roaring fire in July when it’s still 105 degrees after the sun sets? I’m sure appetizers during the summer are yummy in their own right, but last night’s baked brie with caramelized walnuts and fresh apple slices can only reach the heavenly delight of supreme comfort food while on a slightly chilly beach in autumn, warmed by a campfire, under the lofty cliffs of the Grand Canyon. Maybe someone paying tens of thousands of dollars for this experience could expect epicurean treats, but to me, having the good fortune to simply be here on the Colorado is already worth millions. What we paid for this trip was a bargain in light of how wealthy our memories are becoming. I could be fed a diet of twigs, sand, and coffee and still feel like royalty. This gastronomic dream-state must have been designed to enhance the experience of travel enchantment – as long as the passengers remain in perpetual bliss, they will forever be the greatest ambassadors of the Canyon, reminiscing of those days when from waking to falling off to sleep everything was perfect.

From a yummy breakfast at sunrise to the river and another great trail, we seamlessly transition through the moments as naturally as the day becomes night and then day again. The imperceptible fluctuation in the flow of air, earth, and river synchronizes with our internal clock, tuning us into the speed of nature. Old habits are temporarily ditched as new routines guide us. Down here, we are not getting ready for the day as much as we are preparing to be intently aware. Eyes open wide, the lungs breathe deeply, the ears are alert, and then it’s time to put the body back into action. All aboard!

The wooden oars slice into the calm river and exit with a “slip.” A delicate sound of “plink” is heard as water drops fall from the oar blade back into the Colorado. This auditory impression is impossible to capture with the written word, as verbal frailty foils the desire to adequately share the exact impression of the faint sound, though we hear it over and again. Listening with ears tuned to each detail, I find this sound akin to a marriage and separation of oar and water. Part of the uniqueness of this voice of the oar may lie in the spatial relationship only found here on the Colorado. The shape of the low-slung wooden and fiberglass dory, the distance of the hardwood oar, and the quiet on a calm stretch of river made more so by the heavy canyon walls weighted in silence, dampening sounds, all working to build this acoustic trinket of subtlety.

We glide along, passing mile 55. The oars touch the water and, for a second, appear to float on the surface tension. A long pause, and then into the river they sink, to be pulled by the oarsman, rowing us forward. Mile 56. Out of the water, the oar momentarily hangs in space with a drip, drip, drip. At mile 57, the dory is gliding downstream with us spellbound passengers, each drifting within. Mile 58 must have been there somewhere, too; likely that 59 slipped by similarly. Passing mile 60, we spring back to total awareness.

For here we are, where the Little Colorado River joins the really big Colorado at mile 61.5. Actors one and all, how else to describe our deceptive lack of drama upon our arrival? Who taught us this act of feigning subdued composure? Maybe it was conditioning for conformity? Was it a parent who told us not to run to the next ride at the amusement park? Or maybe it started back in high school when we were trying to convince ourselves of what was cool. Somewhere in our past, we lost the innocence we had when the sight of a birthday cake with candles flaming brought us to ear-piercing shrieks of joy. And you should know that I would surely be one of the first to raise an eyebrow of disapproval at the disturbance of nature’s solemn quiet, should the sounds of elation fill the air. At the same time, I hardly believe the rocks and river would care. So I scream a silent hoot and holler, jumping up and down inside, that this really is the Little Colorado.

The boatmen had anticipated its water to be a muddy, turbid flow due to the recent rains, which could have had it looking much like the larger river it was joining. Had that been the situation, flexibility would have played a hand in deciding that we would move on to points further south. But to our delight, the river is a beautiful opaque turquoise. At the confluence of the two rivers, a rippled border easily delineates the limestone-saturated Little Colorado from its chocolaty-red bigger brother. Toward the end of these rivers’ merger, when the combined waters pass into the main channel, evidence of this tributary is already lost.

In a couple of minutes, the rafts and dories are tied down, life jackets are secured, and our group collects, waiting for the boatmen to join us. Containing myself to the best of my ability, I stop short of breaking into a sprint to run ahead to see it all by myself, knowing that a minute later, the view will be shared with the others who follow. Four or five steps are all that I make before I have to stop to take closer examination of the water flowing over and adding to the travertine ledges the Little Colorado has built. Then, I take another few steps before gazing at the swirling stream of water descending through a pocket of carved rock, where the limestone solution’s various depths determine how clear or milky it appears. When the sun shines on deeper pools, the river gains luminosity as though lit from within. Red rock, white water, blue sky, chocolate river, tan sands, and green brush – who dreams this stuff up?

Here at “Life in the Grand Canyon 101,” this immersive class for living in the wild offers me the materials and experiences to become acquainted with nature on her terms. We lightly touch upon a multitude of potentialities that exist here, but the heavy subject-specific lessons exploring the fine details and depths of Canyon knowledge will have to be taken up after graduating from these 18 days. Our instructors walk a relatively short distance with us up the Little Colorado channel. The trail ends for us across from an old ruin of a house, said to have been built around 1889 by the miner and pioneer Ben Beamer. Ben placed his home right on top of a prehistoric Native American ruin that John Wesley Powell had identified two decades earlier. The story goes that the old miner lived down here for almost three years, never making contact with anyone else nor leaving the Canyon during that time. We gaze at the small dwelling and the Little Colorado until it is time for us to leave; what was closer to an hour feels like not much more than a few minutes. It only takes another second before the rear-view mirror on the dory loses sight of that limestone-saturated river. Goodbye, little brother, it’s time to become a man.

Not much further downstream, we are nearing the Hopi salt mines. A briny mixture is seeping from the cliff face that lines the river; dripping crusts of the white mineral collect and adorn the canyon wall. We keep our distance as we are reminded by the boatmen of our obligation while on the river to observe and respect the areas held sacred by Native Americans. The salt that forms here is collected by boys who have traveled the Salt Trail from Third Mesa on the Hopi Reservation to the river in a rite of passage.

The Canyon widens at our approach to the Unkar Delta, also known as Furnace Flats. Spring and fall are the times to stop here because, during summer, you will learn the true meaning of the term Furnace Flats, as life is baked right out of you. After getting a bite to eat for lunch, we depart for a hike. As is usual, we are going up, and as has happened before, the view expands, stretching far and wide. As also happened before, that part of my heart and mind used for sensing the spectacular opened up to points equally far and wide. I try to understand that at these junctures of physical, mental, spiritual, and aesthetic dilation, it is only natural that, as the eyes attempt to reach beyond their sockets, extra tears are necessary to ensure the eye remains moist and effective in relaying the unfolding beauty to the heart.

Petroglyphs, etchings on a boulder, an unknown language, a signage of direction, maybe a history for others, whatever these markings once meant, they are mostly indecipherable now. We can guess that the image of the antelope was an indicator that this stretch of trail is popular with these animals, giving hunters hope of finding a meal, a source of tools, and clothing in the area. The shapes, swirls, and designs, though, do not easily lend themselves to interpretation. Maybe because we can only speculate on their meaning, the ancient graffiti intrigues us into imagining there are hidden secrets locked into this primitive trail-side billboard. Wearing amateur anthropologist hats, we investigate the glyphs that I wish could speak to us, allowing insight into their missives. We continue our hike on this trail, leaving behind found mysteries to search for new ones.

Further up the easy trail, we approach Solstice ruin. We are in the Dox layer. The rock in this area is relatively soft, which explains why shortly after leaving the Little Colorado, the hard-edged riverside cliffs gave way to the more wide-open Furnace Flats. The softer rock erodes faster, producing hills with gently rounded surfaces. At the ruin, not much more than a short wall above the foundation remains standing. In its day, the neighbors might have envied this house, sitting on the hilltop with commanding views upriver and over to Comanche Point, 4,300 feet above the Colorado. A discarded metate lets us know that mesquite beans or corn was ground here as part of the local diet back when the owners of this dwelling called it home. Around the perimeter, hundreds, if not thousands, of pottery shards invite closer inspection. Various patterns and designs attest to the artist’s creative ability and, to my untrained eye, are reminders of pottery seen in Southern Colorado on the Ute reservation.

Standing at this long-abandoned dwelling, I attempt to bring together the extent of my knowledge of the Puebloan people. I want to envisage their trails and travels so that I might follow them east through canyons and desert, over the Hopi ancestral lands, and into those of the modern-day Navajo, where, on occasion, their journey could continue to ceremonies and festivals held in Chaco Canyon, over in what is now New Mexico. Did these Puebloan pilgrims walk through the Four Corners region, where various tribes such as Cliff Dwellers, Plains Indians, and other indigenous peoples from across the land might have crossed paths and enriched one another’s culture? Would one band of Native Americans trade pinyon nuts for some of that tissue-thin, blue corn piki bread made by the Hopi? Maybe plant dyes were on offer, or needed medicines exchanged? I don’t really want answers or the specifics, instead, I rather enjoy the conjecture of what might have been without the filter that suggests people throughout history are war-like, prone to violence and conquest. This potentially Pollyanna-ish delusion suits me fine. The daily routine and curiosity of someone on a trek of exploration, traveling without marauding ideas, only the desire to know for oneself what lies over the horizon and to learn who those people on that distant land are. These are the people whose eyes I want to look through. Who were their storytellers, and how was the history of their people shared with others, not of the same tribe? What songs and dances were enjoyed around a fire that may have accompanied celebratory feasting for good weather, healthy crops, and a peaceful life?

Who was born here in this crumbling abode? I can imagine their descendants walking the same earth as I do today. Are they constrained by a reservation where traditional ways and freedoms have all but disappeared? What sadness might an indigenous person feel, standing on the birthing ground of their ancestors, where ownership and rights of visitation are controlled by an occupying people? It is tragic that we must protect these historic treasures from those who would profit from their theft or those of low wit who might damage these relics for no other reason than their compulsion to flaunt their disrespect. Fortunately, our National Park Service has a good working relationship with our Native American neighbors, allowing those on ancestral journeys to follow in their fathers’ footsteps.

From this old home’s front yard and sweeping views, we move to explore the backyard. Contrasting those expansive vistas and distant horizons, the trail out back narrows with the line of sight, interrupted by a blizzard of rock that will soon surround us. Like snowdrifts made of multi-hued stone, the terrain undulates and disappears behind taller drifts of earth. The path is at times unseen; it is only the intuition, or previous trail memory, that guides the boatmen through this labyrinth. The walls are smooth in places, cragged in others; they are mottled rust with swirls of purple. Leeching salt crystals find a place to grow on protrusions; red stains drape over green rock, broken lava folds heave to form sharp edges, with pockets of empty space created by processes at work during an unwitnessed history long before modern humans arrived.

The various types of rock represent a multitude of minerals and composite materials, and with each comes just as many ways that it can erode. Where softer and harder rock were married millennia ago, the passage of time has weathered their relationship; thin ribs of hard rock stand like a skeleton above the recessing, softer sandstone. Overhangs form where harder upper layers stand in resistance to Mother Nature’s onslaught, but down below, its softer foundation is slowly washing away. Rainwater finds its way from high on the canyon rim, the surrounding areas, and various drainages to spill over cliffs and flow through gullies, scrubbing away loose sand and soil, depositing it in the Colorado somewhere below. The friction of this abrasive action shapes and polishes this tapestry of twisted form. Out of that chaos, the art of the planet emerges on a scale almost comprehensible.

It is as though the painter’s palette spilled over, and the primordial hand of nature laid down strokes to offer inspiration to a future Jackson Pollock. No matter my efforts, I will not find a method for merging myself into this stone canvas and disappearing into the beauty that paints this landscape. I can only try to share in the thousands of years of admiration from those who have visited this gallery dedicated to the monumental work of Earth art surrounding us.

Could Salvador Dali have found inspiration from the melting forms of travertine? Might Van Gogh recognize art imitating nature after looking at crumbling walls of chipped shale and fractured debris? Are there undiscovered motifs here only awaiting the creativity of a passerby to find their value? How do we know where and when our land transcends utility, elevating it to the sacred? If crude oil were found in the paint used for the eye of the Mona Lisa, would we gouge it out to operate a car for one more millisecond? Could we imagine melting down the mask of Tutankhamun to personally enrich ourselves? So why do these unseen corners become worthless to a city-bound society? How can others dream of damming a river to produce a bit of electricity or drilling into a canyon, filling it with noise and the clutter of machinery in order to extract more natural gas or uranium, when we now have the ability to harvest our energy needs from the sun and wind?

