Part Two: The Havasu Flash Flood of 1984
(you can read part one by clicking here: Canyon Voices, issue 2

(The flood has hit Jeffe and his intrepid crew of "Moonies". Now, to downstream!)




Miles downstream, Jane, a middle-aged client with ample breasts, sits on a rock midstream, a few hundred yards upstream of the boats in the eddy. She has stopped at the first creek crossing, just at the brink of a set of three beautiful stepped waterfalls, dropping about fifteen feet each. Very pretty spot. She faces downstream, concentrating on removing some pesky pebbles from her sneakers. She stops, knots her brow, turns to see what it is that has just tapped her on the shoulder…and is slapped off her perch like an insect into muddy blackness.

Swept over the falls, violently tumbling over bruising rocks and ear-popping river bottom, she prays.



Back at the eddy, Lorna is napping on her raft, chocked into the hourglass. The wave will hit her first. Sharon, “Shay,” is two rafts down the pack, definitely NOT drinking Kahluah with Bill and Joel. Unfortunately, she’s also on the far upstream edge of the eddy, farthest from an escape ledge. 

Barry Lopez writes about the Native Eye, how an Eskimo paddling a skin kayak across miles of  featureless Arctic ocean—no land in sight, family members tucked inside and utterly dependent—must focus on moving his kayak through fickle winds and massive currents towards his landing, sometimes a speck of an island beyond view over the liquid horizon. Not tunnel vision. Crystal clear, absolute attentiveness. The merest change in the familiar salty breeze, a wisp of cloud on the horizon, a flock of birds wheeling, and muscles and mind become taut, alert, calculating, ready. He is wholly part of a vast spirit world, telling him all he needs to know. The mind only follows.




The canyon narrows substantially as it enters the last few hundred yards above the boats. The wave responds by getting bigger. Much bigger. Shay’s glance is drawn upstream. Something is speaking to her. Strangely, the usually placid blue-green eddy is moving.

The last time she’d ever heard that noise was only yesterday, when she and her crew had tried to play a joke on us at Matkatamiba, the slot canyon just upstream. They’d created a “butt” dam in a narrows up-canyon from the narrow niche where we were with our folks. The plan was to leap up as one, letting the backed-up water go, and yell “flash flood.” It kind of fell flat, but she’d recall later that this was the first time she’d ever heard that sound.

There is a presence over Lorna’s head–towering, dark, alive. The colossal wave of mud approaches.

“Flash Floooooood!!!”

One of the other boatmen, ever skeptical, responds “Naaaaaahh.”

Edwards will later swear he saw Lorna leap from a dead sleep and in an instant fly over the boats to safety at the far end of a dozen rafts, feet never touching rubber or frame. Fortunate, since The Wave engulfs her boat, straining, then snapping its lines and wrapping it sideways into the next, like humping hippos, then both into the next, and so on. The lines thrum and stretch and snap, anchors and rock-chocks pop out of cracks, sounding like rifle shots. Metal D-rings on the rubber rafts disintegrate, ripping a hole in one, causing it to deflate and fold in half underneath itself.

The rafts are now wildly bucking in the raging tsunami. Shay screams over the roar, “WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO?”

“CUT ‘EM!” echoes from the cliffs.

For us guides, an unconscious hand-slap to the chest—just checking—is second nature in times of need. Yep, her life jacket is on. (Why? Who can say. Nobody ever wears a life jacket when hanging out in the eddy.) She draws the attached emergency knife from its scabbard and starts cutting anything that looks like a bowline. The whole flotilla is being ripped and contorted, held in the brunt of the torrent, but as lines are cut, it swings out, pendulum-ing off of my snout still tied to the far ledge. On that ledge guides gawk and scramble, grabbing life jackets and throw lines. The dozen tethered boats now strain in the raging current of the Colorado at the head of a rapid running at forty-five thousand cubic feet per second. Off my single bowline.

Which is taut, worried to the point of rupture. The guides stand, absorbing the outrageous scene, trying to wrap their heads around it. As always, some react swiftly, with poise and sureness; others follow.

