THE HAVASU FLASH FLOOD OF 1984

THE HAVASU FLASH FLOOD OF 1984

One Epic River Day …

My clients are tired. The good kind. Standing ankle deep at the edge of our fantasmical turquoise plunge-pool, we smile, we drip, and are caressed by the breathless desert sun. A cocoon of towering coral-red cliffs and shimmering green cottonwoods rim our iridescent acre, domed with a sky of indigo so infinitely deep it could inhale you. Is this Mars? Jupiter? They fumble in daypacks for sandwiches. Watchful squirrels snoop from nearby branches.

Wearing nothing but my customary desert costume of frayed cut-offs, soggy running shoes, floppy straw hat, full-wrap mirrored sunglasses, and ratty daypack, I have the urge to howl like a coyote. Instead I concentrate on my crumpled salami sandwich.

My gaze ascends leisurely up the full height of the incomprehensible pastel waterfall to where it gracefully arcs over the lip, nearly two hundred feet above. There are a few others here, non-rafting “civilians” who have climbed down from the campground above through a maze of dusty natural caves and connecting steps carved into the vertical cliffs. The route involves clutching rusty old cables installed ages ago by the local tribesmen, traversing frozen waterfalls of sculpted travertine stalactites. Those who manage to speak do so in hushed tones, as if in a cathedral, leaving only the sound of water.

Destiny is at hand.

“What the ….” The words, whispered to myself, desiccate into the dry air. My smile does likewise.

Appearing at the very brink of the falls, an uncanny obsidian presence, as yet unidentifiable. Is it part of the sky? I try to sort things out, sniffing the air, squinting, ears back. Above me looms a pressing, black, groaning Obelisk, unmistakably monstrous, though I glimpse only it’s margin. My sandwich, still in hand, unconsciously droops to my side. I stand like a statue in a corner nave, gaze aloft.

  A cloud? The question floats in my skull. Whatever it is, my skin tingles. I suck in one long, deep draught of air, blow it out through pursed lips. The still young body prepares itself, the feeble mind has yet to follow.

This black behemoth is ponderously but surely floating down our little canyon like a supertanker. Towards us.



In our beloved Southwestern Desert, July and August are what we locals call Monsoon Season. Towering afternoon thunderheads regularly tumble in, edged with brilliant silver by the blinding sun. Their bellies hang grey and sombre, cast against a painfully blue sky, grumbling and striking with flashes of raw electricity, weaving firmament to space. The immense atmospheric landscape dwarfs our stony world below. If it rains within your immediate sphere, the cliffs become an animated tapestry of iridescent black, crystalline burgundy and molten silver waterfalls, ramparts on every hand glinting like sapphires and opals in the slanting rays of the sun. After the drama of rain pouring down, filling the potholes of your senses, a glorious quality of peace swells, penetrating our restless souls just enough to calm us, even if just for one brief, singular moment. Pure, unadulterated magic. Moments of speechless awe for some… discomfort for others. The river itself turns to Cafe-O’lait mud, splattering everyone and all the rafts and gear, leaving a slippery, goopy mess. A safe path through key rapids becomes more difficult to read, rocks obscured and currents coloured all wrong. Bathing is for the intrepid or the desperately stinky.

For me, being in a monsoon in the desert Canyon Country is to be transported back to primordial roots, my tormented inner world washed clean once more, allowing me the illusion of being able to start fresh, erase my assorted blunders and perhaps move with a bit of grace. Catching an elusive flash flood is akin to discovering buried treasure. Fantastical red, black and green waterfalls roar down side canyons that may have been silent for lifetimes. A quickening of the pulse – a gift from the Gods. Mud sweeps everything in its path downstream, that much closer to the sea, swirling and cascading with a roar into sweet oblivion. One must take great care not to join the detritus. Secretly I smile when the once mighty Colorado, Spanish for red-coloured, returns for a time back to its pre-dam violence and splendour. Once the spray settles, river debris – driftwood, leaves, carcasses – is left perched in remarkable places; way up in treetops or jammed in cracks fifty feet above our heads. People point and wonder how the hell that tree trunk got way up there…

I have given myself up to being a boatman – loving the playful intensity, the out-of-controlness, the tease of death that a wild river brings. The troubled waters of my soul are calmed by the smack of my own mortality just a breath away, the magic made somehow more compelling by the awareness of fleeting impermanence, the skill of rowing my craft through the tempests all the more thrilling (and laughable, having watched pilotless boats make it through just fine all by their lonesome selves after some random wave slapped a boatman overboard). For me, the cherished camaraderie of river guides is like a confusion of sunburnt cottonwood leaves scattered randomly on the earth, gathered and borne upwards by the whirling Chubasco of whitewater, briefly soaring together in a shared murmuration of ecstasy and joy, inevitably parting in our unpredictable ways and heading off downstream, trusting to meet again in some future eddy, scotch in hand.