We can work smarter to harness alternative methods to power our world. They may not be easy or expedient, but we can learn to do without some convenience, as humankind will never build a Grand Canyon. Man will not learn how to create a mile-deep gorge, hundreds of miles long, that can bring us to tears of joy while standing before such resplendent sublimity. When will we stop our sprawl and outward expansion? Look around the Grand Canyon; it is eroding, disappearing. While not in our lifetimes or our immediate future generations, the Canyon is going away. When it is gone, only photos and stories will tell of what was lost, hopefully not due to faults of our own. The same will not be said for what man intentionally destroys in his quest for domination and his petty sense of ownership.

Our time to experience this side canyon is over. We’ll leave it just the way we found it. Should you visit this exact place, you may not see precisely the things we have seen, not because we altered anything, we leave that to the forces alive and at work crafting these sights. An earthquake could rattle through, a boulder or a cliff face might fall, or a flood of biblical proportions could roll over hill and dale, forever burying a place everyone’s senses should have had the opportunity to enjoy at least once. For now, I depart but not without a manifest full of glorious memories from just one more of the many unnamed and anonymous side canyons hidden here in the Grand Canyon.

From our mile-and-a-half-per-hour trail pace, we return to rowing downriver, clipping along at better than three miles per hour and flying over Tanner Rapid shortly before sunset as we sprint into the end of the day to prepare our evening shelter at Cardenas Camp – mile 71. And a race it has been. In these five days, we covered 71 miles of the Colorado, clocking in at a whopping average of 14 miles per day. There must certainly be a kind of magic at work within the Canyon regarding our perception of time versus distance. Pardon the math and numbers as I try to reconcile my memories of time spent on the river and just how we will have ultimately passed from mile zero through mile 225 at Diamond Creek – our exit. We have been on the river only three to five hours per day. If I calculate that we average four hours per day on the river, we will amass approximately 72 total river hours over the distance of 18 days. Dividing the distance traveled by these hours, our speed figures out to a shade over three miles per hour. But with the river flowing at three miles per hour and rapids crashing along significantly faster than that, it leaves the impression we did nothing more than float downstream. This is not a complaint by any means; it is the strange recognition that, while my memory tells me the boatmen worked hard to row us down the Colorado, delivering us to incredible adventure, I am now beginning to wonder whether their efforts may have in reality been used to slow our progress. Can I find clarity of memory to see if our dories moved with the current, faster than the current, or were we being passed by the flowing waters?

This then begs the question, what secrets of human perception do these boatmen know and utilize to their mystical advantage? To a growing list of words describing the boatmen, including guide, cook, and teacher, must I now include the profession of magician? How else does one explain that we eat three meals a day, ply the Colorado running whitewater with fierce rapids, hike, explore ruins and side canyons, investigate the fossil record, listen to stories and the song of guitar, mandolin, and campfire with all of this fitting into the shortened days of fall leading into winter? Only an illusionist could fool the perception into thinking it has seen more or less than it really has.

So how do days without end, delivering experiences that should require a week, a month, or even a year, come to a close? This one does so under the majestic light of a rising moon, illuminating the palisades off in the distance. In camp, a dwindling fire and an even thinner crowd brave the cool night for another moment of it all. Raft pilot Ashley Brown, who has been quiet until now, takes up the proverbial podium. Seated near the fire, she reads from John Wesley Powell’s account of his historic first journey down the Colorado in 1869. With a world and 141 years between us, I listen with half an ear while taking notes about my first trip, following in his larger-than-life footsteps. He was exploring the wilds of nature; I exploring the wilds of the mind.

–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.

Have I woken to life in The Far Side? Like in the comic, most of the scene is normal. There’s just this one anomaly that brings absurdity to the situation. The peculiarity arresting my attention is a tall bearded cow of the Holstein variety standing upright on two legs instead of down on all four. I am facing its flaming pink udder, sporting four teats that point directly at me. Of all the situations I may have dreamt of prior to this adventure, a man-cow shooting a cyclopean beam of light from its forehead was probably the farthest thing from my mind. And just what is this apparition? A dream, a phantasm, a ghost? No, it is boatman Steve Kenney who has traded his dress for a formfitting Holstein jumpsuit. The next question is surely going to be, why? Because he is making breakfast, that’s why. I beg my wife to grab the camera and take a photo of me on bended knees, suckling the bearded Cyclops cow, but she insists she would die of embarrassment if her husband were to throw himself on another man’s udder. This is not when I wake from a dream; this really is my morning.

In dark shadows of the early day, there’s not a lot to be seen. We must wait for the sun to fill the sky with its brilliance to guide us voyagers who are following this path sliced deep within the Canyon. Until then, we are afforded the luxury of enjoying another cup of coffee with our sunrise. We chat with the boatmen, asking who has empty seats we might claim as ours. Early on, it was suggested that we rotate who we are riding with from day to day to allow us the experience of learning how each boatman responds to the river. Soon, it is bright enough for us to continue rowing with the current, and are underway. We venture out on mostly calm water to a point further downstream, where we will embark on adventures yet to be discovered.

Time spent on the Colorado becomes amorphous, lost in the drift. I wonder if seconds, minutes, hours, or days have passed. Reflecting patterns in dancing ripples under rock folds combine with the change in river speed and the varying color palette to hypnotize my vacating mind. My eyes should have arms and hands skilled in pulling even more of these sights into my memories. I wish for a tool capable of harvesting the magnitude of light bouncing off the surrounding environment and then depositing its wealth directly to the optic nerve, carving a permanent image of what I am seeing. Like an appetite for food, my eyes develop a hunger to see more of more. All the while, as my desire for more escalates, my brain reels under the weight of overwhelming stimulation, forcing the body into stillness from the frantic sense of perpetual awe. Small talk is replaced with big silence.

Less than an hour after putting in on the river, we are pulling off the river. Hike number three starts like the previous ones: fill your water bottles and change out of river shoes into hiking boots for those who prefer that option – the majority of us remain in river shoes while the boatmen hike in flip-flops. Let’s go. From down here, most trails have but one direction – up. And that’s where we take aim. The paths are well-worn from the thousands of pairs of feet trekking through these canyons, but precisely where those trails continue is not always apparent. In a landscape full of bare rocks and boulders, it is easy to lose the way, requiring a quick scramble to reconnect to a thoroughfare that is just 20 or 30 feet away but cannot readily be seen thanks to a lack of cairns or trail markings, leaving us novice hikers wondering where to turn. Some quick calculations and we are again catching up with the group. From the front, instructions are passed back, this time advising caution when grabbing rocks for leverage as fishhook cactus burrs in your fingers are painful reminders that you may not have been listening to valuable warnings.

We hike into a side canyon; our attention focused on the person in front of us while trying to make sure that we’re not holding up anyone following behind. The problem here for those of us wanting to spend time sightseeing is that there is little opportunity to stop and get a good long look at the splendid panoramic scene surrounding us. Our quick elevation gain offers views of the snaking river we are traveling and glimpses into the distance where we are yet to go. Look over your shoulder at these sights too long, and you risk finding yourself stumbling into an injury that might necessitate an airlift from your perch, bringing this part of your adventure to an end. We pay attention and watch our steps and where our hands are placed.

Toward the top of the hill, the ground levels quickly, and in a second, we enter a narrow canyon. At the same moment, the desert fades and is replaced with trees, monkeyflowers, ferns, and a small creek. The desire to look up and downriver from on high fades as new curiosity envelops the senses. What is all this greenery? Why is this oasis right here, and for how long during the year is it so fantastically lush? I want to be here just five minutes in an attempt to see and understand it all. No chance, we have a date with a destination in Saddle Canyon.

The trail leads us into a slot canyon, allowing us to see close-up the details left, right, and directly in front of us all at the same time. The mind’s eye buckles the knees of perception. Maybe the Grand Canyon is, in reality, a cascade of beauty designed as a cruel hint of what perfection might look like. Here I am again in a state of awe, reduced to a single-word vocabulary of, you guessed it, “Wow.”

The last part of the hike has us passing through a chest-deep pool of cold, murky brown water before coming upon a chockstone. This king-size rock from elsewhere up in the canyon has wedged into the slot and represents a bit of an obstacle for us. The boatmen reassure us that we can all get up here with a little help. A hidden handhold has been carved into the boulder; we are directed where to place one foot, then the other, now grab up there, push off, and if you need to, grab a boatman’s hand.

I am now on the shelf, flanked in intimacy by red sandstone, facing a clear pool and the hanging moss growing up the sides of this exclamation of a waterfall. The rarity of opportunities to witness this tiny hidden corner of our world is not lost on me. Never will it be possible to parade a million people into this shrine of Saddle Canyon. Maybe after the hike, others might feel that this experience is the most natural thing in the world, to be standing below such magnificence, but I must stop and take stock. How many times during my life will I be given this chance to be present in a space narrower than many a sidewalk, where a waterfall tumbles gently before me, performing a delicate concerto of wonder, gracing my ears with the soft rush of falling water, as it dances in the light, tickling my eyes?

As beautiful as it all is, it is not mine; I will not take a bit of it home. Aside from a few photographs. I can invest every sense of awareness at my muster, and still, the power of recollection is a weak recording mechanism. I keep on looking, observing, listening. I feel the cool breeze and step into the shallow water to immerse myself in the experience of having been in Saddle Canyon. I sit here a while, and still, mere seconds after I leave, the fading mental images will spill into uncertainty that such a beautiful place really ever existed, robbing me of the fleeting memories I try to latch onto. Maybe someday I’ll come back? But then, what of the other still unseen corners passed up for a visit to this place? Would they have been as beguiling? And what of this new thought of returning? It’s not really yet a glimmer of possibility, as this was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip down the Colorado, well, until this moment anyway.

Our return hike is met with a hint of rain as we retrace the steps that brought us here. The drizzle is easy to deal with, but if that light sprinkling were to grow to something more substantial, we can be happy to be well out of the depths of this slot canyon. After all, it has been the engineering of flash floods that have carved these channels in the first place. As we depart, another band of boaters is on their way in – pay attention, guys.

These are the first people outside of our group we have seen since leaving four days ago. The encounter feels awkward; a couple of nods are exchanged, they go their way, and we ours. How many times in our lives will we find ourselves isolated in a small cluster of less than a couple dozen people without contact with others? Rarely before was I more than hours or minutes away from a TV, telephone, radio, or the possibility of running into a stranger. Now, not 96 hours into this journey, the random passing of other people leaves me wondering: who was this other clan? Where did they come from? Will we see them again? Are they as astounded by this place in the Canyon as I am? Were they just as curious about our tribe? Now they are gone, and never again did our paths cross.

We remain in motion. There’s a keen sense of movement never-ending, from the moment of waking to the second we close our eyes to bid the day adieu. In the daily routine of life away from the Canyon, I can see how a treadmill existence grinds the momentum of awareness to a standstill. As we imperceptibly exercise what we know as adults and ever so incrementally nudge ourselves forward in life, the landscape changes little. Breakthroughs originating from our routines are rare, if they ever occur at all. But when presented with a constant flux of risk, adventure, isolation, quiet, and beautiful scenery, a persistent sense of awe opens, and each step into the next brings another new lesson, another new day. When every blink of the eye opens to the potential of finding memories best kept in the heart, we come alive in a new vibrancy, feeling the radiant glow of our soul. This growing excitement broadens our imagination’s horizon, and what might otherwise become routine is found to be the beginning of another new adventure.

We return to the dories to continue our epic opportunity of discovery. No more rain or gray sky; the short performance of raindrops was the closing curtain that told us to leave the stage of Saddle Canyon. The next minutes become a new day. As we inch down the river, the sky parts, brightening with fluffy white clouds that intermittently blot the sun, producing the sweeping show of shadow-and-light play on the canyon walls. Yesterday’s lead actor may have been Point Hansbrough; today’s star will surely be our next stop – Nankoweap.

As they were designed to be, the granaries of Nankoweap are nearly impossible to spot from a distance. Even with a person who has visited the Canyon countless times pointing directly at them and accurately describing where to look at the cliff-side, these ancient seed stores remain out of sight. Then, out of the confusion of broken rock and rubble, the pattern of the four – now permanently – open windows is revealed, the regularity standing out as though a spotlight is cast on the granaries. I have admired many a photograph that certainly flatters their beauty, perched high above the Colorado, but the approach from the river below, as we glide by before pulling ashore, offers an appreciation of their veiled location that is hard to convey by word, photo, or film.

