A LONG TRIP DOWN THE GRAND CANYON

“The past is never dead. It's not even past.” ― William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

Some events from the past linger, unlinked to any reality, in imagination as much as in fact. They exist in a fleeting bubble - no matter how clear they were at the time.

I don’t clearly remember where I met Wayne Kakela, probably skiing. Or why he invited me on his river running expedition down the Grand Canyon. But he did.

It was 1971, I’d never rafted a river, but it seemed like an interesting idea, and Wayne seemed an interesting character.

He was a burly figure who had played linebacker for the Dartmouth Football team. He had forsaken his Ivy League business opportunities for an uncertain life at a new ski area in Colorado. We were about the same age and, like myself, he headed West in uncertain search of something wilder. Maybe he sensed that same searching in me and that fostered an intiuitive kinship

Rather than commercially available rafts, as the early river runners had done, Wayne and his friends built their own. In his barn at Steamboat Springs, they had put together rafts of rough hewn wood tied to huge black surplus pontoons. There were three rafts, each crowded with a dozen people on a deck atop the pontoons. Two kayakers joined us. All people he had gathered from the many strands of his life.

It was a long walking descent on the trail from the Canyon Rim down to the river, to a world confined by thousand foot high walls - where my girlfriend Nona and I met the polyglot group of experienced rafters, some newcomers like us, and a couple of kayakers. We knew no one, Wayne knew everyone and was a catalyst.

I was surprised by the color of the river water. It was brown with the erosion of acres of upstream land, which, I assumed, would end up deposited on the shores of Mexico where what was left of the Colorado River emptied into the Sea of Cortez.

We had no motors, we were at one with the river current. It was a slow flow at first. A departure, and the beginning of a passage. Roger Sherman said that we looked like a band of pirates

The deceptively calm water soon descended into rapids. The raft didn’t feel as stable as it looked. There wasn’t much to hold on to.

They were fifteen foot sweep oars, extending forward and aft. It was unconventional. They would shift the raft left or right to maneuver through the convolutions of the river ahead. Our downstream propulsion was the flow of the water. Wayne usually ran the lead oar, but once he put me there. I barely managed.

I thought of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Marlow’s voyage up the river, but this was the opposite. This was down the river but for me, toward the same degree of uncertainty. I was enjoying it. So was Nona who was always ready for exploration.

Nightime rapid running is not a good idea.

We had no planned spots to spend the nights. Wherever the rock canyon walls receded to sandy or greenery shores. We needed no tents. There was summer evening heat and the sounds of ever present water flow and unseen creatures.

I woke early in the morning, watched the river, and listened to it. It seemed I was retreating from the world. The river was moving on and I was suspending time by not moving with it. And then I would jump back onto the raft and travel deeper into the adventure.

Like Grace Slick’s “Feed Your Head”

When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low

After a couple of days, the passage down the River became less central to our journey. Exploration of the side canyons and exploration of each other became the focus.

The colors of the Canyon are subtle, at first seeming monochrome, but after a day or so my urban filters dissolved and minute subtleties in the rock walls gradually became vivid.

After running through a few rapids together we began to trust Wayne’s river knowledge and that morphed into a trust in each other and with that openness, intimacies grew and inhibitions floated away. We were still strangers, but strangers that knew much of each other.

Friendships began, relationships formed.

One night there was a piercing scream. Andrew had been bitten by a scorpion - a danger we all knew of. But even that was a momentary crisis . He was fine the next day.

Food - there was no refrigeration of course, so we had packed items that were the least perishable in the ninety degree days. Canned fish, Salami, Parmesan cheese lasted a surprisingly long time,…

After a week of ninety degree days, sardines from tins seemed delicacies.

Sardines with jackknife utensils

There were the big rapids to come - Lava Falls probably the toughest.

We pulled ashore and walked downstream to scout them. To me it seemed suicidal to attempt them. Another act of faith to proceed.

But we did. The big raft lurched to 45 degree angles. The waves crashed higher than the deck.

Charlie fell off halfway through but survived unscathed. One of the kayakers rescued him.

After that, the idea of impossible dissipated and anything seemed possible. Possible in the envelope of the two weeks remaining.

Nona escaped into the night with Kevin the kayaker. It should have bothered me more than it did and I did the same with Susan, a skier from Denver on her first river trip.

It took a while, but we gradually let go of our need for privacy.

On the Grand Canyon, its necessary to contain and carry out all body waste, all our shit. Wayne had brought a the giant green olive bucket that served as our portable latrine, at first placed at discrete and secluded spots. But after a while after our nakedness had become prevalent, it was placed in a prominent spot with a good view and dubbed The Throne.

It was a popular spot. We all began to wonder about the reasons for privacy.

And then it was over. The real world stormed back into our lives

We deflated the rafts and loaded them onto trucks. Wayne, having left it all on the river, just lay down on a flattened pontoon and stared silently at the sky and listened to the nearby passing water for a long time .

We all imagined keeping the relationships that had begun on the river, but knowing that most of them would pass into the haze…

And then, I flew directly home to San Francisco and when I drove through North Beach, the city lights exploded with saturated color and luminescence. I was back on the world of stop signs and one way streets.

Nona and I continued our own adventure together until she accepted the reality of her two young children who were back in Vermont.

A week later a letter came from Susan. It said that her time with me on the river had been magical, but she too was drawn back into her life and relationship at home.