Part of being good at this boatman dance, part of why you don’t lose your job every time you make a juvinile off-color joke or overturn your boat, is a rare but crucial skill… that somehow, some bit of you deep down remains doggedly aware of where you are in your immediate world, and this world speaks to you. Especially the part that can kill you.

One of the traits of our tribe of talented misfits is that we love to hike what’s called a slot canyon. I guess it’s the very fact that moving water – our personal medium, the stuff that drips through your fingers and quenches your thirst and floats your boat – can also (given enough time) carve labyrinthine cathedrals through thousands of feet of tenacious stone. Scrambling within those natural playgrounds incised deep in the earth, a narrow cobalt skylight far above, leaping like cats and jamming our bodies to fit the sculpted rock – holds an allure both sensuous and pure. Still, if you look real close, you’ll notice us covertly sniffing the air for the telltale smell of wet earth, for something… different. Perhaps a peculiar sound where only the flawless desert silence existed before. Something in our subconscious whispering like a messenger…

The sound of water.

It is, of course, better to sense this whisper well before it becomes a roar. We guides too often tempt fate as it is. Personality trait. Keep an eye out at every bend for the quickest exit route. Watch for a climbable escape crack as you slither between the vertical walls. Tie your boats well, ideally not in the direct path of a potential flood. Leave your gear clipped on and at the ready, especially your life jacket. If you choose to remain with the fleet, perhaps to nap on your boat in the welcome shade, keep one eye open. Clear your senses with one neat shot of highland single-malt, discreetly of course.

XXX

Havasu. Sounds simple enough. Means ‘Blue-Green Water’ in the lingo of the natives that have called this side canyon their home for millennia. An Extraordinary Canyon within the likewise transcendent Grand Canyon, one hundred fifty six miles downstream from where boats launch at Lees Ferry. It’s preposterously coloured waters mingling with my Colorado River at the edge of an eddy embraced by thirty-foot high overhanging limestone cliffs. Sacred ground. So hard to put into words. Not just the unreal opalescent water flowing over fantastically curving tangerine natural dams from one to two hundred feet high, formed of countless matted petrified twigs and leaves and logs. Nor just the endless corridors of lush multi-hued grapevine arches draped over ash and acacia, cactus and cottonwood. Not even just the manifold sounds of water – dribbling, dashing, cascading, swirling. No – a power that embraces you from your wet flip-flops to the super-heated air touching that expression of awe on your face. Our temple. Our sanctuary. Hike it, splash in it, read or nap in it, its all the same… like a lover, you soak up whatever it offers and just this simple exchange makes you complete.

            On the evening before we hit Havasu Creek on most river trips, during the ritual pre-hike briefing at Last Chance or Ledges camp, the “peeps” are told to pack their lunches, watch for thieving ravens, choose their destination (or no destination at all), in preparation for the much anticipated Havasu. Some guides revel in this preparatory harangue, some find it annoying and discreetly avoid it by wandering away in the dusk to sit quietly on some smooth river-washed boulder and watch the evening descend. This time of year, the pep talkers also remind our charges of what to watch out for in a “flash”. They’re warned to pay attention to the colour of the water, the quality of its sound, a peculiar scent in the air. Maybe the crossings seem deeper than before? Maybe the turquoise has turned a little pinkish and you realize you can’t see where to place your feet so good anymore? Maybe you kinda think maybe the creek sounds just a teensy bit louder, more insistent. Do I smell freshly dug up garden soil? They’re warned if there’s anything the least suspicious, to head uphill pronto.

XXX

Ratty old ropes of all ages and descriptions are tied around small chockstones or stuffed into cracks in the cliffs overarching Havasu eddy, stained with the brown mud of innumerable past floods. One or two pitons or bolts are hammered into discreet corners for backup (where the ever-vigilant Park Rangers can’t easily find them), sporting some very old rusted steel rings and bent carabiners. Most of these seem way too high off the water, a story in itself for the observant. You have to stand on tippy-toe on your craft to reach them from today’s steady, dam-tamed lower water levels. The eddy water is Havasu blue-green until it hits the Colorado River’s current, where it swirls and mixes with the darker, colder waters like a lava lamp, whirlpooling towards the river bottom, then flowing swiftly into a small rapid created by large boulders strewn there by past floods, yep, out of Havasu. This is not a place you want to be unless you’re in a boat. Cliff upon tawny cliff ascend straight out of the river to touch the deepest blue senses can fathom. Most summer days, from morning until mid-afternoon, a multitude of boats are tied to anchors and to each other in a massive raft-up, the boatmen spinning spiderwebs of lines to achieve the common goals of keeping rafts out of the way of incoming or outgoing traffic, as well as to give people access onto and off of the rock shelf that serves as shore and gathering place. It’s one of the main attraction sites on the Colorado. The boat count has exceeded forty, with crafts of all shapes and sizes, plus a few big motor rigs elbowing their way in, so tightly packed at the height of the season that you could walk across them like a frog jumping lily pads without even getting your feet wet. At the head of the cliff-bound eddy Havasu creek enters through a narrow hourglass-shaped passage, just a tad too tight for an eighteen-foot raft to squeeze through. Occasionally cliff jumpers from upstream swim through the notch back to their boats for a catnap in the shade.