The Ancestral Puebloans who chose to live riverside in the desert of the inner Canyon did not stake out the easiest of places to live. Nothing about life down here could have been simple aside from finding intense beauty. Hiking the steep trails between river and rim is hard work. The Colorado would have brought driftwood for fires, but wood to build with would have to have been dragged down from the rim. The rainy season is similar to that of the southwest desert, with heavy monsoonal downpours coming on in July and August when daytime temperatures frequently climb well into the hundreds. After these episodes of torrential rains, the Canyon roars into fury as waterfalls score the cliff-sides and crash with thunderous effects into the river below. Evidence of hundreds of waterfalls can be seen throughout the Canyon. These storms could have damaged trails, made side canyons impassable, and floods may have destroyed crops. Still, the Ancient Ones would persist against this hostile environment for many years before ultimately abandoning the Canyon. Why they left is open to speculation, but some evidence points to an extended period of drought beginning near the year 1150 that appears to have initiated a major migration out of the area.

Part of what they left behind in their departure may be the most photographed and famous granaries in North America; they are found right here, at this bend in the river at mile 52 – Nankoweap. From Little Nankoweap Camp, where we will stay this evening, we track back upriver, passing through another group’s campsite and over a trail that starts out flat but, near the foot of the cliff, changes into a steep scree slope. After ascending the majority of the elevation gain necessary to visit the ruin, the remainder of the trail is a narrow shelf, cutting a switchback up the final yards before we are able to seat ourselves right up in front of these historic granaries.

Here, where I sit on the edge of this cliff-side, at some time in the distant past, another man or woman likely sat after having dragged a part of the harvest to be stored and sealed in this water- and pest-proof, well-camouflaged enclosure. How do I filter the conditioning of modernity to see the world through their eyes? What were the thoughts and feelings of the people who sat here a thousand years before me?

Nankoweap’s four windows into the past now act as reminders of the culture that is long gone. There is no more seed waiting to be planted, no more food to be collected and shared. From below the cliff to the riverside in the distance, the fields that once held crops have long been fallow and will remain so as long as the Grand Canyon is a part of the National Park Service. The Native Americans who visited this corner of the Colorado Plateau for more than 11,000 years left little to help us understand who they were, but as I sit here looking out, I do feel I can know a small part of them. They, too, must have held dear the sense of beauty. Up here, one can see the river continue its timeless flow; canyon walls change color as the day goes by, and shadows chase each other. Unhurried, I embrace the luxury of remaining in the moment, trying to honor and share this humbling recognition of the incredible spectacle nature has created at this bend in the Canyon with those Ancestral Puebloans, in whose home I am a guest.

It is here at Nankoweap that I learn a new reason to appreciate the professionalism of our boatmen. As our group sat next to the granary, a bunch of rafters from a private trip lined up on the trail below us to take our places once we were to depart. That would be a while, as Jeffe was just telling us about the agricultural practices of the Ancestral Puebloans. As we listened, so did the newcomers. It was then that I began to suspect that these travelers likely didn’t have talented storytellers along who would bring the lore, history, and geography of the Canyon to their ears each day and night. How privileged we are to be accompanied by seasoned guides, and how much more may be taken from this journey due to their presence.

Our guides are experts in many small and some large ways, often, this is best evidenced when sharing their knowledge and following in the steps of oral traditions found across time and culture. We are not simply riding the whitewater and hiking; we are being immersed in a totality of experience and wisdom that paints memories with more than the eyes alone can capture. There is no sense of being corralled by teaching lessons; we are free to lend an ear and enjoy learning even more about our temporary home. As we left the granaries, the group that had been waiting patiently thanked Jeffe, each and every one of them, as did we.

How does one get from here to there? Not in the physical sense; I’m referring to the recurring theme of time distortion I keep coming back to. There we were, walking away from Nankoweap on a slow stroll back to camp, lost in conversation, lost in the landscape, lost in history, arriving at who knows what time. Instead of wandering about, following every last ray of light, weary feet, and legs convince the body above them to take a seat next to the crackling fire. The time between sitting down and having dinner could have been spent staring into the fire, admiring the sunset, talking, writing, or hovering near the kitchen, watching the preparation of our evening meal. Whatever it was that kept my attention also captured my sense of time; ate it whole, as a matter of fact. Was it the unimaginable scale of the environment around me, the distance of time stretching into antiquity, or the magnitude of history on display? I can’t be certain which distraction was the culprit, but I do know that from the point when I sat down until after dinner, my mind took an exit from the overwhelming to enjoy the quiet of being still.

Next thing I know, Kenney is reading for us “The Muffler and the Law” from David Lee’s book of poems titled The Porcine Canticles. The poem tells the story of a pig farmer on his way to a hog auction in a truck with a busted muffler. He gets pulled over and fined by a humorless police officer but manages to balance the scales of the perceived injustice with the help of his friend’s big black sow, to the chagrin of this officer of the law. Retired State Trooper Steve “Sarge” Alt is the first to succumb to sidesplitting, infectious laughter; sitting next to him, First Light Frank is second to lose his composure. These two guys are soon rolling around in their chairs, laughing uncontrollably, dragging us all right with them. More than once, Kenney is forced to take pause to bring his own laughter down a notch. He finishes the poem to howls and knee slaps.

This would be a hard act to follow under any other circumstances, but here in the Canyon, we are being groomed to accept whatever comes next. Bruce steps right up to grab the reins and our attention. The encore to the humor is a poignant reminder from desert sage Edward Abbey, who delivered the following words as part of a speech to environmentalists in Missoula, Montana, many a year ago:

“One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourself out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast… a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it is still there. So get out there and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to your body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.”

Bruce wasn’t finished with us yet; he sent us off with a nightcap. He, too, uses a poem, one that he brings out on longer river trips on which the people along for the journey have made a commitment to go further. It’s not everyone who signs up for an 18-day adventure where neither showers, toilets, cozy beds, room service, nor TV is to be found. Those who opt for the convenience of a few days, maybe a week, maybe simply dipping a toe into the waters, or could be collecting quick trophy locations from their bucket list of 100 places to visit in a lifetime. But for the intrepid souls who make the bigger commitment, he brings out an old poet who speaks to the guts of every one of us on this path; that man is Robert Service. Bruce’s selection is from the book The Spell Of The Yukon And Other Verses, published in 1907:

The Call Of The Wild

Have you gazed on naked grandeur
where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence?
Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.

Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,
The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert’s little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills,
have you galloped o’er the ranges,
Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa?
Do you know its moods and changes?
Then listen to the Wild – it’s calling you.

Have you known the Great White Silence,
not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?
(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies.)
Have you broken trail on snowshoes?
mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map’s void spaces,
mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is,
can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the Wild – it’s wanting you.

Have you suffered, starved and triumphed,
groveled down, yet grasped at glory,
Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
“Done things” just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,
Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?

Have you seen God in His splendors,
heard the text that nature renders?
(You’ll never hear it in the family pew.)
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things –
Then listen to the Wild – it’s calling you.

They have cradled you in custom,
they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you’re a credit to their teaching –
But can’t you hear the Wild? – it’s calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There’s a whisper on the night-wind,
there’s a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling . . . let us go.

–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.

Wake up, coffee, eat, last call for everything. Get on board. A minute later, everyone get off – we’re here. Here, is on the beach across from camp for a look at a boulder lying just beyond the grasses, not far from where we landed. In a quick second, we will have an up-close inspection of one of the many minute details found in the Canyon, while for the majority of visitors to this National Park today, the view will be from the rim well above us. Up there, we make a snap judgment about what lies down below, thinking we have seen and now know the Grand Canyon. It is convenient then to believe we understand, to some extent, what this giant canyon is that stretches out in all directions.

Down here, things are not so obvious or simple. My head doesn’t wrap so neatly around a compact and tidy explanation or observation. Even with the accumulating details of geology and history as I understand them, there is too much to be experienced here for an individual to find easy answers. The enormity of the Canyon’s story spills through my mind, allowing me to approach but a fraction of what is here. While the scope of it is understood as being in the realm of the possible, I am struck with stunning incredulity that yesterday, I was looking at fossils nearly 100 feet above my head. And now, this morning, after slicing ever deeper through the layers of sandstone, we are looking at another nautiloid fossil embedded right here before us in this rock.

In the coming days, as we descend further into the strata, we will continue to stumble upon the historic record of life that preceded us. We will stand in fascination and awe that locked in stone is the imprint of a life form, peering at us through millions of years, awaiting our arrival to verify that “it” once existed and, for a while, thrived. If you cannot see your own temporal life in these terms, will you be able to cherish this fraction of a second that you have been afforded to explore the surface of Earth during your own time? Our greatest contributions to life are found in the creativity of the written, musical, and visual – the arts of being human. Machines, technologies, and automation may offer us convenience and even longer lives, but what mark will I leave that stand the test of time? An extinct plant or creature can have a presence millions of years beyond the time it was alive. We, like all life, struggle to be alive, to be known, and then to be eternal. How will the record of our own brief layer in the sandstone of geological time be read? Will a distant life shed a tear of joy for the beauty and understand the nature of a long-gone human? Or will it weep that only the fossilized remains of cars, plastics, and radioactive waste etched a record of rapid extinction into the stone?

From the fossilized record of what was, we come to a modern relic known as boatman, oarsman, river guide, and, in my eyes, shepherd. Who are these people of a burly nature piloting the dories we travel on? How did they come to be married to a path that would enlighten, inspire, and lend knowledge from a character so large? And then, instead of holding their treasure of experience to themselves, they sacrifice their bodies and personal relationships to share all, in the remote chance they will bump into that rare individual whose soul needs this medicine of spirit and place.

One day, the man at the helm is a stranger; the next day, he is a book to be learned from; on the third, he’s becoming a giant. Certainly, before this trek is over, he will attain mythical proportions, blending into and becoming one with the river and Canyon. Then, you will begin to understand that you, too, are on your way to being a figurative boatman, a guide, a shepherd in your own right. When this journey is over, you will be back at home in your community, nudging your own flock to find the beauty in all that is around them and within.

Today, that person with responsibility for my well-being sits at the oars wearing a skirt. He is Stephen Winston Kenney, a man as large as the dory in his charge, as woolly of character as the beard adorning his kind face, and as friendly as his southern accent suggests he should be. If ever there was a man who could wrestle these rapids and do so while wearing a dress, yet leave no doubt that this is a man’s man, he is right here in the form of this boatman. With another Steve amongst the passengers, boatman Steve, who we would see wearing various colorful skirts and hats of all types, will, for the duration of the next week’s answer to Kenney; the story of his dresscapades will be told shortly.

While everyone on the river will certainly have their own unique circumstances that brought them to the world of rowing, it was Kenney’s we first learned of, floating here in Marble Canyon. As a graduate of the much-respected institution of higher learning known as Sewanee, The University of the South, Kenney had been offered a relatively easy path into the world of corporate America. This wasn’t to last long, as his father had an encounter with destiny in the form of a stroke and subsequent cancer early in his retirement, denying him his sunset years. Kenney’s house of corporate cards came tumbling down on this particular square peg, which all of a sudden no longer fit the shape he’d been groomed to occupy. Through a series of events, and that proverbial one thing leading to another, Kenney found himself in Terlingua, Texas, and Big Bend National Park. Hello, world of rafting.

Well, that’s not too big a stretch, experiencing the evolution of moments that change one’s life from one of stability and a regular paycheck to earning barely a livable wage, moving human cargo through danger in the face of life-threatening forces of nature. But just how does the dress enter the picture? For that, we travel to Salida, Colorado, and an innocent wager that could have been easily walked away from. Kenney, though, was too busy rowing into change and adventure to let this one pass. It was a silly drinking bet versus a “really dumb wager” that a dare was entered into. Talking with “The Brown Girl,” a woman Kenney knew from Terlingua, these two arrived at a point in the conversation where, who knows how we get to these points, she challenged our guy to throw on a dress before sauntering into the local den of wickedness – a biker bar. If he were to win the bet, Kenney would enjoy a night of drinking at this woman’s expense. He warned her that he would likely drink her entire paycheck away. Her response, “Maybe you could, but I’ll first have the enjoyment of watching you in a dress walk into a bar full of shit-kicking bikers already half-drunk on a Saturday night.”

As the week goes by, Kenney visits the local second-hand store, trying to find something that contrasted nicely with his massive beard, would demand attention and would fit a guy standing 6’2”. Sorry, but the details regarding color, print, or cut are not revealed as we sit on the edge of our seats, waiting for what was to come next. Saturday night is here, the dress is on, the front door only needs a push, and the bet will be won. Like entering a rapid, once the momentum of the rushing water has taken hold, you are not going to go against the current; you may as well gird yourself and hold on. And into the crowd, the man in a dress strode. Next goal was the bar where, as nonchalantly as possible under these circumstances, Kenney would order a beer just as any number of these men, clad in black jeans, black t-shirts, black leather vests and jackets, and head-stomping black leather boots, had been doing prior to the bearded princess strolling in to defile their cave of man-ness.