The rope will only hold for a second or two. Lowry, strong, reliable, taking it all in like a cat, leaps into the rapid and swims to the closest boat, followed by two young acolytes. The boys had been practicing rowing the whole trip, young clients observing their mentor, as well as his stature amongst his peers. They crab crawl and clamber over the surging tubes and flailing oars to reach the farthest outlying boats. Dave cuts the lines, yelling at the boys to grab rowing seats and hold on tight. The impatient current snaps the lines, releasing the rafts, all that pent up energy jerking them fiercely. They then grab the oars and madly row their craft into the only existing eddy, against the left-hand cliffs below, one of the boys missing and ending up all alone downstream on the right. Stuck but safe. Shay, in another single raft, rows into the left eddy, where Lowry, whose usually tanned and rugged face is now pale green like he’d seen a ghost, directs her to stop the boats from wrapping and flipping against the tied-up thirty-eight foot motor rig that was already there.

Back upstream, Suzanne also leaps, landing on her stomach on a fast-moving tube, legs flailing. She’s wearing her own familiar costume of flops, Navajo style print skirt and lacy blouse, adorned by her signature southwestern turquoise necklaces, rings, and bracelets, all highlighted by her flaming jumble of red hair. As Lowry cuts his boats free, she severs the straining line closest to her. A jumble of four boats, all fully loaded and one half-deflated, disappears around the corner, containing one damn determined Alabama girl.

This leaves just my snout and two other rafts, plus a clutch of guides stuck on land feeling like cowboys on foot. 

Dave Edwards stares downstream, worried about Suzy. His back is to the eddy as he peers downstream. Bill Wasley has seen something in the water, is leaning over a raft nearest the Colorado, trying to see. The object nearly surfaces, too far from him to help. There is a shout.

“Bod-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Joel points. Time stretches, as it will. In one fluid motion, Dave turns. A shadow below the water’s surface resolves into two breasts and swirling hair. It is sensuous, a siren calling to him, hair framing the silhouette of a face with haunting eyes. He dives, two hundred and twenty muscular pounds of resolve.

On shore, eyes scan the water for an anxious second. Two seconds. Three. Four.

Two spluttering faces appear, noses just above the surface. Dave has Jane in the classic life-saving hold—turned away from him so she cannot pin his arms, his right arm underneath her armpit and across her chest, clasping his left hand with his right, locked in solid. He’s wearing his old, worn, lightweight, comfortable (and basically useless) lifejacket. They get air infrequently, heads submerging through each wave. Seconds count.

Joel is lithe—a runner. His track is an uneven series of serrated limestone ledges. He wears flip-flops; he is encumbered by a life jacket and has a throw bag in his hands. Nonetheless, he hurtles over the terrain, pacing the swimmers, staring into Dave’s eyes. Waiting. They careen two feet away, but they might as well be on the moon.

In an instant it’ll be too late.

In between repeated submersions, Dave spits. Then, glancing up at Joel, says with absolute clarity

“Hit me in the face, boyo…”

Whap! The rope appears, right between their heads. Dave, briefly releasing his left hand, stuffs the rope deep between his molars, clamps down, then locks Jane back in. They are traveling at least ten miles an hour.

Others reach Joel and hold onto him, ready for the pull. One chance, one eddy. All comprehend the need for slack, a pendulum to take some of the force. Once they hit that eddy the rope will rip out Dave’s teeth and they’re goners.

Graceful as penguins, they swing in, are gathered ashore, and collapse into welcoming arms.



Later, in her soft southern accent, Jane will tell the tale. “I knew I was going to drown in that wave. But God grabbed me by my breasts, and tugged me to the surface so I could breathe. Then I was on the crest of this huge red wave, and I was headed into a narrow notch just choked with boats. Then, this tiny figure—I just know it was an angel—flew over the boats. It gave me hope. I hit the first boat hard and went back underwater. It was just black. I bumped and banged underneath those boats, and I just knew that was gonna be it. Then I felt myself swirling around and the water got really cold and I could almost see light. Well, I knew what that was. The Colorado. I was ready, but God had other plans. This huge shadow appeared above me—another angel—and that big oaf tackled me so hard it hurt. I was a bit irritated, since I was ready, if you know what I mean, but that pain was a blessing, so I decided I wasn’t gonna let go, no sirreee!” 



Downstream, Suzy gets to work. There is no urgency. She unties, then reties her rafts end to end, freeing her to row the tail end one. She hauls one raft’s deflated half up and over itself and ties it to the frame so it doesn’t drag in the water. She then loops all the spare lines into one nice, long coil on the back deck and aims for shore.

