aWhen I was nine years old I received one of my best Christmas presents ever: Brighty of the Grand Canyon, by Marguerite Henry. It’s a story about a donkey who lived in the wild in the canyon. Like all favorite children’s books, it was read over and over, until, like a piece of music, it became part of my consciousness. A little later I heard Ferde Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite, whose soaring lines and evocative tone colors worked on my imagination to create a lasting desire to witness first hand those ancient, towering red and gold walls.
Life intervened, and it was not until I was in my thirties that I finally got there. I took a cross-country drive with a friend, with the express purpose of visiting the canyon. We took part in a deal in which you get free use of a car to deliver it to someone who didn’t want to drive it himself. In other words, we had a deadline. We stayed overnight in a cabin on the North Rim, and in the morning took a short, but scary, mule ride a little ways down into the canyon. Then we had to leave in order to deliver the car to its owner the next morning. I wished for much more time and hoped to return soon. About fifteen years later, on a concert tour with the Quintet of the Americas, I visited the South Rim. Again a deadline – a concert that night – curtailed exploration.
My brother Terry and his family live in California and my husband and I reside in New York City. Terry and I both have busy lives and don’t get to see as much of each other as we would like. Over the years, to my regret, I have seen very little of his children. Last year he retired and we decided to take a trip together. The Grand Canyon immediately came to mind. This time I wanted to get down into the canyon, not just view it from above. White water rafting? Something I’d always wanted to do! I planted the seed and Terry took it and ran with it (to mix a metaphor). A year later I found myself with not only Terry but also with three of his adult children and two of their partners on what everyone calls “the trip of a lifetime.”
Life intervened, and it was not until I was in my thirties that I finally got there. I took a cross-country drive with a friend, with the express purpose of visiting the canyon. We took part in a deal in which you get free use of a car to deliver it to someone who didn’t want to drive it himself. In other words, we had a deadline. We stayed overnight in a cabin on the North Rim, and in the morning took a short, but scary, mule ride a little ways down into the canyon. Then we had to leave in order to deliver the car to its owner the next morning. I wished for much more time and hoped to return soon. About fifteen years later, on a concert tour with the Quintet of the Americas, I visited the South Rim. Again a deadline – a concert that night – curtailed exploration.
Such a grand endeavor takes a while to begin. On August 15 the seven of us flew from Sacramento to Las Vegas, where we spent the night. The next day we took a small plane to Boulder City, Utah, and then got on a bus which delivered us to Page, Arizona, on Lake Powell. We slept there and rose early to take a bus trip past the lake to Lee’s Ferry, where we met our four guides and finally boarded a large blue rubber raft. There were two such vessels, about 30 feet long, powered by outboard motors. One was operated by men, the other by women. My brother chose Cheyenne and Lindy’s raft and the seven members of the Cobb clan embraced his decision.
First we motored for fifteen miles through Glen Canyon, marveling at its red Navajo sandstone walls. There had been torrential (and greatly needed) rains shortly before our arrival and tributaries which fed into the Colorado River carried mud which turned the water was tan and opaque. We hoped that blue waters would appear downstream. This never happened! After a while tan seemed like the normal color for a river. And I was glad it had rained.
At about 4 PM we pulled up onto a sandy beach and unpacked the raft, forming a fire line to deliver to the shore tables, chairs, cooking equipment, food, water and all sorts of other necessities. We were given long thin bags containing metal tubing which our leader, Cody, showed us how to turn into cots. (They were army surplus, I think.) I never learned, and my brother kindly did it for me then and for the following five days. Afterwards we swam in the wonderfully refreshing, although muddy, 46 degree water and explored the terrain around our camp. Meanwhile our wonderful staff miraculously created a delicious dinner. After thoroughly enjoying the repast and washing our dishes (in the less than pristine river water), we sat around in a circle and chatted as the sun set and bats flew out from under the cliffs
For the following four days our routine remained more or less the same: rise between 5:15 and 5:30, pack up the cot and all the gear, have a delicious breakfast, prepared by the always kind and cheerful staff, wash the dishes, load up the raft and by 7 AM cast off for a day of visual and physical stimulation. The rapids all have names and histories, often tragic. Many are named after people who died on them. Navigating them takes great skill and knowledge. The pilot must know where underwater rocks threaten, where the currents run strongest, where the holes and eddies are. At certain times the propeller of the outboard motor must come out of the water to avoid rocks. The rapids are heard before they appear. Then they come at you and there is no place to hide. The raft lurches about and the water hits you, sometimes drenching you completely. It is almost impossible not to scream, for which you pay a sandy price.
The scenery! Glorious golds and reds I’d been longing for in marvelous configu- rations: shapes that looked like the pages of a great book splayed open in thin sedimentary layers, organs, both pipe and sexual, giant cathedrals, grand pianos on their sides. There were thousands of tamarisk trees, bent into impossible shapes by the wind, bighorn sheep, mule deer, blue herons, ravens. On the shore there were geckos, bright orange dragonflies, and, unfortunately, lots of fire ants. (I miraculously escaped their poison, even though I was barefoot most of the time. Others weren’t so lucky.) We saw 300 million year old fossils of crinoid stems and thousand year old Puebloan granaries (structures carved into the cliff to protect food). We hiked up cliffs over boulders through streams to three beautiful water falls where we swam and frolicked under the torrent. Amazingly I never saw one speck of litter or graffiti.
On the sixth day we cast off, as always, bright and early, and, after a couple of hours, we docked on a sandy shore and walked up a hill to an alarmingly small helipad. Soon we were lifted out of the canyon, five at a time, receiving a final overview from the helicopter. A half hour later we arrived at a small building where we took our first shower in almost a week. I felt almost a little sad as I literally washed the Grand Canyon off my skin and out of my hair. We were served lunch which we ate at a table (!) using napkins – the first I’d seen in 6 days – before eventually repeating our trip in reverse back to Sacramento.
There were many surprises during the trip. I realized I wasn’t as strong as I thought and not as tolerant of heat as I wished. My weakness, however, highlighted the kindness of all the travelers, most much younger than I and all ready and eager to assist me as I crawled over boulders and floundered about the raft. My delightful nieces and nephews were especially solicitous and my brother was ever by my side. There were a few children in our party. All boys of about 8 to 11 years. They were wonderful, doing their duty in loading and unloading the boat and keeping us entertained with their games and antics, my favorite of which was a mud race. I imagine them regaling their own children about the trip in 15 or 20 years. The entire group was cheerful and cooperative and I never observed the least bit of fiction or discord. I am grateful to them all, to our wonderful staff: Cheyenne, Lindy, Cody, and Nick, and most of all to my brother, Terry, who made the whole thing happen.
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