Well, that was easy enough, “Could I have won a night of drinking with so little effort?” If he had, he probably wouldn’t have had a growing sense of unease. What happened next began in the back of the bar and was related to him by the Brown Girl losing this daring wager. An alpha biker of considerable heft departed his game of pool to move towards the bar with the swagger of John Wayne. In slow-motion tension, reminiscent of a duel at high noon, the crowd begins to part, allowing Kenney’s death wish fantasy to play out like a poorly scripted B movie.

Halfway across the bar, our boatman now senses the sounds behind him are changing and that it is quite likely someone is approaching to discuss a dress code violation. Not knowing who or how many are coming his way, he clenches hard on the beer bottle in his right hand as a potential weapon. The man’s voice reaches Kenney before the sight of him does. Thundering out of this human boulder is a string of curses using a foulness of words that, if it were not for the fact that an altercation was about to ensue, Kenney would have stood in awe. The mastery of the talk-down that is enveloping his manhood, his ancestral past, present, and future, draws in images of depravity that should make hearty men blush. Kenney takes inventory of the situation, recognizing this linguist of the profane is also adequately equipped to clean his clock and toss his second-hand dress to the floor where it will be collected and used as bandages.

Then, in a breath, the biker asks our catwalk beauty why he shouldn’t inflict the damage Kenney should know is about to begin. Weighing the beer bottle in his tight-fisted grip, Kenney has less than a second to decide if he should try to get one good blow in or resign himself to a new reality of pain. Instead, he leans back and, with his soft-spoken southern drawl, calmly and almost in a whisper, offers this: “Brother, I have no doubt you can kick my ass, and if you do, your friends back there will congratulate you on kicking the crap out of a man in a dress. But if by chance, and yes, it is a big if, if I were to somehow get a couple of good shots in and I kick your ass, you will forever be known as the guy who got the shit kicked out of him by a man in a dress.” Fair enough, says the biker and returns to his pool table.

Kenney’s dory, the Lost Creek, continues to float through Marble Canyon. It would be here on this calm water where I figure out that there is nothing quite like a man in a dress to distract and disarm folks into finding some levity when faced with a situation that might appear tense and dangerous. I hope Kenney has packed some pink chiffon for the scarier whitewater that lies ahead.

That we are here in Marble Canyon at all could be considered a great gift. Thirty-nine point seven miles from Lees Ferry and enough experience in these short 48 hours that if this were the extent of a Colorado River trip, one could not feel cheated. There has already been so much beauty to behold, so much to appreciate, and so much river that could today be under 300 feet of water. It was here, near mile 39 in Marble Canyon, that a proposed dam came close to being built back in the 1950s. Thanks to the efforts of Grand Canyon dory pioneer Martin Litton and the Sierra Club, the development of yet another dam on the Colorado was halted.

Had Marble Canyon Dam not been fought off, Lees Ferry may have been the put-in point for a 40-mile long lake trip, but never again would a boat find a launch onto the greater Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. Today, we stand in the shadow of Martin Litton, who hoisted himself atop the shoulders of John Wesley Powell, ecologist Aldo Leopold, and founder of Friends of the Earth David Brower, before tearing a page from John Muir’s book of positive action to work on behalf of humanity to save this important corner of Earth. Our boatmen understand this legacy and are proud to share a small part of the life of an extraordinary man who helped gift them this career of guiding dories, rafts, and passengers down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

Our stop at the proposed dam site allows us to take inventory of our good fortune. Boreholes drilled through the rock formation scar the view. Large, rusting bolts are still embedded in rock. Attached to them are pieces of the cables that once stretched from river to rim for moving men and supplies to work. Two rotting, wood-hulled boats that were part of the operation lay in ruin; the boatmen point out that they have shifted since the previous month’s torrential rains. One day, these reminders of man’s invasive actions will crumble into the river, dragging away a small part of what had been an attempt to desecrate a place many insist is the greatest canyon on Earth and home to one of the planet’s most incredible rivers. A place where the curious can enjoy what is quite possibly the most unique river trip a person will ever take.

How strange the idea that some can find beauty in a place while others can be dismissive of any other value aside from the money to be made by its exploitation and, ultimately, its destruction. I suppose the two sides could be seen as equals while simultaneously being polar opposites. We are both, in a sense, greedy, one for the aesthetics found in the random display of natural beauty to be shared with all humanity, the other greedy to feed their pocket. But while one’s pocket may find temporary fulfillment, it will soon be emptied, while my mind and imagination, once fed, will forever carry my wealth of experience. I, for one, must join in thanks to Martin Litton for this day because, without his tireless efforts against the crushing bulwark of bureaucracy, none of us would be running the Colorado, not on dories, rafts, powerboats, kayaks, or naked on inner-tubes.

From river stories and history to technical skills and experience, passing on this body of knowledge and tradition happens on many different levels. Back on the river, another hand-off of the baton is about to take place. The women who row our supply rafts are volunteers trying to accumulate enough experience to graduate to Grand Canyon Dory guides. They are already great boatmen and guides on other rivers, but down here, they are journeymen, honing their skills until one of the coveted positions is vacated by a boatman moving on. Kenney offers Andrea the Lost Creek for a stretch. The next miles will be rowed by this woman in command of a strong nature and tremendous ability, who, from the seat she occupies, will gently dip the oars into the river and pull us along. Andrea guides us slowly and surely to our next shore.

Far above us, shadows of the Ancient Ones alight upon our senses. A footbridge, long unused and now in disrepair, stands as a fragile signpost that this trail was once taken by people who are long gone. Ever-present whispers of the Ancestral Puebloans still echo between these walls of stone. Their graffiti will frequently litter our way forward, a kind of fossilized language of symbols – the neon signs of their time are now burnt out and mostly unreadable. During their lives, they found a home here in the Canyon, built shelters, and grew crops, saving food and seed in the scattered granaries for when these items would be needed in the future. Abandoned mano metates used for grinding corn and grain, commonly known as mortar and pestle, could be dispersed anywhere in the Canyon, confused with any one of the billions of rocks strewn about. The fingerprints of the early inhabitants of the Grand Canyon are found lingering far beyond their physical presence, just like the crumbling bridge seen here showing us their path. If you should look down and find a discarded pottery shard, make a close inspection, as you may see the impression of a palm or thumbprint, looking as though it were pressed into wet clay just yesterday. Maybe the Ancient Ones never really left or are never very far away at all.

One more small bit of whitewater to contend with today. We cruise through President Harding Rapid, named by the 1923 United States Geological Survey expedition. Upon hearing of the death of the President, these ten men, on a mission to create a more accurate map of the Canyon interior, saw it befitting Harding’s memory to designate this rapid in his honor. By the time of their summer run in 1923, only 27 others had made this journey down the Colorado. After the rapid, there is but a short run around the corner to mile 44 and lunch.

Our midday meal stop will also mean an early end to our time on the river here on day three. This will be our home for the night; we have landed on the beach at Eminence Camp. Rafts are unloaded with haste, as is the routine when reaching our stopover. While we set up tents, the crew chooses their kitchen location, the Unit site is scouted, and it so happens on occasion that campers must be told that they are setting up where the toilet will stand. With the sun at full shine, the solar shower is rigged up riverside; using an oar, a length of rope, and a sand stake, one of the black shower bags that have been basking in the warm sun rays is hoisted – a modern-day pirate flag. Water is gravity-fed to a small shower head, letting those who want a hot shower fare better than those who will opt for the cold river and a quick APC bath – Arm Pits & Crotch.

Rondo shouts over the noise of the river that hikers need to gear up, fill water bottles, and be ready to go in ten minutes. Those not hiking are invited to hang out and chill, enjoy a book, a shower, or a nap. Shortly thereafter, the group is assembled, and with Rondo leading the way, we walk upriver a short distance, turn right, and look up the steep, nearly invisible trail tracking up Eminence Break. If ever there was the idea that this was going to be a relaxing vacation, those thoughts are about to be banished. By the time we reach our observation and resting point, after climbing up nearly 1000 feet over Muav Limestone into the Redwall Limestone, touching upon the Supai group, blisters have taken hold of my flatlander’s feet, and the pause to catch our breath is greatly appreciated, not to imply I hadn’t rested multiple times already while bringing up the rear.

Point Hansbrough towers across from us; the Colorado flows around it, forming a horseshoe bend. From this perspective, I can witness the panorama of the Canyon, the scale of this turn in the river reinforcing my sense of largeness. On the river, horizons shrink and narrow; I become small and grow distant from the civilization I left behind. Sitting on dories inches above the river, I look over our domain, and while on calm water, we are the humans in control – rapids change that equation, but hopefully only for seconds. The canyon walls stand high, blocking the view of how far we are from the civilization of familiarity we have left behind. From a thousand feet above our campsite, the boats are tiny; people are difficult to see unless some movement lets one differentiate between tree, rock, and person.

Up here, everything around me is bright and sunny. There are no shadows besides the ones we cast as the sun attempts to fill all nooks and crannies; that isn’t the story down on the river. And yet, our place up here is not the total “up high.” That is still far above us, up even steeper cliff-sides, climbing to a rim where I can only imagine cars and busy people might be. But I don’t want to think of that world, the noise or the urgency afflicting the minds and actions of people who feel everything must be done now and consumed now. Maybe I could just sit here like a cactus, waiting for the next nourishing rainfall, growing atop rocks and a thin layer of soil, content to not move at all. Me and my thorny nature at one with and belonging to the Canyon, not an inch out-of-place, just another small element in this perfect scenery.

But a cactus I am not; time to be the rolling stone and get moving down the mountain. The jagged, narrow trail tests my ability to place a well-anchored foot if I want to remain free of injury. The climb downhill is hardly any quicker than the scramble up. With the speed of confident bighorn sheep adept at gliding over precarious ledges, the hikers out front are gone in a flash. If I, too, race from here to there, will I have ever had the chance to collect the finer details of what this trail looked like, how the elevation change shifts the overall view, or what plants, insects, or small animals hide just the other side of what I ran past?

It’s late in the afternoon when Caroline and I limp back into camp. The cooks are in the kitchen, and it’s still warm out here in the red glow of sunset, the perfect time for a dip to clean up. Not that there really is a perfect time to become acquainted with this cold Colorado water, but the dirt of the trail, the sweat, and that it is Sunday have coincided with an alignment of planets, suggesting that now may be my best chance to doff the clothes and find myself in my birthday suit glory for what could be my one and only river bath.

Caroline goes first, taking her place a good distance from Paul, who is using the solar shower while Jeffe and Bruce are cleaning up in the shallows upstream. With her best imitation of nonchalance, she strips off her modesty and, standing as discreetly as a woman can who is naked to the world, proceeds to be initiated in the ritual of a Colorado River bath. Heed the cautious tales of those who have found themselves sinking slow and imperceptibly into the suck-mud. Once it has a sturdy grip on your foot and ankle, panic may not be far away as you and your bareness grapple with trying to yank one limb from the mud while sinking deeper with the other, and your mind raises the question of just when do you yell for help? Luckily, Caroline, buoyed by her laughter at the situation, is able to free herself without attracting the attention of anyone else in camp.

Now it’s my turn. Having been knee-deep in a dory full of cold river with waves crashing overhead, water sneaking past waterproof clothes pulled snug, I have confidence that my parts know what I’m about to step into. Sure enough, the feet and ankles enter the river with nary a flinch; it’s everything above the shins that is shocked and sensitized by the frigid immersion of a body fighting the impulse to flee. I grab Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap and start lathering the essentials before uncontrolled shivering might flop me into the river like a fish out of it. I scrub fast and furiously, a little dab here and a hint of soap there, and then 7 seconds later, it’s time to rinse. What in God’s green earth was Dr. Bronner thinking when he put peppermint into his soap concoction anyway? The last thing I need right now, in addition to the bite of cold river water, is a tingling in the nethers. On the other hand, this leaves no doubt as to what precisely was washed. There, I did it! I have had my official baptism in the heart of the Canyon. Should I decide to live in full raunch for the next two weeks, I will forever know the feeling of naked skin to icy cold water on the day I, of my own volition, bathed in the oldest all-natural tub I may ever step into. Back on dry land, I quickly jump into my clothes and make a beeline for camp and a hot meal.