            I always aim for Mooney Falls, roughly a two-and-a-half hour hike. Less people to mind, and generally the bolder, more adventurous ones. They also just happen to be typically more appreciative, which is, after all, why I do this. Ya gotta want it.

            Plus I get to see Mooney again. I get to swim across its Caribbean-blue, bottomless pool to behind the falls, clamber along the secret rock ledge just under the wave-tossed surface, the clients following, not quite comprehending why. A hurricane of spray blasts us into the sheeting, drenched wall so we’re barely able to catch our breath. Then they’re following me in my madness, diving through the falls, terrified of being driven to the depths but it doesn’t happen, finally to surface, rolling over on our backs and gazing up at that cascading miracle of water in the desert stretching to the heavens. A rainbow sun-dog encircles the brink of the falls, visible only from that exact spot in all the universe. Then we drift, laughing our way back towards the island in the seventy-two degree water. Its a religious experience. You gotta be ready for magic.

XXX

Rowing into Havasu eddy early on the morning of day ten on our thirteen day trips, the ritual begins. Get the “Moonies,” the long-hikers, off the boats and on the trail. They’re psyched, focused, and a royal pain in the ass to the rest, who plan to mosey. A guide leads them to efficiently negotiate the numerous and confusing ankle-to-waist-deep creek crossings. Once they’ve left, their energy dissipates and the others can putter and relax. The guides taking the day off are the harbourmasters. After everyone finally lets them be, they dally about tying the rigs up, recovering from ten days of heat and hikes and rapids and cooking and toilet duty and flat water chit-chat, rub some lotion into the sore spots. It’s a meditation. On this particular early July morning, there is only one other trip in the eddy, a parallel trip from our company AzRA. They were supposed to be one day ahead of us, but they were in a crowd and deliberately slowed down, so we’ve caught up. They’re planning on booking out the next couple of days on the high water. Last year was the famous high water of 1983, when we nearly lost Glen Canyon Dam. Most of us would have given our first born, or our last tequila bottle, to watch that six-hundred foot wave clear our Canyon of the rubbish of civilization from the safe vantage point of a six-hundred and fifty foot high cliff, beer in hand. Blaming Mother Nature but knowing in their hearts they’d screwed the pooch, the Bureau of Wreck-The-Nation engineers were now putting forty-five thousand cubic feet per second (cfs) down the Colorado day-in, day-out all year to lower “Lake” Powell before next spring’s looming floodwaters from the Rockies had a chance to do a repeat. We are loving every minute of it.

I’m rowing my huge “snout” boat on this trip, so as usual I enter the eddy first, aiming near to where the eddy line marks the boundary between Havasu Creek and the Colorado River, and quickly tie up to a well-known flat anchor rock on a ledge. The others slide gracefully into the eddy, tie up to my stern, then string themselves end to end as my folks slide off the snout onto the ledge. Each rig wraps tight into the eddy, leaving room for other latecomers to jam in. Lorna, who is taking the day off, is the last boat to tie up, jamming her raft into the hourglass-shaped notch at the far end of the eddy, where the creek enters. Nice and quiet there, nobody stepping over her, good shade all day. I strap up my oars, exchange my flip-flops for tennies, grab my daypack. Everyone is boat hopping, smiling, preparing for a wonderful day.

Glancing at Big Dave Edwards, my fellow Georgian-Welsh boatman who’s staying back to harbourmaster, I wave farewell. He smiles his broad smile and looks upwards to the overhanging cliffs nearly thirty feet above our heads. There’s a part where they come close, maybe seven or eight feet across the gap.

“Ever see anyone jump across?” he says playfully.

“Nope.”

“I saw Briggs do it once.” He shakes his head.

“Yeah, right. Six-foot-four and legs like beanpoles. Not me. No way! Carayzeee. See ya later, boyo. Enjoy your day off.”

XXX

            It’s a good start. We leave the others fiddling with their packs and beating off the ravens. I’d prepared the troops the night before, keeping them focused on getting out of the hubbub so we could find our pace and not worry about stragglers blocking the trail. To sweat ourselves into the rhythm of moving through the desert – destination oriented. We can meander all we want on the way back and catch what we missed. In sanctums like Havasu, randomly disbursed within a vast and otherwise desolate desert landscape, the ancient chant “Walk In Beauty” whispers, matching us stride for stride.

            The hike up takes the usual two and a half hours. The clients grow silent keeping my pace, hearing the call, allowing the enormity to sink in. We eat a snack, have some water, and take photos at stair-stepped Beaver Falls. They always want to dally at this stunning spot, but I know what’s up ahead – Mooney beckons. After Beaver, the landscape gets even wilder, the pace picks up. Typically most everyone else stops for a swim at Beaver. From here on in, its all ours.