She attempts eddy after eddy. Each time her rear boat hits the undisciplined and powerful eddy line, the seventy-foot rig uncontrollably spirals back out into the high-water current. Suzanne is strong and sure. She reads water better than anyone I’ve ever met, knows what it needs from her,  knows how to please it or to set its heart at ease. Knows when it needs a gentle hug, or a slap in the face, a stiff drink or a stern word. As a woman used to working in a man’s world—and used to using finesse and skill, having this certain bond with rivers—she reprocesses. Considers. Drinks some water. Decides. She knows the river well and can visualize a place downstream on the left where a slower current will bring her near some low cliffs without the confused water of an eddy. She hopes the cliffs are mostly underwater, presenting a sloping shore.

Her destination appears downstream. Committing utterly on a singular day of utter commitment, she adjusts her angle early, ships her oars as she nears shore, gathers the coils of line, leaps off the boats moving at eight miles an hour, and starts running in her flops and skirt amidst the lopsided desert scrub. Red hair flies. Desperately she seeks something solid to tie to. Nada. Not a thing. Fragile cacti and small, loose rocks. Coils whip out of her arms, whoop, whoop, whoop, rapidly diminishing her options. The flotilla keeps moving relentlessly downstream. 

There is a solitary large boulder at the terminus of the bench. She has tied a “monkeys fist”–a large, round final knot at the end of the rope. The last coil is about to lurch out of her arms. She grabs the monkey’s fist and jams it into the lone crack in that lone rock as the boats pull it taut. The force wedges her hand into the sharply eroded limestone. The boats rubber-band then settle, freeing her now torn hand.

There is now time to tend to her wound, cover the exposed raw meat, rummage for food. She tethers the boats to shore in a spider’s web of rope, makes a sandwich. It’ll be a while before others arrive.





Back up Havasu, the rain has stopped. I’m shaking with cold—that, and the shock of having death sit on my shoulder once again, only to leave me behind, once again. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Sodden with mud, I stand amidst the trees, leaning against one. Steady now. It is good to feel the rough bark against my cheek. Something solid.

And the responsibilities flow back. Moley and Steve are upstream. The Colorado is only a short hike away, maybe a mile and a half or so. Where are the others in our group? For sure someone’s been swept away and drowned. Bill is shivering. I give him my rain jacket. He now has that plus my hat, with never a thank you. I must keep moving or I’ll get hypothermic. My gut aches for the others, but we have to get moving. I cannot, however, leave Bill and Ted (much as I’d like to).

The trail is now in the river, underneath all that liquefied mud. Downstream there will be parts of it exposed higher up on the bank, but for now we must crawl through Catclaw Acacia and Mesquite, small trees lovely to the eye–from a distance. After all, desert plants must defend themselves. Not much to eat in these parts. Catclaw is rather self-explanatory. The thorns on the mesquite are different, long and straight, kinda like big IV needles. Our only route is choked with these. At waist height and below, the lovely prickly pear, fishhook and hedgehog cacti litter the ground. Blood leaks from countless scratches and holes, like we’ve been flailing ourselves in some religious swoon. I ignore Bill and Ted’s loud and constant complaints until they finally shut up.

At long last, we reach a section of trail which is above the flood. It has abated a couple of feet in the past half-hour. We’re getting strangely used to the clamor and feverish motion of red-brown water. Fish flop in puddles along the recently exposed trail. I mindlessly scoop them sideways back into the river with a flick of my foot as I hike, and they bounce and disappear in a wide-eyed splash, mouthing whoa, whoa, whoa.

We round a corner and stumble into a small knot of clients. Huddled and cold, some sit on rocks, some stand. The men cradle their heads in their palms, staring at their feet. The women softly whimper, arms crossed for warmth or around their companion’s shoulders, comforting each other.

“Oh! It’s a guide! Jeffe! Thank God!” All faces look to me.

I ask “Is everyone okay? Has anyone been washed away?”

“No. Everyone’s fine. But we we’re stuck! We’re cold and wet! And we can’t get back to the boats!” 

“Nope. We’re all right” I say, relief apparent in my voice. I nod, as much for myself as for them. “We don’t need that last crossing through the tunnel. It’s probably underwater, but there’s a secret way back to the boats on this side, higher up. Used to be used by the miners back in the thirties. It’s gonna be okay.”

Acquitted, off we tramp, the group chatting, newly lighthearted, me picking the way on the still partly submerged trail. Silently I ponder my comrades in the eddy.