Do tarantulas like fajitas? Probably not, but one large, hairy specimen of the arachnid family is sauntering up our beach, doing its best to bring horror movie thrills to dinner. Our eight-legged visitor is allowed passage, slowly making its way home, or maybe it, too is looking for dinner or a warm spot near the fire. Around our glowing and warm camp circle, a noticeable comfort sits with us. It could be our full bellies, but my guess is that we are relaxing away from our fear of the rapids, we are becoming familiar with one another, and we are finding the rhythm of life on the Colorado.

This wonderful day of terrific moments, gorgeous weather, fantastic sights, and a great crew combined with delightful passengers conspired to deliver nothing to complain about. Drama was kept at bay; silly antics were not to be part of the itinerary.

From my notebook of that night:

Twenty-two people sitting in the dark, canyon wall sentinels surrounding us, stars high in the sky. Civilization is disappearing. We are some 40 miles from the memory of what our other lives were. These 22 people are slipping into the historic, the tribal; we are transitioning to a point where we are alone but one with the Canyon. We cannot leave one another. We are being brought together by these tribal leaders, four men and three women, who guide, feed, entertain, and teach us how to live as a small community. We help each other to not be alone in a world bigger than our limited experience, with a view that has been narrowed by the needs of a society that doesn’t cherish the individual or honor the nature that is our shared home. I have to wonder if we as a nation have lost the nomad and replaced the campfire with a television. When did we lose the curiosity to explore, to sit around and talk, to know that we were part of a community?

The circle of these 22 souls has drawn closer. The fire whips in the wind while the voices of our boatmen fill the air with song and story. Some of us share this with a loved one, some shed a tear, and some must celebrate within themselves. But tonight, we have all begun to share with one another.

–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.

It’s 5:00 a.m., and the combination of full bladder and restlessness jostle me awake. The crew introduces me to a sound that will become all too familiar in the coming days: the metallic whoosh of pressurized propane, firing the stove that heats the water for our coffee. I give in to the idea of waking and would happily step outside, but I’m finding the pull tab of my sleeping bag stuck, requiring minutes of mummy-like wrestling with a zipper that only wants to eat more bag. Cursing my predicament, I would rather be outside emptying the little blue bucket we had picked up last night to ease the pressure of the bladder, but I’m a prisoner right now. One and all, we were encouraged to place a bucket next to our tents before retiring for the evening. In the past, trips to the river at midnight while half-asleep have resulted in passengers taking a fall or a swim, later to be found sleeping in the sand or floating downstream, and not in a good way. Finally, having escaped my entrapment, I deliver our bucket to the river for emptying and rinsing before finding relief for myself. Maybe two buckets last night would have been in order.

Back at the tent, I help Caroline pack our waterproof sacks, called “dry bags,” trying to get an early start. We are still unfamiliar with the process of getting organized on a river and don’t want to be laggards. The dark blue-gray twilight will soon give way to the pastel blues and pinks that accompany the rising desert sun. The call for coffee goes out, but we focus on pulling down our tent and dragging bags riverside so they may gain passage aboard the rafts that accompany the dories.

First call for breakfast. Boxed milk and dry cereal is what I was expecting, but that isn’t on the menu today – well, it is if one really wants it. The hot choice is apple banana pancakes, butter, warmed real maple syrup, bacon, and fresh sliced cantaloupe. A loud pronouncement of “First light!” breaks through the morning quiet. It is customary in the Canyon for the person who sees the first golden rays of sunlight falling on the rim above to make the announcement that first light has been seen. We have now learned how First Light Frank earned his nickname. Frank’s official title is Swamper; this is an unpaid position for a couple of lucky individuals who are along to help the boatmen in exchange for free passage on one of the supply rafts. More than half an hour passes between eating breakfast, washing our dishes, and getting lost in our first ever sunrise on the Colorado within the Grand Canyon. Where did the time go?

The call of nature and my body are moving towards synchronicity, with an apparent intent to cooperate. While it shouldn’t, or wouldn’t, normally show up in a book, this movement is not like that of normal times. This reference must surely be categorized as too much information, but the coffee and breakfast bring on that old familiar downward pressure, signaling me that I’m about to have my first encounter with the Unit. The luck of it all is that the key sits alone, allowing me to head directly to La Pooperia. Up and over hill and sand dune, this moment of exercise adds urgency, blotting out any idea of considering what must happen next. Snap, zip, up with the lid, and hello river view. Now, while the Unit is a good distance from camp and offers great privacy from your fellow passengers, it will remain set in plain view of the bigger world for the duration of this trip, with a startlingly clear window of everything else but camp. Settled in, comfortable, and content with the ease with which I adapt to what yesterday seemed awkward, I take up my best imitation of Rodin’s famous statue, the Thinker, and quickly begin to think too much. What if another boat trip was floating downstream right now? Would I clamp down on the plumbing and try to slink away unseen through the grasses? Or would I put on a big happy smile and wave enthusiastically? No need to test my fight-or-flight response, and without crisis or issue, my business is done, and the key is handed off to the next person now in line. I wash my hands.

In quick order, rafts are packed and bags tied down, the kitchen is stowed, last call for the toilet before it’s resealed and dropped on a raft. If you are not in your waterproof gear, you should soon get that way – Rondo promises us a Big Rapid Day. Just before 9:00 a.m. Caroline and I push off on the One Eyed Jack with Bruce at the oars. We are the second dory in line and, within seconds, are making our way into Soap Creek Rapid. Sitting next to my wife, I believe I can feel her adrenalin pumping in rhythm with my own. Blinking one’s eyes is slower than the speed at which the first splash comes out of nowhere, crashing into the dory. The cold water begins to compress the air from my lungs, a second bigger wave finds entry into my jacket and a path down the back of my neck – my remaining oxygen is now gone. I gasp and try to refocus my river-washed eyes in time to see a third wave about to finish filling our floating pool. With feet chilling faster than thighs, the water is almost bearable around my waist compared to the ice wrapping my shins as body heat retreats into my torso. The command to start bailing is a terrific distraction. We unhook the plastic laundry soap bottles with their bottoms cut off and caps screwed on tightly and begin heaving water out of the dory at a gallon per throw. Hysterical laughter of having survived grips us, alleviating some of the cold. We keep on bailing.

Anxiety gives way to exhilaration, the skill of the boatman moderates the fear, and the falling of tension allows our minds to relax into observing our environment clearly. Our eyes not only focus on the white turbulent chaos of the rapid but are now beginning to take aim at what else is here as the river begins its churning descent through the constriction that whips the calm into whitewater.

The first element of beauty our gaze takes pause on is the “tongue.” The tongue is the part of the rapid where the water is at its deepest. In these seductive yards of river that drag us into the heart of fury, the flow becomes a smooth undulation of glass where, for a few brief moments, an almost frictionless silent calm delivers the dory into perfect harmony with its environment before crashing into reality and thrusting us into the rapid. Next up are the “pour-overs,” where a smooth sheet of water tumbles over a buried rock wall or large boulder, creating a water curtain hiding the danger before the falling water begins its churn into whitewater. On our sides, shallow rock gardens, often covered in tendrils of algae, agitate the water, acting as dire warnings to stay away from the edges of the river.

We are learning the language of the river with the hope of finding a growing comfort with its expression. The better we can read the fluid signposts, the easier it becomes to pay attention to the complexity of details and anticipate what our boatmen require of us to maintain an upright dory and dry passengers. Today, it is dawning on me that our boatmen read a rapid as we might respond to cues as we drive our cars at home on city streets. We are taking our first baby steps in learning how to navigate the road ahead.

Anonymous sandstone cliffs rise above us, casting long shadows. They have names we’ve heard before, but today, they elude us. This layer cake of history stretches over hundreds of millions of years, represented by what at one time was more than 25,000 feet of earthen deposits. Some are of marine origin, while others formed as mountains crumbled, deserts came and went, and winds scattered what was left. As geologists moved into the Canyon, they identified the age and composition of the geologic record in this grand display. They brought order by assigning names to layers, helping one another know what period in the historical record others might be referring to. Tapeats, Coconino, Kaibab, and a multitude of other indecipherable names would come to identify the rock from top to bottom. Deep below, in the basement, they found Vishnu Schist. Two billion years of Earth’s history were exposed to the prying eyes of a people looking to understand our origins.

Canyon details begin to move into focus and become defined as the boatmen point to specific features. Folds, uplifts, fault lines, erosion, rocks, falls, patina, coves, and seeps will enter our vocabulary and take their place in our memories. We will encounter fossils underfoot and high overhead throughout these days. Plants grow from impossible locations: on quarter-inch-wide barren rock ledges or next to the tiniest trickle of water being squeezed through millions of tons of petrified sediments.

Fluted rock must surely be some of the most intriguing displays created by a chance encounter between a random stone, solid rock, and water. First, a stone of appropriate size must find its way into a depression or chip on the top of a stationary rock. Water flowing over the surface of this rock and the loose stone produces turbulence, spinning and rattling the abrasive stone. Years pass with the tumbling agitation slowly drilling a cavity to form an ever-deepening pit until one day; it has created the distinctive flute-like shape we see next to the river. Over time, the loose stone causing this phenomenon erodes and disappears from the pocket it created. The process takes a pause until another stone on its way to the river falls into the flute, and the excavation continues.

We are about to get serious. It was announced this morning that we would be wearing helmets today; that point is here. On the approach to House Rock Rapid, we pull ashore. The boatmen need to scout the conditions of the river, which has broken into a loud roar. They huddle, point, and confer as their collective experience brings the group to a decision on how they will guide us safely through the next giant. “Helmets on!”

Our dory glides sideways on the tongue of House Rock Rapid, and with a deft and mighty pull at the oar, Bruce points our boat downstream in an instant. We skirt a wall of water, slice through a wave, and shimmy over raucous whitewater while excitement rules the flow of things. In seconds, it’s over; the helmets come off. This was the first rapid where helmets were called for, and there weren’t two gallons of water in our footwell. Our appreciation for the skills of the boatmen soars.

Soon, we’ll be passing mile 19 and entering the Twenties, the 10-mile stretch of river with the highest concentration of rapids in the Canyon. We are promised that more thrills are approaching. For me, the thrills have been coming on for quite some time. It was almost a year ago in November when we first learned of the cancellation that would allow us to sign up for this adventure. Over the ensuing eleven months, not a day went by that didn’t see me thinking of our launch date and what this trip might have in store for us. I read a dozen books, studied maps, sought out photos, watched videos on YouTube, and devoured every Grand Canyon documentary I could put my hands on. Our deposit check was signed on my wife’s birthday during a walk in the snow along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. On Memorial Day weekend, a short road trip from Phoenix brought us to the North Rim for a couple of days of hiking. On the way, we stopped at Lees Ferry to stand on the beach and imagine that in less than 60 days, we would be boarding dories from here for the beginning of what we anticipated to be the most exciting adventure of our lives so far. In other words, that a big rapid should hold any particular excitement is muted by the fact that each and every second today surpasses any ideas I had during those months of waiting and wondering what the best part of a Grand Canyon river trip would be. Add to that a growing recognition that it will prove impossible to extract any single greatest moment, as I have already experienced so many of those in just the first 24 hours.

And before you know it, another small beach is taken as our midday dining room. Today’s lunch plans move like lightning. Within minutes of landing, the Pringles, PBJ, and sliced fruit table is up and being crowded with hungry explorers. The main table requires an extra few seconds before last night’s leftover salmon is unpacked and set next to two large bowls of cream cheese, one colored reddish by sun-dried tomatoes, the other green by chiles. Sliced avocado, tomato, lettuce, and onion to be stacked thick on a variety of bagels completes the offering. Forty-five minutes later we are fastening our life jackets and taking our seats to see what’s next.

Once more, the river is still and we float, forward, backward, sideways. Sometimes, we are close enough to other dories that the boatmen chat; at other times, we drift alone. Bruce directs our attention overhead on “river left.” River left and right is based on the perspective of facing downstream. Up there, he points higher, there in the overhang – the fossilized impressions of nautiloid shells are seen. Maybe 100 feet above the river lies the record noting the existence of early mollusks. They are now locked in the petrified sediments of the Kaibab Formation after coming to rest on a seafloor at the end of their lives a couple hundred million years ago. These nautiloid impressions are a fragment of Earth’s past on display for a few lucky people rowing by millions of years later. For a moment, we are like worms tunneling through the planet’s history.