            I’ve seen it scores of times, but Mooney rocks me every time. I make them stop at a little spring just before we get there – partly to fill up their water bottles, partly to increase the tension one more notch.

            Finally able to glimpse our objective, everyone stops several times at each little viewpoint, look at each other, then back to the falls and cliffs, trying to absorb it all.

People whisper things, mostly to themselves, like “Impossible, unbelievable.” Otherwise churchly silence reigns, seasoned with the chorale of water. The pace slows, so not to disturb something sacred.

            As usual, at the pool they drop their daypacks, prepare to eat lunch, fumbling in their packs as their gazes are drawn upwards.

            “Hold on, you guys.” My little ritual.

            They’re a little confused. After all, we’re here, ain’t we?

            “Would you like to have a religious experience?” I offer as I dive into the pool and swim for the falls.

XXX

            “Um, you guys?” Softly, too calmly.

            Faces are instantly alert, concerned. They are used to my natural exuberance, noting the abrupt change.

            “I think maybe we ought to eat as quick as possible, and then get moving back downstream.” I shrug my shoulders, deliberately not looking at the sky.

            Pat, one of two women on the hike, wants more information.

            “What?”

            A seemingly simple word, but I know that tone of voice. She’s not going to let it go. Nor, on reflection, should she.

            I point with my lips, Navajo style, up towards what I’ve now decided is either the blackest, thickest cloud in all of creation, or the apocalypse. Maybe both. All eyes look upwards towards the menacing black beast peeking over the lip of the falls. All faces, save two, go pale. They get it. Most of ’em anyway.

            “Whoa. Um…” Pat hesitates. “Is that a cloud, or what?”

            I don’t answer directly. All watch our deliberations. I have my “professional” mask on. There’s that damn pause thing that always seems to precede something extraordinary in the offing. Like a chopper just off the deck in the Canyon, it’s rarely good news.

“Okay. Here’s the deal. That’s the darkest goddam cloud I think I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Probably raining like Noah’s flood somewhere upstream.”

            As one they stand up, full attention. In life, some are paralyzed by fear, some are energized. We’ll soon see.

            Closing my eyes, I visualize. A few miles upstream it is bucketing hard. All that water, volumes and torrents of water, is hitting the hardpan and bedrock, sheeting off fast. It tumbles downhill, collecting first mud and pebbles, then rocks and chunks of earth, into the natural creek bed which had moments before been bone dry. It is an irresistible force – the very force that, over the eons, created this entire fractured landscape. It cannot penetrate the hard earth and rock, and so rushes headlong downhill to hit the springs that form this perennial creek and mingle with the turquoise water and turn it into gooey, thick red mud. With endless supply from the heavens, it keeps growing and picking up speed, relentlessly sweeping everything in its path. At the moment, the “in its path” part includes us. I’ve been through flash floods before. You learn the signs. This one is singular. I can feel it in my spine.

             I glance at their faces. “Don’t panic. Just be focused. Okay?” In my way, I pull my sunglasses down over my nose so they can see my eyes. My voice is dead calm. They find that scarier.

            “Don’t stop. Listen for, well, a “different” sound. Keep looking upstream, especially at crossings. Watch for a wave. Kinda like a storm surf only red. Sniff the air, see if it smells muddy. Don’t worry if you don’t understand what that means. Trust me, you’ll know it when you smell it. You notice any of those signs, run do not walk to the highest point you can, fast. This is life and death, kiddos, I shit you not.”

            Nobody moves. Eyes shift back and forth from my face to the growing cloud, trying to process the totality of instantaneous and absolute consequence. They’ve seen me scouting big rapids – the warrior’s calm, slightly pursed smile, welcoming the contest to come. I mean business.

            “And you?” says Pat.

            Replacing my sunglasses, I look down, cross my arms, then raise my face back to meet hers. “I have to think. I’m supposed to be sweep. There are other people here. I can catch you pretty quick. I need a minute or two to gather my thoughts.”

            The “sweep” is the last guide in the line, the one who has the repair and first aid, the one who’s responsible, on river or trail, for making sure nobody is left behind, everyone’s safe, everything’s copasetic so the trip leader can concentrate on leading. I absolutely love being sweep, fancying myself the reliable backup, which also happens to translate into plenty of time to smell the rocks. Legally, guides are only responsible for the people in their own group. Morally?... well that’s a different story.

            As one, they rise in silence, efficiently pack and head off. I notice some of the sandwiches have been discreetly put away untouched.

            I remain, pondering. Climb the cables up to the campground and warn them? Mostly these folks, freshly hiked in from their cars and motel rooms and unfamiliar with the sure consequences of Mother Nature at her Wildest, probably wouldn’t believe me anyway. Run past my small group and warn everybody on the rafts downstream? Nope. I’m sweep. Anything happens to one of my guys while I’m ahead of ‘em, they’re screwed. Surely everyone downstream has noticed that cloud? At least it’ll hit me first, however big it is.

