Chapter 5

April 19-20, 1999
Grand Canyon Trip 1, 1999

They drifted on down the river, with Al mostly talking about the history and the geology of the place -- it was new and interesting to her, too, and would be among the many things she had to learn, she knew without asking.

The wind was getting to her a little; so she dug around in her on-river drybag and pulled out a nylon rain jacket, that would help to keep the water off, and pulled it on. The Canyon walls were higher now, and closer together. As they drifted along Al explained that technically speaking, this was Marble Canyon and the actual Grand Canyon was still several days away; at least according to some, it didn't start until the Little Colorado, nearly sixty miles ahead. But, some of the most awesome sights of the trip would be in that first couple of days, where the walls were narrow and vertical, the red walls towering high overhead.

Eventually they swept around a bend, and Scooter could see Crystal pulling into a sandbar along the river-right shore, so she began to maneuver for a landing, wondering if Al would want to take over. Apparently not; he got up, partly uncoiled the bow line, and got set to jump out. As they drew close, Scooter pivoted the raft and pulled hard into the shoreline, within feet of Jerry's raft.

Soon, all five of the rafts were nosed into shore, with lines run up to nearby tamarisk trees to hold them there. "Good place for a break," Al called from up on the bank. "We usually stop here for lunch. That's usually enough to let people get a feeling for what's happening, so you'll be a little better prepared to understand the stuff you need to know. We've come a little less than half of what I'd hoped to do today."

People began to stand up and clamber off the rafts to join the few already on shore. Crystal began to untie the tarp on her raft, and a couple of other boatmen went over to help her unload a table, a couple boxes and a cooler. Scooter went over to see what she could do to help, but Crystal told her to pay attention to Al right now instead.

"This is probably a good place to explain something," Al continued. "This is a desert, and the environment is fragile. If you have to urinate, you might have noticed there aren't any bathrooms around here, so the Park Service rule is that you do it in the river. The basic rule is easy to remember -- men upriver, women down. Just like your pants. There's a little room to spread out here, but there may not be at some places we stop, so if everybody will just kind of turn your backs and extend a little courtesy, it'll work out."

As Crystal and the other boatmen pulled bread and chips and lunch meat from the food boxes, Al continued his orientation, including stuff like the fact that cooking and wash water came from the river, and was always boiled or filtered before use. He warned people against sunburns -- they happened easily and were no fun to live with when out on the river day after day, and told people to keep an eye on each other to see if they were burning.

He also explained that since the air was very dry, there was a very real danger of dehydration, especially on hot days. "Drink lots," he said. "We have plenty of water with us, we have lots of sodas, and I know several of you brought some beer. Mostly that stuff rides in the bottom of the raft, but each day we'll hang some over the side in drag bags to keep it cool. There is no reason to go thirsty, and it's dangerous if you do."

By the time Al had finished his orientation -- he said there would be more when they got into camp -- lunch was all laid out and ready to go. The boatmen let the customers have the first crack at the food, but soon everyone had a sandwich, a can of pop, and some cookies, and most were looking for some place to stand or sit and eat. Some people used the river, both upstream and down, and after a while Scooter helped the rest of the boatmen reload Crystal's raft. People began to drift back to the rafts for the next part of the journey. "Al, you want to row?" she asked as they began to get organized on the raft.

"Not particularly, unless you need the break," he smiled. "You're doing fine, Scooter. I'll push us off if you like."

A few minutes later they were on the river. "Not a bad pit stop," Al smiled. "We got a crew that hasn't worked together before on the first trip of the season, so there are a few rough spots to work out. I always figure it takes about three days on the river to get shaken down into river mode."

"Sure will be neat," Scooter smiled. "I've never had that luxury. We did two- to three-hour trips on the Nanty, sometimes four a day. Usually only two if we went over to the Ocoee, and just one back on the New because that's a longer run. We hardly ever got to know the customers, even their names."

"Then you're going to be surprised to see how well folks can pull together after a couple weeks," Al grinned. "People sometimes get to be awful good friends in that amount of time. Sometime you really hate to see them go when the trip is over with. I have to be honest, though; sometimes you get someone that you're counting the days till it ends, but not often. People that take oar or paddle trips usually know what they're getting in for."