Again, rapids approach, but this time, Bruce invites one of us upfront to try our hand at bow-riding. Caroline takes the honors and climbs out atop the bow for a ride through Silver Grotto Rapid. She grabs hold of the bowpost and crosses her feet to lock her ankles together, thinking, “Just how different is the view of this rapid going to be? Will I get wetter up here? What are the chances of falling off?” On the bow, you sit high above the dory, seeing all sides of the rapid. The bow dips momentarily and then begins to climb the first wave, thrusting you to thrilling heights before reaching the fulcrum of the wave and dipping again on a race deep into the trough that appears much deeper than it really is. Just as you think there is no end to going down and you are about to submerge, the dory starts its ride up the next wave. The bucking bronco is in full swing. Going from an exhilarating lift and thrust forward to plunging down and low, Caroline holds fast to the bow post, but the ride is all too soon over. Climbing off her perch, the excitement is reflected in her eyes and is captured in her smile. She exclaims, “That was amazing!”

With so many other things occupying the senses, I had hardly noticed the overcast skies following us until the cloud cover started breaking apart and blue began to peek through. As the shroud lifts, not only are blue skies showing promise for the day ahead, but the sun is spilling onto the landscape, heightening my appreciation for the complexity of color, depth, and warmth being displayed down the river. On top of it all, the lighting director in the heavens sends fluffy clouds streaming across the sky, with pillowy shadows running over ancient canyon walls. Nature performs her billions-year-old encore, and I am there to witness it.

As if on cue, enter wildlife stage left. A lone bighorn sheep, standing on a rise, demanding our attention. Each and every boat slows to a stop, allowing us to ogle this tough animal that has adapted to survive in this hostile environment. Patiently, he stands his ground, affording all who wish to admire him a moment of reverence. This guy must be a late bloomer; I think I count four rings on his horns, putting him at about four years old. Alone, either he hasn’t found his own harem, or a more dominant male has taken his ladies. Judging from his size, he is going to have to toughen up before taking on one of the older alpha males who has had many opportunities to engage in the ritual of violently butting heads with young bucks, as is the requirement for maintaining a grip on the herd.

A great blue heron resting on a mangled pile of boulders was spotted before lunch; it was blending in with the brush behind it. Standing nearly four feet tall, it should have been easy to see, but these birds are masters of camouflage in their perfect stillness. We might have been able to catch a fish or two by now, but no one brought a fishing pole, so they will remain safely below the surface of the river, out of sight. Bird calls echo along the cliffs. The few remaining otters and beavers that live here are rarely seen. Only the slick mud paths on the river banks that identify where they have slid in or out of the river offer a hint of their presence.

Bruce offers me the catbird seat for the next spectacle. My perch is also on the bow but in a slightly different position. I’m instructed to lie on my back and look up. Bruce then maneuvers the dory closer to the 600-foot sheer wall of Redwall Limestone. Just as we’re about to collide, he turns the boat so my head is perpendicular to the rock face, stretching up like a highrise whose top has disappeared into the heights above. We float sideways downstream as the rust-colored wall scrolls by like a giant papyrus roll. This is my first encounter on the river with giddy, nearly tearful ecstasy. I am struck with astonishment that this perspective shift should be affecting my emotions so powerfully. For these moments, the dory, river, and everyone else is gone, leaving a sheer rock face as the only reminder of the Earth that is floating below the sky.

Minutes pass, though it could be hours, one turn around a corner, maybe a dozen miles were traveled, or had the boatmen only made three oar strokes? Time and space have expanded. An out-of-place wall of green snaps back my attention that was wandering in dreams of beauty. My eyes follow the climb of plant life upward from the waterline to where monkeyflower blossoms, ferns, moss, and poison ivy grow until, to my surprise, I recognize what feeds this riverside garden – a waterfall pouring from the solid rock wall. And now I, too, have discovered Vasey’s Paradise just as John Wesley Powell did back in 1869. For this one time, I wish the dories to move faster, to bring us closer in the blink of an eye. And once our dories finally close in on this lush oasis, I’ll do my best not to blink again, or else I might miss a fraction of the detail appearing before me in this hanging garden of wonder.

Here, I learn the first curse of a river trip down the Colorado. We are on a schedule. Not a rigid, daily schedule necessarily, but under guidelines from the National Park Service, our time in the Grand Canyon is limited. We are only a few of the 15,000 people annually who receive permission to spend vacation time in an environment that can only accommodate so much traffic before the ecosystem is overwhelmed. Of these, only about 300 travelers will make the journey on a dory – how lucky we are. While one can dream of sitting here at the foot of this waterfall, named by Powell himself, for the stretch of time that would allow full appreciation of this slice of perfection, we will not find ourselves here for long, as we have a date further downriver and must move on.

A dip of an oar spins the dory, and entirely new perspectives unfold. Now receding from our view, the hanging garden shines in a different light, asking if I shouldn’t consider this to be the best view of paradise. And then, with a heavy heart, we are gone, and it, too, must now compete for headspace in my memory.

The pace quickens. Rondo guides the way, rowing with determination, pulling dories and rafts into his wake. The narrow canyon begins to fill with the light of the golden hour of the afternoon as the lead boat shrinks in the distance under the approaching sunset. Ahead, we are not seeing a mirage but an epic landmark, confirming that its existence is not only a mythical, often photographed legend but a real place. A place that we are rowing toward and about to land on. Redwall Cavern grows larger and more amazing with every dip of the oar propelling us toward its giant beach. Was it mere chance that delivered us to an absolutely silent and empty Redwall Cavern that would be ours alone? Or are these boatmen masters of their domain, in tune with the seasons, the sun, and the schedules of others who may be sharing the river with us?

We have landed. Stepping from the dory is like exiting the Apollo capsule to place one’s foot on the surface of the moon. Climbing through the deep sand simulates the slow-motion, low-gravity walk that lets me know I have left my own familiar planet. As quickly as my legs can carry me, I race to the back of the cavern so I can have the view from within, looking out. This is the stage many others before me have stood upon; now it is my turn to explore the shadows and bask in the red glow of the reflecting canyon wall from across the river that is shining its spotlight into the depths of the largest riverside cavern in the Canyon.

The rest of the group is crowding around a boulder not far from where we disembarked. A cluster of fossils, including a crinoid and a mollusk impression, are closely examined and discussed. A Frisbee sails into the cavern, and the chase begins, as some will play a brief game here on the Colorado River for what is likely the one and only time in their lives. Others just walk around, taking in the immensity of this natural shelter. Then, out of the quiet, standing in the center of this nearly 60-foot wide, 20-foot tall, clam shell-shaped cavern, our boatman, Katrina, has begun singing a cappella, “Nothing But The Water” by Grace Potter. In full volume, she lets go and fills every inch of Redwall Cavern with her commanding voice. To everyone’s delight, she delivers an encore with a rendition of “A’Part” by Elephant Revival.

Sadly, camping is not allowed here, although this makes perfect sense as neither our visit nor anyone else’s would be as delightful if, upon arrival, we found ourselves maneuvering around tents, chairs, and a camp kitchen. Speaking of camp, with the warm light of sunset fading fast, it is time for the 22 of us to go find a home for the night. Luck remains on our side, as not a mile downriver, Little Redwall Camp is empty and about to be ours. Dories and rafts pull up to the steep beach; boatmen drive their sand stakes deep into the shore to tie down and secure their boats. We, passengers, form a relay, passing gear up the beach to get rafts unpacked, allowing us to set up our tents and the boatmen to start the pampering dinner ritual.

By the time we are settled in, appetizers are on offer, and we start to relax, except for one of us. The first display of Great Determination has me gasping in shivering empathy. Fellow passenger Phil, armed with his soap and a lot of courage, steps gingerly into the icy waters of the Colorado in an attempt to bathe. While knowing I should respect his privacy, and although I wouldn’t normally make it a habit to watch another man wash away the accumulated grime of the day, I stand mesmerized at his ambitious move to be first among us to immerse himself in the mighty Colorado. Mind you, Phil is wearing his river shoes so he does not stand fully naked before us. The shorts that adorn his lower torso also help keep the view family-safe. Trying to get his head underwater is no easy feat, as poor footing nearly threatens him with a swim. Phil quickly wisens up, opting to splash water over head and shoulders, as I feel it’s time to drop the staring and let him do what I’m still far too afraid to attempt. I’d have applauded his gumption had I not been trying to be at least a little bit discreet, though I do feel I learned something from his experience in how to make the best out of trying to clean delicate parts with ice water.

We warm ourselves around the night’s fire, some pulling in to inch their feet closer to the source of toasty delight. Neighbors talk with each other to discuss the events of the day, and we learn headlamp etiquette to avoid blinding one another with these piercing LED beacons protruding from our foreheads. Here and there, a beer removed from cold storage is being enjoyed, and others are content getting lost staring into the soft flames of our well-groomed campfire. Behind the fire circle, Andrea Mikus, whose day job here on this river trip is to row the raft that carries the toilet, prepares our evening meal with Jeffe by the light of a lantern.

Some passengers talk, others are journaling. Out of the dark, the trumpet of a conch shell sounds, and its mighty echo pronounces that dinner is now ready. We line up, and within minutes, plates are full, but nearly as quickly, they are once again empty. The sound of the conch highlights a special connection for me as more than a few of our friends are Hindu. In Hinduism, the god Vishnu carries a conch. It is said that the sun and moon reside in it, along with Varuna, the god of sky and water. Also represented in the conch are Ganga – the river goddess – and Saraswati – the goddess of knowledge, music, art, and science. The sound of the conch is thought to drive away evil spirits and is linked to the sound OM said to be the breath of Vishnu. Here in the Canyon, we will find ourselves learning of the basement rock called Vishnu Schist and the peaks known as Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva – named after the gods of the Hindu Trinity.

Just when you think it’s all over, dessert is announced. Slabs of Dutch oven-baked chocolate cake are handed out. While we are devouring the sweet, Rondo interrupts the wolfing of the last of our crumbs, “Hey, you guys, and especially you new guys! How about those cooks?” A rousing applause goes up. Rondo proceeds to go over what was accomplished since our launch this morning, recapping our time on the river and in the Canyon. This leads to what our loose agenda for the next day might be, “Coffee club will be really early, followed by a yummy breakfast.” He continues, “We would like to be out of camp before 9:00 – tomorrow will be similar to today, only different. From there, we will do any number of things that will be determined by factors to be considered over the course of the day.” Out from the darkness, Bruce speaks the sage words, “Indecision is the key to flexibility.” If other details or options were spoken of, they were lost to a mind filled with the enormity of the day’s experience.

The conversation fades further from my hearing as my attention is lost to the brightening night sky. Somewhere out of view, the moon is providing evidence that it is crawling over the horizon. The stars that were set against a dark sky began to fade with the increasing blue luminance that was crowding out the black. I sit next to the fire, but I am hardly here.

My reference points of familiarity are gone. No streets, lights, or signs are here to direct what is where or what comes next. The sliver of sky overhead offers not a hint of the cardinal directions unless one can read the stars at night or spot the sun and glean the arc it is tracing overhead during the day. Depth is immeasurable as each view is infinite, the eyes and mind unable to catalog the magnitude of what is present. Any attempt to see it all is quietly answered with a calm sense of surrender. It is as though an inner knowledge or instinct is ready to leave dormancy and remind my frantic being that not all is to be known, understood, and then anticipated. There is mystery left in nature, but we must shut down expectations and allow ourselves to find calmness that will invite the inexplicable to show us what has been forgotten in our rush to certainty.

Drifting here through self and Canyon, I grow ever more distant from my own contrived universe of time and location. I shrink, moving further and deeper into the unknown world. My sense of the primitive grows larger but is far from being embraced; it feels alien and odd, just as I was taught in school. Escape velocity from the known universe occurred; it must have, but just when that happened, I cannot tell. The known is lost in this extended moment of infinite possibility. When precisely did I leave? How far away am I? Lees Ferry might be the starting point, the physical node of entry for sure, though if I think long about it, I’ll likely see the starting point stretching back as far as I can recognize my own rise in life. But for the here and now, it was there in the gravel next to the Colorado River where a couple of vans dropped me and these fellow travelers on that day we piled into dories and bid farewell to the familiar and the certain.

Considering all that has been seen and experienced, from riffles and rapids to fossils and stories, canyon walls and wildlife, hot meals, cold lunches, song, and campfire, I must be further away than I am because I cannot find the exact moment I left, and without that, how should I figure how much time has passed between then and now? Asking the others in my immediate proximity what day it is, they demonstrate the same dawn of awareness as I – they, too, cannot be sure. Someone guesses Sunday, which brings up the question, “Well then, what day did we leave?” Another voice interjects, “I think it is Saturday,” and then, “I thought we left Friday.” But that would be….yesterday? Eyebrows dip, foreheads furrow as the wheels turn to determine if we believe this information to be correct. It is on all our faces, disbelief that it may very well have been just the day before, less than 36 hours ago, that we got underway.