            My right eyebrow rises.

XXX

            This is going to happen, period. If I could be in two places at once, herding them along whilst keeping well back to gauge and keep watch, that’s what I’d do. I love running this trail. I usually give my folks a thirty minute lead and catch up to them just before the waiting rafts, leaping over logs and rocks out of childlike joy and tucking away thoughts about when it’ll be the last time I’ll still have the legs and agility to do that. I’m in no rush to catch up just yet.

            Whilst caught up in these thoughts, I stroll up to each little gaggle of swimmers and point to the cloud, explaining there’s gonna be a flash flood and they probably should get back to their camps, warn their friends and move their gear. They look at me like I’m some axe murderer on the freeway, which is no more than I expected. I’ve done my best, and leave them to their fates.

            Some inner clock has struck, compelling me to take off running downstream, free and clear of doubt. Glancing briefly over my shoulder from time to time while manoeuvring amongst the grape vines and tangled trees, rocks and crossings, I perceive The Cloud stalking slowly and inexorably down canyon, consuming the sky like a starving beast. All of a sudden there’s unexpected colour and movement just ahead. A bit stunned, I skid to a dusty halt at Bill and Ted, two of my six. I’ve only been going for maybe five minutes, they’ve had maybe forty.

These two friends came on the trip together. Their impatience with the rest of us poor sheep has been overt. They don’t need nobody telling them what to do.

            They’ve left the track and are standing waist deep in the creek. Lovely spot, nice little pool. Hot and tired, they’ve stopped for a dip. No harm – in another world. I glance up. The brute is closing in. Just upstream, all of creation is obscured by a slanting grayish blur.

            Be polite now.

            “So, um, what are you guys doing?”

            “It’s hot,” Bill says, wiping his brow with a wet bandana.

            “We’re tired,” says his buddy Ted.

            “And the others?”

            “They went on ahead.”

            That part’s good news at least. I point upstream. “See that? That’s rain. Lots… and lots… of rain.” I emphasize every word, failing to keep my sarcasm at bay. “Very soon a really, really big flash flood is gonna come down right on top of us. You get that?” My arms are crossed in front of my chest; mirrored sunglasses remain in place. “Did you hear me when I said you had to keep moving downstream?”

            They nod, ruffled.

            “Kinda like now.”

I watch them disappear around a bend, muttering. A glance upstream, gauging the advance, glance around at the tranquillity soon to be rent. Once again I sort out alternatives, possibilities. Part of this is just procrastination. I don’t like ‘em much. I’d rather catch them than hang with them. Besides, the imminent danger is so sublime.

I give them fifteen minutes, for fun making a bet with myself of the exact point that we all four, they and I and The Cloud, will meet. Running once again, my mind is a welcome blank. Nothing left to do now but follow the chosen path.

            The trail whirs by, taking utmost focus. The buzz of a cicada, the flurry of two birds chasing each other into a tangle of leaves, the warm odour of riotous vegetation. Everything. My feet rhythmically pad the earth, joining heart and breath, providing the beat to a rising symphony. Everything is in readiness.

XXX

            Bill and Ted stand at the edge of the cliff, cameras pointed down at Beaver Falls. They are, as usual, totally oblivious, ignoring my arrival. On cue, as if a curtain were falling, the first heavy raindrops pelt the dust at our feet. Thump thump, creating tiny craters. Then hail the size of marbles – cat’s eye marbles, the big ones, like we used to play with back in Chicago – bombard us, sounding like applause.

  “Ouch. Ooooch. Ow!”

Bill is bald. No hat. The hail is hitting him on the head and it hurts. Fair enough. He squints at me through the instantaneous maelstrom, looking miserable. Smiling, I grab my straw hat off my head and offer it to him. He grabs it and jams it down without a thank you. He and Ted try, in vain, to thwart the hail and rain with flying arms and elbows, scrambling in circles and crying out like dancing monkeys. Then, form and colour just under the big cottonwood tree down there at the base of the falls catches my eye. Squinting against the hail and rain while tying a bandana around my head, I can just make out the outsized form of the baggage boatman from our other trip. He’s curled up on his side in the luxuriant grass, under the thick leaves of a huge cottonwood canopy, by all appearances asleep. Shouting in this racket is useless. I’ll have to downclimb the cliffs and get closer.

“Hey! What are we supposed to do now?!”

I turn towards my guys. Deep breath.

“Well. Looks like I’m gonna have to get Steve out of bed.” pointing to the shape down below, just visible through the torrent. How on earth is he sleeping through this? Damn big tree.