We keep coming upon little pods of clients scattered along the trail. The manner and greeting of the first encounter is repeated. Each time I question, they answer—nobody swept away—until there are nearly thirty of us gaily tramping towards our river.

Moley and Steve appear, having escaped by climbing a crack in the cliffs to a higher ledge. He gives me thumbs up, eases into the sweep position. We share a secret smile of relief, and the warm wash of fraternity one feels when a heavy burden is shared. A few trees still float downstream, but the power is clearly ebbing, still high and muddy but less troubled. We bypass the tunnel where the trail usually goes. Water is sucking through it like a giant toilet. We ascend the old mining track on the scree above, slowing in the steeper terrain. Weary faces concentrate on the loose footing.

Not over yet.

Back on the trail again and clambering over a slight rise just past the “Big Kid’s Pool”, a favorite of the time-constrained six-day motor trips, I gain sight of the cliffs above the first crossing, sporting a rather colorful clutch of boatmen. All geared up, gay yellows and bright purples and vibrant blues, lifejackets on, throwbags in hand. Even from this distance, I see their worried faces staring at the water rushing by, expecting the worst. Rob, AzRA’s owner, glances up, sees me. Only me so far…and then, in an instant, I see the whiteness of a dozen faces. They stiffen, weirdly dressed and posed like mannequins—half bent, limbs akimbo, mouths half open, a river fashion display.

Decades later, Dave, hand clutching my arm as if he were there once more, would describe the mood thusly: “Boyo…it was…Chilling.”

Typically, voices cannot overcome the clamor of rapids. Sometimes communication between one boat and another, or a boat and a swimmer, is critical, so river guides have devised hand signals over the years. A pat on the head means “OK.” It’s a question-response sort of thing, one pat deserving another.

Clearly, they’re expecting bad news, and still only see me. Unable to help myself, I smile, pat my head, and point with my other thumb over my shoulder behind me. They glance at each other, then back to me. One pats his head back, face puzzled, slowly rising from his crouch. Faces turn towards each other, mouths stir.

One by one, my herd tops the rise. The guides begin counting on their fingers. Someone produces a roster. Rob, pen in hand, checks off names. Smiles appear, backs are slapped.

Presently, Moley materializes, bringing up the rear. All accounted for.

Soon, we are yelling across the abyss. We cannot make ourselves understood over the roar of the floodwaters in the final narrows. Joel points downstream towards the boat eddy. Oh. Right. We move off in that direction.

Where a dozen boats were, there are three—my snout and two eighteen footers, swaying in the current.

“WAIT’LL YOU HEAR,” someone shouts.

“Wait’ll YOU hear,” I respond.



Reserves are waning. People are wet and tired and hungry. It is getting late. Time for stories later; this one is still taking shape. Following a brief discussion, Moley and I set up our end of a Tyrolean Traverse. Joel, like myself an ex-Outward Bound instructor, sets up the far side. We swap stories as we work, omitting certain delicate details, watched by curious and anxious clients. There are three more rafts in the eddy downstream, plus a motor rig that happened by. They’d like to get going, get their own passengers to camp and fed. The first good camp at Tuckup is ten miles downstream.

The Tyrolean Traverse: A taut rope, fixed across some terrible abyss (naturally), to which experienced and fearless climbers affix themselves in a sit-harness and joyfully slide themselves with pulleys from one side to the other. Exhilarating fun…for climbers.

I look at the thirty-plus people; they look back, suddenly startled. Darkness is descending, and the helpful motor rigger is getting understandably impatient. Usually, when training student climbers, I spend quite a bit of time on the particulars of knots, safety, technique. No time for that.

I scan the huddled crowd, seeking the most squeamish. I gently lead her by her elbow to the taut line. Nobody speaks. I have her step into the improvised figure-eight harness, clip her into the line.

Innocently, she asks “So, uh, what are we doing?

“Darlin’, you just hold onto this rope here. Yep. That’s it.”

Then I shove her off the cliff.

It is a short distance to the other side, and before her terrified scream gets past her lips, she’s already in the arms of Lorna and Joel.

No savior appears for the others. Just us scraggly half-clad hippy boatmen. Gradually, efficiently, reluctantly, the rest follow.