But we’re not done with this day yet. Jeffe is about to tell us a story, the story of his friend Joe Biner. He begins with a question, asking if anyone objects to some rough language; no one does. Jeffe then reassures us that his impression of Joe is offered with all the respect and love his friend deserves.

Joe is a fishing guide. He has an incredible love of adventure, dry humor, and a blistering tongue when it comes to cursing, and he also has cerebral palsy. Moving into character, one admired and complimented on for accuracy by Joe himself, Jeffe starts to speak in a contorted, twisting and writhing, cerebral palsy-inflected voice of strained and stammered cursing, mixed with brilliant humor, telling us about Jeffe’s and Joe’s traveling down the Colorado together. We also hear of a particularly funny story of Joe meeting a client who had contracted him through his outfitter service for a weekend of fishing. After arriving at the tiny rural airport, the client waited for his guide to show up until just the two of these men were left in the terminal.
Joe holds his ground while his potential client paces, looking for his fishing guide. Well aware that this man is not considering that the guy in the wheelchair could be his guide, Joe looks on as though he, too, is waiting for someone who hasn’t shown up. The waiting continues with an occasional polite smile and nods exchanged, but not a word. Finally, it happens:

“Man, I wonder where my ride is?”
Joe speaks up, “Yeah, I’m wu-wu-wondering wu-wu-where the guy I’m supposed to take f-f-fishing is?”
The wheels turn, but not on Joe’s chair; the dawning of awareness takes rise on the client’s face.
“But I’m supposed to go fishing this weekend.”
Joe says, “Wu-wu-well then, llllet’s get going.”
“Um, well, how….?”
Joe then blurts out, “I’m about to leave this fu-f-fucking airport and drag that b-b-buh-boat waiting outside to the river for a wu-w-weekend of great fishing, but mmmaybe I’m going alone. You c-c-c-can get over yourself and get to fishing, or you c-c-c-can go back home.”

The two went fishing, and we learned that Jeffe, in addition to being a great river musician, is a talented storyteller, too.

At the end of the story, the majority of the campers depart to do just that – camp. Into the darkness, headlamps mounted to foreheads trace trails to the camper’s respective tents, each disappearing with a zipper pull that seals the occupants in for the night. Most of the boatmen have quietly left to take up their floating beds on the river. Once more, we remain with a small group around a dimming fire. Andrea gently strums her guitar. The unseen but present full moon is still on the rise; just a couple hundred feet across from where we sit, the canyon wall has started collecting moonlight. If we can stay awake long enough, I hope to see moonbeams sparkling in the Colorado. Andrea softly sings “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young while the tiny fire’s warm flickers offer momentary glimpses of faces still holding on to experiencing every second this perfect day has brought. Linda, who is Andrea’s mom and is along as a swamper and guest of her daughter, wipes the tears that have spilled down her cheeks, obviously touched by the moment next to the river, feeling the music, seeing the moonlight, and being with her child in her element.

Caroline and I leave to slip into our riverside nest, skipping the tent in order to better watch the effect of the full moon brightening the walls around us. Not yet 9:00 p.m., we fight heavy eyes with minds that want to forever hear the river and to always remember this moonlight-infused night. Right now the Earth is nothing more than a narrow crack that is the Canyon we are lying in, with a gentle river flowing through. The music of the Colorado plays on, and we fall to sleep.

–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.

Here we are, standing on the beach. The shore is buzzing with activity as seven river guides and two helpers finish preparing four dories and three supply rafts for our imminent departure. A few hours earlier, 13 adventurous men and women were climbing out of warm, cozy beds at a hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona. After breakfast, my wife Caroline and I walked outside to find our fellow passengers, two vans, and two of the guides who were there to ensure we were packed and ready to go. With our waterproof bags loaded into the vans, we piled our sense of excitement on board and took a seat, ready to be delivered to the Colorado River for a launch into the experience of a lifetime.

Lees Ferry, where the Colorado enters the Grand Canyon, is the point designated by the National Park Service as the northern boundary of America’s 15th National Park. We are at mile zero, the put-in location for all craft that depart this shore to shuttle the entrant souls through the approaching funnel of time and history. Can one be prepared for this? Absolutely, for if you find yourself here with a figurative boarding pass in hand, you have already made the biggest decision in getting ready to discover the unknown. We will not leave the way we came in. Fate will play its hand.

I am about to be enrapt by this Grandest of Canyons. Naïveté will attempt to stand guard against the emotional onslaught the river is going to deliver, but it too will be washed away by the force of nature residing here. The naive me of moments ago will disappear as an unimaginable future me emerges 225.9 miles downstream.

Trip leader Rondo Buecheler grabs our attention with the commands, “Do as we say, don’t panic, tighten those straps, get on board, and put your stuff in the hatch.” I clamber aboard the dory named Sam McGee, Jeffe Aronson’s rig, heading up front where I was directed, while Caroline sits in the back. I make a quick inventory of Jeffe’s dory and get to packing my gear into the cramped hatch in the bow. A pump and a hose are on my left; easy enough to figure this is for draining either the footwell or one of the three watertight compartments that are supposed to keep our dory afloat when the rest of the boat is full of water. Thick woven straps are firmly attached to the forward compartment, forming handles. We are to grasp one of these and the gunwale to form a triangulated grip that will stop us from being thrown from side to side, hopefully keeping us in the boat, too. Between the straps is a level, which at first glance appears to be a decoration but instead proves to be quite useful. This small feature allows the boatmen to quickly determine if we are in trim, as a balanced dory is easier to control in whitewater.

It’s 10:30 in the morning, and we are going down this river starting right about now. Hey, wait a minute, I hardly know what is going on! We’ve chased around, listened to safety briefings, donned life jackets, and now magically, I’m prepared to embark on this monumental trip, just like that? But these words are only beginning to form in my mind, long before they are able to find utterance from my gaping mouth, as we approach our first riffle at the confluence of the Colorado and the Paria Rivers. IT’S HUGE. Are we gonna get wet? This water is 46 chilly degrees, right? Hypothermia, get ready to embrace me. I triangulate my white-knuckle grip on the gunwale and that measly strap flimsily attached to the matchstick boat I foolishly paid all that money to ride on, and now I’m facing my own untimely demise as a raging riffle is about to have its way on my pitiful being. We are not riding the rails of the Jungle Cruise in Disneyland; this can’t be the first time the reality of the situation we bargained for is dawning on me, or can it?

Ah, a riffle, kind of like a ripple. Okay, I get it; I thought that looked a lot bigger from back there. I’m cool, phew. I release my grip, allowing color to return to my knuckles, and blood flows back into my lips, pressed together tightly, concealing clenched teeth.

The tension remains high; my senses are fully alert. Moving away from the open expanse of Lees Ferry, we are surrounded by the encroaching walls that will hug the river for the majority of the 18 days we’ll be in the Canyon. I am overwhelmed by the idea that after almost a year of waiting and anticipation, Caroline and I are now on the Colorado, in the Grand Canyon, floating downstream on a dory. Hit by an explosion of details, we are dwarfed under the rising cliffs that are stretching to the sky.

To the right and left, the river flows past rock millions of years old. I look up to the sky and then deep into the Canyon before me. I listen to the water running underneath us and to Jeffe, who has started pointing to sights deserving of my attention. I try to hold on to the many sounds disappearing behind me that are being replaced by the music of a river carving a symphony through the landscape ahead.

Each moment is a new sensation, jolting me to focus on what has just appeared before us. I look for fish below and birds above. With deep breaths, I try to smell the few scents that might be found on a cold river running through a vast desert, but little is familiar. Jagged rocks and broken cliffs offer up an indecipherable geometry that is adding complexity to my ability to try and understand the forms of unfolding geologic architecture designed by the hand of nature. How do time and weather create what amounts to visual noise that a human mind looking for order is able to find so enchantingly delightful?

No, really, we’re just 30 minutes downstream? Wow, that leaves a lot more to see; not sure I’m ready for so much looking and seeing. Are you boatmen sure it’s safe to expose the mind to so much intensity all in one hour, one day? Jeffe assures me I am fine. No kidding, more beauty, more adventure, more everything lies ahead? I should brace myself.

The Colorado flows at little more than a leisurely three miles per hour on calm stretches – a snail’s pace. As slow as this is, we are soon passing under the Navajo Bridge. To date, Caroline and I had only driven over this crossing and, on rare occasions, stood on it while watching rafting trips pass below. Today, we are that trip floating by. We have traveled barely five miles since putting in, and I am at once troubled that we have already gone so far, leaving only 220 miles to go, and then again ecstatic that we still have 220 miles to go. How do I slow this rocket sled to allow careful examination and mental inventorying of every square inch I gaze upon?

The unspeakable beauty and infinite detail one sees in the first six miles alone is worthy of a book of poetic observations that should be capable of transporting our spirit to the lofty heights only nature is able to attain. Instead, I offer up a faint murmur of “wow” as I shrink under the Canyon’s epistle of light and gravity spilling into every atom of my being.

Jeffe puts just enough work into the oars to present the world of the Grand Canyon in slow motion – which may still be a little too fast. Good thing the sky is overcast – it offers me a great excuse for not snapping off hundreds of photos per hour. If I wasn’t afraid that this was most likely going to be my one and only trip down the Colorado, I might consider putting the camera away for the duration to allow myself to fall into the lazy mode of the observer. Instead, I feel the need for a record to spark what might someday be a failing memory of how, indeed, Caroline and I had once participated in traveling the muddy red waters of one of America’s greatest rivers.

We are approaching midday. As if reading my thoughts, the boatmen land their vessels onshore and, with programmed precision, jump into action, making lunch. A blue tarp is stretched out on the sand to capture food scraps, keeping the beach clean for those who will follow us. Waterproof food buckets are extracted from hatches, and a table emerges from some hidden corner to be propped up in seconds. Water buckets and a foot pump are quickly put to use for hand washing before a flurry of cutting, opening, slicing, and presenting all the fixings for us passengers and crew to make sandwiches. A potted plant of mums is brought to the table to complete the presentation.

Our waterside picnic must be a first-day treat, as we are offered deli meats, a variety of cheeses, lettuce, tomato slices, red onion, and the luxury of fresh avocado. Apple and orange slices are arranged on a separate table with maybe three different choices of cookies, peanut butter and jelly for those who prefer a PBJ for lunch, and potato chips. With stomachs full, it’s time for the third safety briefing of the day – river and rapid awareness. In a few minutes, we’ll be running Badger Rapid, our first journey into whitewater. Don’t panic if you find yourself in the water; your life jacket will buoy you to the surface in less than two seconds. DON’T PANIC!

Listen to the instructions of your boatman. If he yells, “Right!” you high-side to the right. “Left!” means throw your weight left. This lesson in high-siding is one of the more important reflexes we must adopt and make instinctual. With rigid boats, the weight distribution of the passengers plays a significant role in preventing a dory from flipping over and dumping passengers and boatmen into the turmoil of a rapid. Once again, DON’T PANIC!

Our river guides and their helpers move with purpose to stow things used to make lunch. The mums are hidden away again in one of the sealed compartments of Rondo’s dory. Other than the conversation between boatmen to coordinate what happens next, we passengers are mostly quiet besides the nervous excitement reflected in the expressions we wear. In the final couple of minutes onshore, we adjust our waterproof clothes, tighten drawstrings, and zip jackets up high – maybe believing we can stop the cold water from finding warm skin. Caroline grasps my hand; I squeeze back as we smile at one another with a questioning look that asks, “Are you ready for this?” The boatmen, on the other hand, are calm and casual.

Badger Creek Rapid is in sight; it has been since we pulled ashore for lunch. Watching and listening to its roar surely adds to the tension and the excitement I am feeling. Measuring this rapid’s rage is impossible from my perspective on this narrow beach. What Badger is capable of delivering will be known shortly, as the command to get on board has now been given. We are in our seats and holding on. The boatmen nudge the dories back into the flow, and we are off. In mere moments, the accelerating water pulls us into the rapid, where a well-placed oar and quick turn bring us to our first frothy wet kiss from the river. As the bow begins to dip, coursing down with the flow of water before riding up a wave, thoughts of even larger rapids ahead are the furthest thing from my mind. This must be the biggest whitewater ever.

Fear sits with me, but before I’m able to transition to panic, we are entering a rapid that looks as stormy as the sky overhead. The calm, dark green water from Lees Ferry is now a brown, murky, and merciless river. My mind is a racing jumble of doubt, asking, do I have any idea what comes next and what is my role here? The dory lurches into a roll to the left and quickly jolts to the right. My mind forces my eyes to get a lock on the situation, but nothing stays the same long enough for me to grasp what action is required. Less than 45 seconds later we have passed through our first encounter with whitewater unscathed and mostly dry.