“I was planning on stickin’ with you guys from here on in, but plans have changed.” I like this option even less than they do. “Just head down the switchbacks then cross the creek. And could you do me a favor, please? Could you just keep on moving? Pretty please?” Sullenly, they move off. I call to their backs, “Remember what I told you about flash floods!” Then I turn to Steve.

Climbing fast, I arrive under the shelter of the tree quickly. Already soaked, I shake his arm, and in an instant he’s bolt upright, looking around, trying to place himself. Steve is a big guy, like a walrus. He was a paying client for several years running, lost as so many of us are to the bewitching power of The Canyon, until finally Rob the owner gave him some pity and an unpaid baggage boat to row.

“STEVE,” I yell, “ITS GONNA FLASH BIG TIME! WE GOTTA GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE!” The waterfalls right next to us adds to the cacophony.

He shouts “MOLEY’S GONE HIKING. HE TOLD ME TO WAIT UP.”

Moley, another AzRA boatman, is working the other trip. He’s their sweep.

I bellow “I’LL WAIT FOR MOLEY. YOU GO ON AHEAD!”

“NO. I PROMISED I’D WAIT. SO I’M WAITING.”

Pause. “OKAY. WHERE’D HE GO?”

“I DUNNO. SOMETHING ABOUT A SCARY PUPPET. BEAVER MAN OR SOMETHING.”

“HOW LONG AGO?

A shrug. “MUSTA FELL ASLEEP.” We’re both looking upwards, scanning the cliffs, hoping to spot him.

Moley’s head is screwed on good. He’ll figure it out. Think fast. This guy’s gonna be stubborn.

“OKAY. OKAY.” I bawl. “CLIMB A BIT UP THE CLIFFS WITH ME. YOU CAN STAY UNDER A SAFE OVERHANG AND WAIT FOR HIM THERE. OKAY?”

Thankfully he consents. I plunk him down and take off on a mission.

Two minutes down the track I nearly run right over the top of Frick and Frack, sheltering under a tiny overhang on the trail. Time is running out. So is my patience.

“What the hell is wrong with you two?!” I ask, hands on hips.

They are peeved, soggy, and now, at long last, apparently appreciating the situation and scared but good.

“It hurts!”

“What are you talking about?”

“The hail!”

“Okay. Fine.” Another deep breath. My sunglasses are off, my arms fold themselves across my chest.

“Listen to me, real careful.”

Yep. Listening.

“I’m supposed to be sweep and now I’ve left someone behind.”

The hail stops, the rain pours on. A garnet red waterfall explodes over a cliff a thousand feet above our heads, cascades from ledge to ledge like a giant toy Slinky, to finally plunge into our creek not thirty feet away. Another… then another… all along the scarp. The creek turns pink, as if the water were mixing with blood. The level remains steady, so far anyway. This will change presently.

“Oh! Oh my God!” exclaim the boys.

“Look you two. I’m gonna stay here just for a few minutes. I gotta think. Then I’m gonna come after you. We’ve got three more crossings to make.”

“I thought there was four!”

“All we need to make is three. We can get back to the boats from the wrong side if we need to.”

They stand there. The creek alters colour again, chameleon-like, pink to red. The rowdy rain, the rising creek, hundreds of bursting waterfalls draping the stone corridor, the wind, all combine into a deafening crescendo.

“And by the way. If I catch you two again, you won’t have to worry about no flash flood. Cuz I’m gonna fucking kill you myself.”

XXX

            Moley – ace river guide, trustworthy, capable, savvy, bald as a cue ball. We shared the high water last year, him playing his fiddle at our infamous Crystal concert. No worries there. I stand protected by the tiny overhang, re-assessing, sorting, scoping. Really just an excuse to observe the dazzling show. Red-graphite waterfalls pour over thousand foot cliffs far and wide. Pour from every little notch in the Redwall. Pour upstream and down, both sides, like an enormous wedding veil. There is so much energy it’s hard to breathe. The river is starting to rise. Just a few inches so far –  just a teaser. Not thick red mud yet, but….

            Time congeals. I am running. One knee-deep crossing tells me all I need to know; the water has risen again, maybe only a foot or so, but it’s still coming. Steady, now. Another crossing. One more and home free. A half mile, more or less. Waterfalls and rain and the cascading creek. The sound of water, of feet splashing, of breath, blend into a harmonic rhythm. My mind wanders, idiotically, to that Superman movie a few years back, the part where he outruns the train to cross the tracks, just for fun.

            Top speed and cackling madly, I wonder how fast does a flash flood wave move?

            Faster than, say, a man can run?

            A howl erupts from somewhere deep inside and red-hot. This sound is not as much drowned by the racket as absorbed by it, melded to it. I shake my head, demanding sanity. Not gonna happen. The Great Conductor has turned the page, raised the baton, and I suck my breath in through pursed lips at the climax of a boisterous and holy symphony.

            And then – The Sound. An exultant roar, like a lioness after a good kill, vibrates the air as if a huge crowd were thumping their seats after the winning goal. Its more than simply vibrations: Attitude.