The motor rig leaves. It’s a half hour by motor, an hour by oar, maybe less with the high water. There, at Tuckup, dry clothes, hot food, tea, sleeping bags, toilets–the backbones of  normality–await. Once all are across, Moley and I frenetically disassemble the gear in the last of the light. We toss the mess across to the others waiting on the ledge. They gather it up and turn to clamber over the ledges into the shadows.

Then it hits me.

I peer over the edge, stand bolt upright and turn to Moley. He points a finger at me, scowling, and says, “Don’t you say a word. I ain’t sticking around to think about it,” and leaps.

He is lithe, but he barely makes it, all scrambling feet and arms, pebbles knocking loose and splashing into the dark water somewhere below. Silent and now alone, I shake my head, mouth twisting into a crooked grin, recalling the morning’s musings with Dave. 

Deep breath, jump.



We pile wordlessly into our boats and cast off. Floating along on the moonlit Colorado, cliffs drift by like sentinels. Small rapids are rowed by heart. The Black Cloud, having only barely reached the main gouge of the Canyon, has now entirely vanished, leaving an impeccable corridor of brilliant stars, like luminescent sea foam punctuated by the crescent moon, a pendant hanging on a necklace. There is soft conversation; we share trail mix. Each of us considers crag and sky and the essence of things. I listen to the sounds of oarlocks squeaking gently, oars dipping, caressing the water. Sweet music.

Time passes, my ears hear Tuckup rapid. Not much of a rapid really—a little curlicue with a couple of diagonal waves, sheer cliff on the left, bouldery beach on the right. But in the dark with nine passengers on a two-ton snout?

Catching eddies is a special skill, tricky for most to learn at first, second nature once you’ve got the hang of it. If you’re a pro, you’d darn well better have the hang of it or you’ll be flippin’ burgers soon after the trip de-brief. But sometimes they’re a bitch. Sometimes even the old-timers miss one. In a snout, they’re pretty much always a struggle. Add fast current, extra weight, darkness… Jeesh, I really don’t need any more epics today. Downstream, dozens of flashlights and dancing fires light up the cliffs like a Revival Meeting. It looks like a small city, all gaily lit up like that.

I want it.

I set the boat angle to catch the eddy, glance over my shoulder, tell everyone to pipe down so I can concentrate.

What on earth?...are those fireflies flitting over the water there?

In any case, that’s about where I need to be. I await my timing, pull hard, and close my eyes and plead; please let me in.

The eddy, like a magnet, magically draws us in, much to my surprise. But there is more. Eyes now opened, I can see that my strong and capable fellows, who were waiting for me, wading chest deep in the eddy, have reached out, grabbed my boat, and pulled us in. A silhouette with a glowing Cyclops eye ties us up; others leap aboard, embrace me. One offers a welcome bottle.

Relax, friend. You’re home now.

Not fireflies…

Headlamps, reflected in the night eddy.

This. Oh, this. Worth every struggle, every failure and fear. Finally, a tribe I can belong to. That I want to be part of. That wants me.

Boats and people—five river trips worth, are spread out on the huge beach like refugees. Delicious cooking smells drift across the dunes. Suzy runs up and gives me a bear hug. Her laugh is all the welcome I’ll ever need. I notice her bandaged hand. She shakes her head, smiling, points to the paddle raft dry-docked in the sand, on its edge and being patched by firelight. A crowd of boatmen, beers in hand, surround it, passing a bottle. Tired as we are, the boatmen’s sleeping bags will remain lonely for a while yet.

“Everyone okay?”

She tells me of Jane and Dave and Joel, and I share my Bill and Ted.



Next morning, after sleeping in and re-rigging and breakfast, each trip separates, sharing smiles and waving and hooting, and we each slide back into the current on our separate ways towards Lava Falls.

Lava is the largest whitewater maelstrom on one of the world’s most renowned rivers. Depending on who’s breathless stories you believe, it drops either seventeen or thirty feet in seventy-five yards. Either way, it is filled with boat-flipping holes, colossal waves, and bone-crushing volcanic rocks. It is now running high and furious at forty-five thousand cubic feet per second. Enough to make any river runner’s belly start to groan.

We pass Vulcan’s Anvil: a shiny, black basalt column sitting placidly, deceptively, a mile above Lava, dead smack in the center of the river. The core of an ancient volcano, once violent, the Anvil is now an altar, the serene recipient of wayward boater’s prayers and offerings. We float that final mile of quiet water, hushed and anticipatory, then round the ultimate bend.

Once again, we are met by the sound of water.