The route we travel follows the oar strokes of the first men to row this stretch of the Colorado, the Powell Expedition of 1869. Back then, this was a great unknown; it was unmapped and fraught with danger. Led by one-armed Civil War veteran John Wesley Powell and worked hard by the labor of eight other courageous men, the group toiled under incredibly harsh conditions. A footnote in history was to be the reward for these men who were the first to travel the great river through what is now Grand Canyon National Park. Today, the Canyon and the Colorado are still full of danger, but the environment, as perceived in the minds of people, has changed from a barren wasteland to a fragile ecosystem containing immeasurable beauty enjoyed by visitors from around the world.

The remaining few miles that we’re on the river today are spent barely rowing at all. We float downstream, the current gently delivering us to an end we know not. A rain, so fine as to easily be confused with a mist, sprinkles ever so delicately on the now-calm Colorado. We drift along. These lazy moments set the mental pace that assures me that it is okay to relax, slow down, and allow what lies ahead to unfold and present itself in its own time. Our influence on the world around us is being eroded. Our anchor to what we think we know will have to be recast, as our sense of place is deconstructed and rebuilt even as we sit here, unaware that this process is at work on all that is within this Canyon, including us.

The afternoon welcomes my presence while the Canyon ignores it, but I cannot ignore the Canyon. My physical location is easily known, but where else might I be going? Some hours ago, I was filled with anticipation that we were about to begin this journey, but now Lees Ferry is nearly forgotten – full immersion is busy at work. I try my best to find comprehension that not only did I finally arrive today, but that this will be where I will remain for the next weeks. Here, under these massive slabs of earth, I am offered the chance to indulge my curiosity for the mystery of what lies ahead.

It’s only 4:00 pm as we pull ashore at Soap Creek Camp. Eleven miles is what we have traversed, but it has already been a thousand miles of experience for my memories. Out of the dories, on terra firma, the trance is broken; we passengers scatter to identify the piece of real estate that will be our first home down below the rim. Satisfied that Caroline and I have made the perfect choice, and no better site exists to pitch our tent, we mark the spot as claimed with a dropped bag of gear and join the others who are gathering at the beach for another lesson in how to live in the Canyon.

How does one use the toilet in this place without toilets? Take notice: you are about to be potty trained for river life. At lunch, the lesson regarding number one, pee-pee, urination, or whatever you want to call it, was given; it is done in the river by all of us, men and women alike. There are no trees in the river to hide behind, and don’t cheat and pee on the sand; it will turn green and stink – get it in the water. Men, aim like you mean it; women, try not to get stuck in the mud. This late afternoon lesson deals with number two, the BM, aka defecation. Jeffe is the teacher for those of us uninitiated in the use of “the Unit,” also known as La Pooperia, the Groover, and the toilet if you’d like. First of all, everything that enters the Canyon must leave the Canyon – meaning everything! Next, on the ground beside our boatman, is a World War II-style ammunition can with a cozy toilet seat fixed atop. Jeffe drops his shorts, revealing his wetsuit bottoms, and takes a seat. He shows us a plastic box containing a roll of toilet paper, the key to “the facilities.” Do not hover over the Unit! Boatmen do not want to clean up the ensuing mess because your dainty butt is afraid to make contact with the seat that 21 of us other poopers have perched upon. Do not use the Unit for urination; it adds extra weight and unnecessary volume; there is a plastic bucket next to it that we empty into the river – use that. If the “key” is not sitting at the hand wash station, which is a good distance away, the Unit is occupied. When finished with your business, sprinkle with Clorox Crystals from the bottle conveniently placed next to the can, close the lid, cover with the netting that helps keep pests away, bring back the box of TP to the next in line – and WASH YOUR HANDS!

Once this most important of all lessons has been completed, we’re off to the next subject. Some of you may have never pitched a tent, here is how these work. Get it? Got it? Good. Now, go set up your camp, we leave on a hike up Soap Creek Canyon shortly. School’s out for the day, but the adventure is not. Apparently, my brain has reached a first-day saturation point, causing me to move into befuddlement because Caroline and I hit the trail without our GPS, extra lenses, tripod, a backpack, or waterproof bag for the camera, should it rain. We brought the camera, a water bottle, and nothing else.

Glistening mud, pools of red water, slick rock, and wet sand. The muck on our invisible trail quickly tugs at a foot, holding fast, trying to keep the shoe it has captured. The majority of the group is ahead of Caroline and me, racing off somewhere, while our curiosity has us taking a close examination of cracked earth, lichen, and the patterns left on still muddy surfaces by the water that must have been flowing here just a day or two ago. Details in the rocks, eroding fissures in boulders, and the contours of the drainage all present new information to our eyes. They hungrily consume every last morsel of beauty that, even under a gray overcast sky, is a delight to behold.

Before we catch up to the others in our group, they have already turned around and are speeding right back at us. In a blur, they are again out of sight. No one presses us to quicken our pace, and so we meander, lingering to gawk in disbelief that we should be finding ourselves here in the Grand Canyon, taking a hike from off the Colorado River. Two of our boatmen, Steve Kenney and Jeffe bring up the rear, seemingly content to chat with each other and give us our space to be here in our moment.

Almost near camp again, a hole opens in the cloud cover, letting the sun pour its late afternoon glow upon a narrow strip of ridgeline far above us. This is in keeping with Caroline’s and my experience that when we are happily traveling together and are accepting what life is delivering, nearly without fail, we will be daily witnesses to at least a fleeting glimpse of blue sky or sun dancing upon a surface, eliciting our oohs and aahs. And so it was as we finished our first hour-and-a-half-long hike from the river into a side canyon.

Dinner is eaten around a blazing campfire. In the kitchen, dory boatman Bruce Keller and Katrina Cornell, who is rowing one of the supply rafts, work the camp stove to prepare tonight’s menu of salmon, asparagus, and a mixed salad. But as good as dinner is, it is a dessert that steals the show – fresh sliced strawberries with shortcake and whipped cream.

The embers of the campfire glow red hot, wisps of golden flame flicker above what remains of the disappearing wood. In quiet disbelief that this was merely the first day, we collectively sat in stunned silence, mesmerized by our experiences and the firelight at the center of our camp circle. Maybe knowing we are incapable of even basic human speech, Jeffe brings over his guitar and, with a wonderful singing voice, begins to heap the icing upon our peach of a day. After half a dozen classic folk songs and a couple of old rock anthems, someone speaks up, remarking that it is already 8:00 pm. Like an alarm working in reverse, this is apparently the cue for the majority of passengers and a few of the crew to peel out of the low-slung canvas chairs and make their way to a tent out in the darkness for a night of sleep. They scamper off, leaving but a small handful of us to wait until the fire exhausts itself.

Lucky us, the entertainment continues. On this first night, we are the only two passengers who remain at the camp circle. Caroline and I hover like moths attracted to the light of the fire, not wanting to miss a minute that might prove valuable to filling our wallets with experience. Still sitting next to the fire, Bruce begins reminiscing about previous exotic river journeys from the Tatshenshini-Alsek in Alaska to the Zambezi in Africa before embarking on this humorous story set in another far away land.

We were in Papua New Guinea, where a difficult, windy, wet day had been tormenting the passengers. On the river, us boatmen rowed into a strong headwind where a tropical storm kept everyone in rain gear. The rain wouldn’t relent. By the time the group pulled off the river, the crew got to work setting up the kitchen and wanted to start a fire so our guests could start drying off and find some warmth. The fire pan is on the ground, wood is stacked in a pile, and kindling sits ready as one of the other boatmen attempts to get the fire burning. With the high humidity, rain, and driving wind, it was proving impossible to light the damp kindling. Try as we might, we could not get the spark to catch hold. Off to the side, a couple of the nearly-naked New Guinea men who were along as the local experts, watched in amusement. We continued to toil in frustration. Finally, the tribesmen approached and offered their assistance. One of the men reached into the only thing he was wearing, his penis gourd. From deep within his gourd, he pulled dry kindling and a match and, in a second had enough fire started to get things roaring along.

No one saw that coming, not the folks on the trip that day and not one of us around our campfire. Howls of laughter for the best story of the night erupted.

A few minutes later, the remaining boatmen abandon the fire with wishes to rest well before returning to their boats where they will stay for the night. Now facing the dark solitude of the chilling night air alone, we decide to retire as well. Off to our tent, we go. Even with a three-person tent, we are crowded. Waterproof bags and our backpacks compete for space, as we hadn’t realized in our exhaustion that they should have been left outside the tent.

Sleep this evening is fitful. Too hot, too cold. The noise of Soap Creek Rapid is crashing behind our heads, along with the Canyon sounds still unfamiliar to our resting ears. This canyon orchestra works to toss us about and keep us from fully embracing sleep. Mr. Sandman apparently does visit us, but instead of carrying us off to the land of deep slumber, he simply sprinkles the tent and sleeping bags with a bit of sand and is quickly away.

–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.

As you don’t have my book in front of you, I need to explain this first entry before getting into the day-by-day journey we made starting back on the 22nd of October 2010. A year earlier, in late November 2009, we signed up with the OARS Company, hoping for a journey down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. We were informed that those trips were sold out. Not a few days passed before OARS blasted out an email that they had a cancelation on an October trip; I was on the phone within 60 seconds of receiving it. Informed that this was a dory trip for 18 days, I told the person I was talking with that I had to check with my wife, she too thought that was a good idea. We hadn’t really considered a dory trip down the river as, at $12,000 for the two of us, this would be the most expensive trip we had ever taken.

One of the rules of the company was that we couldn’t pay with a credit card, cash only. I called Caroline, outlining where we could cut costs, and felt comfortable that by July 24th, 2010, we could pay off the more than $10,000 balance we’d have open after making the mandatory $1,500 deposit to reserve two spots for us. Excitedly, she agreed that we should throw caution out the window and go for it. Then, on December 12th, Caroline’s birthday, we drove up to the Grand Canyon, and on a snowy ledge with the Colorado River in the background, we wrote and signed the check.

We changed our diet; cut back on travel, we watched where every penny was going. Not only would we need to save, save, save, but we also had a bunch of things we’d need to buy before we left in October of the next year. I also had a logistical problem to solve as I had and have sleep apnea, which required me to travel with my CPAP. A full breakdown of what that took and looked like was posted the following January in 2011; you can read it by clicking here.

The book opens with this image on the first page; it is a map of the camps we stayed at during our trip, starting up at Lees Ferry – Mile Zero. There are many others down in that 226 miles, but these were ours. And then my dedication:

For Caroline Wise…

My wife is the other half of me which allows my senses to fully appreciate the beauty in life. Through our incredible love, life takes on greater depth; it is more profound and more full of passion. In a world of possibility, our horizons appear boundless, even in light of limits to time and all things manifested by our fragile emotions and the uncertainty of physical being. But from my perspective, today is a perfect day to be in hopeless, never-ending love. We are four eyes, two minds, and two smiles dancing through a wondrous life, celebrating its rewards and travails.

When a crack in the earth of our perception opens wide and time dilates our senses, stretching us to a breaking point, when experiencing one more grain of sand threatens our idea of self with certain dissolution, we pull the straps of our mental flotation device tight and hold on. Pray our mind is going to rise above the surface of the swirling maelstrom that is engulfing us. We are now in the Grand Canyon.

And that’s how the book opens. Next up: Day 1 of Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon.

Ten years ago, I started a blog entry that quickly spiraled out of control and grew so long that it became a book titled Stay In The Magic – A Voyage Into The Beauty Of The Grand Canyon (pictured above). As I went to publish it, I was exhausted with the process and wanted nothing more to do with it, so I never created a digital version for eBook readers, nor did I really share much of anything online about the experience.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to post a chapter a day that will represent each day of the trip down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon National Park. This was a life-changing moment in Caroline’s and my routine and has played a role in many of our subsequent adventures.

Now that this is becoming a blog entry, it’s going to be extraordinarily long, with 85,000 words and about 300 images. I’ll be doing my best from day to day to keep up with transferring the text and images over here, but I’m not really sure how much work will be involved with this endeavor.

I’m still considering if, at some point, I’ll remove this from being out of sequence on my blog and redate these entries so they fall sequentially into where they belong; maybe I’ll have two copies among the 2,250 blog entries.

My big hope here is that I can avoid cringing at what I wrote so long ago, as I’ve never returned to its pages.