It compels me to turn, still running. A massive, surreal wave, foaming and greedy and furiously single-minded, appears a hundred yards upstream. I can smell the rich fecundity of earth. Freakishly, it crawls in slow-motion, frothing and filling the spaces behind every huge boulder, tumbling over drops and eddying riotously, then lurching off again like a horse out of the gates. Deliberate, purposeful. Yet the violent water just behind the crest seems to be madly rushing at twice it’s speed – creating an optical illusion. The laws of physics seem to oblige it to catch up and overtake the slow-mo frontal wave, but somehow it knows it’s place and does not. My head jerks from trail to wave and back again, gauging speeds.

            Yup. No doubt about it. I’m beating it.

            “No fuckin’ way don’t even think about it…Woohooooooooo…!”

            I’ll play with it just so much, and then I’ll head uphill and watch it go by. I swear.

            The crossing comes into view a hundred yards downstream.

            Bill and Ted stand midstream, backs to the wave, rinsing their frigging bandanas.

            “SHIT!” Puff…puff. “GET UP THE BANK…!”

            My legs cannot move any faster. I glance at the approaching wave, thundering like a freight train, right at them. Paths are set.

            “Get up the bank get up the bank get up the bAAAAAank…!” Glance back. “FLASH FLOOD…!” Seventy-five yards, fifty, glance back.

            “FLASH FLOOOOOOOOOD…!”

            Startled, they turn and stare – but at me, not their approaching doom. They start towards the far bank – too slow. I hyperventilate, oxygenating my blood. Twenty yards. My eyes take in every rock, where my last steps must fall, where my surface dive will land. Last glance upstream.

            Its gonna be close.

            In mid-flight, just before the muddy blackness consumes me, I inhale and flick my head for one last glimpse, then I’m underwater. The thick silence startles me, I frantically plow with sinew and bone and spirit, and that final airborne image gels – a supernova of red mud has just blown over the top of that ten foot high white limestone boulder thirty feet upstream.

            I maybe have five seconds.

            My feet hit the river bottom running, like in the molasses of a nightmare. My arms drag at the mud wildly, blindly propelling me forward in the crushing underwater silence. Then, miraculously, air once again touches my face, enters my lungs, the locomotive roar again greets my ears. With the absolute clarity that the closeness of annihilation gives, I see my guys facing me at what is just now the bank, but in two seconds will be ten feet deep and utterly ruthless. Their faces are contorted in confusion and anger. I grab their collars, feet scrambling to gain purchase, leaning hard into them, shove hard. Puppets and puppeteer. Nothing to do with me and them; Life versus Not-Life.

            They are flung backwards into a thicket of ash trees. I wrap my arms around the nearest, high as I can reach, no time to choose the stoutest. The Wave sweeps my legs out from under me.

            The dang thing holds.

XXX

            “Oh….wow! So that’s what you meant by a flash flood!…” says Bill.

            I look over my shoulder and see a forty foot cottonwood tree tumble by, still alive and whole from root ball to leafy canopy, ponderously rolling over and over to disappear downstream. I regain my footing, soggy but breathing and grateful to the Gods for it. The log footbridge from Supai Village follows the tree. Supai Village is ten miles upstream.

XXX

            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 this first creek crossing, just above a set of three beautiful stepped waterfalls, which drop 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 seemingly 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 along the deep, ear-popping river bottom, she prays.

XXX

            Back at the eddy downstream, 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. She’s also on the far upstream edge of the eddyline, farthest from an escape ledge.

            Barry Lopez writes about the Native Eye, how, for example, 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 his view over the liquid horizon. Tunnel vision would be deadly. What’s required is crystal clear, primal, absolute background attentiveness, whilst getting the job a hand done. The merest change in the familiar salty breeze, a wisp of cloud on the horizon, a flock of birds wheeling – one single feather drifting and swirling, 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 rest simply follows. I try to impart that kind of elemental savvy to the guides I train, with varying results.

XXX

            The canyon narrows substantially as it enters the last few hundred yards above these 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 pulsing.

            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, another slot canyon just upstream. They’d created a “butt” dam in a narrows up-canyon from the deep niche where we were with our folks. The plan was to leap up as one, letting the backed-up water go, whilst yelling “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, and 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 in a split second, straining, then snapping its lines and wrapping it sideways into the next, like humping hippos, then both into the next, and so on. The bowlines 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 their life jacket when hanging out in the eddy.) She draws the 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 into the main river current, pendulum-ing off of my snout still tied to that lonely flat rock on the far ledge. The guides standing on that ledge gawk and scramble, grabbing life jackets and throw lines. The dozen tethered boats now strain in the raging Colorado at the head of a rapid running at forty-five thousand cubic feet per second, all attached to 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 grab the outside line, 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 for the rest of the day. Stuck but safe. Shay, in another single raft, rows into the left eddy, where Lowry, whose usually tanned and rugged face is now pale like he’d seen a ghost, directs her to stop the smaller boats from wrapping and flipping against the tied-up thirty-eight foot motor rig that was already parked there against the cliffs.