A little later they swept around a bend to see the twin silver arches of Navajo Bridge in the distance downstream. "Except for a little bit down near Phantom Ranch and airplanes flying overhead, that'll be the last we'll see of civilization for over two weeks," Al smiled. "This is still one of the wild places of the earth, and we try to keep it that way."

They drew perceptibly closer to the bridge as the current carried them along, Scooter moving the raft with oar strokes to the side of the river with the strongest current. Before long, it was high overhead. There were actually two bridges, nearly twins; the downstream one was a little wider and much newer; the older bridge a few yards upstream was now merely used as a footbridge. They could see a handful of people looking down from the railing, probably some of them wishing they were down in the rafts, heading for over two weeks of beauty and adventure.

They drifted onward for another hour, usually in moderately fast water, occasionally going through riffles or small rapids. "Scooter, Badger's not far ahead," Al told her. "I can take it if you want to, but I'd like to see how you do in it. Shouldn't be anything you can't handle."

"Sure, if you think so," she smiled.

"Good enough. We can stop and look it over if you like, but this one we usually don't bother. Just go straight down the tongue and get set to pull to the right. I told Crystal we want to get in to one of the camps just below unless there's someone there, and there shouldn't be."

Not far ahead, there was a low rumble, and she could look downstream and see the river drop away, with white water rearing up beyond the lip of the drop. There were other rafts ahead drifting sideways, and one by one she could see the boatman take a couple of big strokes to turn the raft endways before it nosed down and disappeared over the drop, only to raise on the big standing wave behind it. Not a particularly bad one, she thought; it's gonna be easier than Hell Hole on the Ocoee, nowhere near as tricky as Lesser Wesser on the Nanty.

The raft drifted up close to the lip, and like the others, Scooter gave a couple strokes to straighten it out just before it plunged down the drop. The boat slid down a slick tongue of water and dropped into the roar. Waves built in front of them and to the side. They rode smoothly over the first, only to have the next crash over the nose of the raft. Some water washed through, not a lot, nothing to be concerned about, she thought -- it'd drain right out of this self-bailing raft. The raft bucked and twisted as it rode over the top of the wave, and on over the next one, not taking as much water. She noticed the other rafts pulling into a beach over on river right, and she began to pull to the side, where there was some flat water. "Nothing wrong with that," Al smiled. "I guess Crystal knew what she was talking about."

A couple minutes later the raft was pulled up on shore along with the others. "Well, let's get unloaded and started on the orientation." Al said as he stood in front of where the rafts were nosed into the bank.

"OK, folks, looks like this is home for the night," he told them. "There's a nice hike out of here up that side canyon, it takes us up to a nice overlook of the camp and the river. It's iffy enough that we want to do it before it gets dark, but we'll have some time before supper to go take a look. Now, I know a couple people here that have done this trip before, so they pretty well know the drill, but a lot of people haven't, so I'm going to take it from the top. What we're going to do in the next hour is pretty much how it'll be handled every night on the trip, so I'm going to take you through it step by step, and cover a few other things along the way. First thing, we'll get the rafts unloaded. Then we'll take you through the rest of the orientation about setting up camp, and some of the other stuff. Now, the way we're going to unload is to start at the first raft, and we'll all form a line and hand stuff up, hand to hand. We call that a duffel line, and it goes better if everybody pitches in. Each boatman is responsible for unloading his own raft, since some stuff stays on board and some doesn't. So, the boatmen will get started getting the tarps off while everybody else gets out and stretches their legs and we get the line set up."

In a few minutes, the duffel line was under way. There was a lot of gear to pass up. In addition to everyone's daybag, which held little items that would be needed during the day, there was a night bag that was stowed under the tarps. That was bigger, and held spare clothing and the like. There was a camp bag, bigger yet, that held a sleeping pad and sleeping bag, a ground cloth and other items. There were four tent bags scattered around the boats, holding four tents each. And, there was a pile of kitchen gear, some loose, some large items, like folding tables, some in boxes that had been stored under the gear pile. With everybody working together, it didn't take long for the gear to be piled in scattered heaps along the shore.