            Back upstream, Suzanne also leaps, landing on her stomach on a fast-moving tube, legs flailing. She’s wearing her familiar costume of flops, flowing 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 confusion of four boats, tied together and fully loaded – one half-deflated – disappears around the corner, containing one damned determined Alabama girl.

            This leaves just my snout and two other eighteen foot 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 behind Edwards, is leaning over a raft nearest the Colorado, peering. The object nearly surfaces, too far for him to help. He shouts;

            “Bod-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

            Joel points. Time stretches, as it will. 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 now framing the silhouette of a face with haunting eyes. In one fluid motion, 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 in her panic, 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, 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 ten 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 close to ten miles an hour.

            Others reach Joel and hold onto him, ready for the jerk. 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 could rip out Dave’s teeth and they’re goners.

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

XXX

            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!”

XXX

            Downstream, Suzy gets to work. There is no urgency. She unties then reties her rafts end to end, freeing her to row the one on the tail end. She hauls a 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 sternline coil on the back deck and aims for shore.

            She attempts eddy after eddy. Each time her rear boat hits the 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 and how 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 around the corner downstream on the left where a slower current will bring her near some low cliffs without the confused water of an eddyline. She hopes the cliffs are mostly underwater, presenting the sloping shore that’s usually twenty feet above river level.

            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. Just 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 without her.

There is a solitary large boulder at the terminus of the bench. She’d previously tied up a “monkeys fist” – a large, round knot on 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, allowing her to free her torn hand.

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

XXX

            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. The rough bark feels good 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 new rain jacket. He now has that plus my hat, with never a thank you. I better keep moving or I’ll get hypothermic. My gut aches for the others, but we just have to get moving. I can’t, however, leave Bill and Ted behind (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, so when you stand out like a sore thumb salad, you gotta use what you can to protect yourself. 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 lovelies. At waist height and below, the lovely prickly pear, fishhook and hedgehog cacti litter the ground. Blood leaks from countless scratches and pinpricks, top to bottom, 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. My new rain jacket is shredded, as are we.

            At long last, we reach a section of trail which is above the flood, which has abated a couple of feet in the past half-hour. We’re getting strangely used to the clamour 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 sideways flick of my foot as I hike along, and they bounce and disappear in a wide-eyed splash, seemingly 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 hunched and shivering. 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 with a big grin, relief apparent in my voice. I nod, as much to myself as to 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 all gonna be okay.”

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

XXX

            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. That briefing must’ve helped I reckon.

            Moley and Steve appear from behind, having escaped by climbing a crack in the cliffs to higher ledges. He gives me thumbs up and a stalwart smile, eases into the sweep position. We share a secret relief, 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 the trail usually goes through. 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 quite over yet.

            Back on the trail again and clambering over a slight rise just upstream of the “Big Kid’s Pool”, a favourite play spot for the time-constrained six-day motor trips, I gain sight of the cliffs above the first crossing, sporting a rather colourful clutch of fellow 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… his mouth moves, and in an instant I see the whiteness of a dozen faces. They stiffen, with their preposterous get-ups 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.”

            Voices cannot overcome the clamour of rapids. Sometimes communication between one boat and another, or a boat and a swimmer, is critical, so river guides have devised these 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 see only me since everyone else is just behind a little rise behind me. Unable to help myself, I smile, pat my head, and point with my thumb over my shoulder. 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 one by one like popping popcorn. The guides begin counting on their fingers. Someone produces a piece of paper; the 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 remaining floodwaters in the final narrows. Joel points downstream towards the boat eddy then to his ear. 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.

XXX

            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 far eddy downstream, plus a motor rig that happened by and, with the pure fellowship of boatmen, offered to help. Still, 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, sideways grin on my face; 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, head space. 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 – they just stare. 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 saviour appears for the others. Just us scraggly half-clad hippy boatmen. Gradually, efficiently, reluctantly, the rest follow.

            The motor rig leaves with a doubly full load. 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 our folks 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.

            That’s when 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, and 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.

XXX

            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, narrow and ever-meandering corridor of brilliant stars – 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 pitch 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 super high water, fast current, extra weight, exhaustion, 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 seems to be about where I need to be. I await my timing, pull hard, 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 in cut-off jeans and flip-flops were waiting for me, wading chest deep in the cold eddy. They’ve reached out, grabbed my boat, and pulled us in. A silhouette with a glowing Cyclops eye ties us up; others leap aboard, dripping, and embrace me. One offers a welcome bottle of tawny liquid.

            Relax, friend. You’re home now.

            Not fireflies…

            Headlamps, reflected off the water like stars 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 back.

            Boats and people – five river trips worth, over a hundred, 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, 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.

XXX

            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, unpredictably 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 a calm section of 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.