was about fourteen, fifteen, and I went to school in Blanding, Utah. I was working at a service station there in Mexican Hat—the only one—and that's where I met Gay Staveley. He pulled up to buy gas, and they needed somebody to be a helper for 'em, and I wanted to do it. Running the river, you know, was a big deal down there.
But to preface this.... Well, heck.... Gay had bought the company and he lived down the street from us. We actually owned Nevills' Lodge, and that's where I lived, at Nevills' Lodge, in Mexican Hat.... Gay came out and said, "I need a helper."
So I went out to Hite with him, and for some reason, somebody didn't show up, so they turned to me and said, "You row this boat."
And of course, it's Glen Canyon, there's no rapids, except Ticaboo 1 and 2 and Bullfrog and that. And so (chuckles) I got my boat. But the other thing funny about that trip is that it was a one-boat trip with two people. So not only was I a boatman, I was a lead boatman, I was the boatman.
Steiger: You mean you were the whole.... And you'd never even been down there?
Neff: I'd never been in a boat before… That's right. And they dropped me off there, and when the boatman didn't show up, I took the boat, and I took two people, and I'll tell you what, I can remember their names. It was Ted and Ellen Pope, from Bowman, North Dakota. I'll never forget it, 'cause I took 'em on a ten-day Glen Canyon trip, and those people were so nice to me....
Well, when Ted and Ellen got on the boat and we took off (laughs) we were about an hour downriver, not even to Ticaboo. Ted—he's an old rancher, he owned Pope Ranch in North Dakota. The guy had money. I mean, he knew what he was doin'. The guy's been around the block, and there's this fifteen-year-old kid, and I'm 110 pounds, and he says, "Son, how many trips have you run down here?" "Ah, well, I've been on the river before." And I had, I'd been on the San Juan. I took a Fol-Boat kayak down the San Juan when I first got down there. And I'd run the San Juan in a tube and stuff like that, you know, from Bluff to Mexican Hat, and from Hat Rock to Mexican Hat. So I tried to bluff him.
Steiger: How far is Hat Rock to Mexican Hat?
Neff: About four miles. (laughter) And so I tried to bluff him, said, "Oh, yeah, I've been on the river. Heck, yeah." And he said, "Son, this is your first trip, isn't it?" And I said, "Yes, sir, it is." And he said, "That's okay, we're just out here for an adventure."
Those trips were funny, 'cause we always ran out of food, and it was real sketchy, you know. All I had was a fire and a little grate, and put rocks around, and go that way... find half a dozen rocks and use it, yeah. The first couple of days on the trip, we'd have what we called fresh food, which was lettuce and stuff like that, and tomatoes and stuff. And then, about two or three days downriver, all you'd have is canned goods....
Steiger: Did you guys hike up side canyons?
Neff: Oh, we went up every damned canyon we came to.
Steiger: You and the Popes?
Neff: Yeah. And then on subsequent trips after that. In fact, I made a vow that I would go up every canyon in Glen Canyon. So I had my little map. In high school I made a little map, and that next summer, in 1958-59, I tried to go up a different canyon every time, and I had 'em marked. I went up every canyon I could go to. And you gotta realize, in those days, the canyons weren't marked or named. So I'd name 'em. "Okay, that's Three Deer Canyon." Why? 'Cause we'd walk up it, and there were three deer there. Stuff like that….
The thing about Glen Canyon was.... Two things about it: Number one, it was Navajo sandstone, and it was beautiful. And the canyons were cut, and they were neat, and you could walk up 'em. And another thing about it.... Well, three things. The second thing about 'em bein' neat and beautiful and sandstone stuff. The third thing was that there were pictographs and ruins all over the damned place, everywhere. We went into ruins where there were pots sittin' there.
Steiger: Did they have intact roofs?
Neff: Yeah.
Steiger: So real, full-on, almost entire structure
was left.
Neff: Oh yeah, beams and stuff. We took it for granted—we wouldn't take pots, we'd just leave 'em there. I never did take pots. And I didn't take pictures, didn't have my camera. The other thing was, Glen Canyon was what I call a wet canyon. There was water all over the place. Now, not every mile, but there were some springs that were just great: you know, Dead Man's Spring was a great spring. There was water in Lake Canyon, there was water in Cathedral, there was water in Driftwood, there was water in Forbidden Canyon. I mean, there was water. So we only took a five-gallon
can of water with us, and then we got water wherever we could.
Steiger: 'Cause the river was pretty muddy still.
Neff: Oh, yeah. By the way, we drank the river water, too, and we used it for coffee. We'd settle a bucket out at night, and there'd be about an inch or two of sand in the bottom. Then we'd pour it off....
We had soup every day. (chuckles)
[Mainly] I remember that the Popes were good people and it was a good trip for me, and I got reinforced by that, and got picked up and went back. Gay and Joan liked the job I did, so they put me on full-time and I started runnin' trips. I'd come back-to-back and run trips on Glen Canyon.... They paid me eight dollars a day, and that was good money. That was a ton of money. I was in hog heaven, you know.
***
Don Neff was a great friend and mentor to a small (but distinctive) slew of punk kid boatmen back in the late sixties and early seventies.
Neff is pretty distinctive himself.
He had a distinguished river career—worked for Mexican Hat Expeditions; Grand Canyon Expeditions; Grand Canyon Youth Expeditions; and Arizona River Runners, to name just a few.
Out in the real world he had a fairy-tale run of high school wrestling. He went 60-0-0, and won three state championships in Utah. In college he lettered in both wrestling and gymnastics, and won multiple other wrestling championships. And since then, in addition to raising a terrific family, he's been a succesful high school coach and outfitter running trips in Desolation-Grey.
Brian Dierker, who was one of Neff's early Grand Canyon disciples (on the rear oar of a gcye triple-rig), remembers that Neff could stand flat-footed on the beach and do a perfect back-flip.
Lots of youngsters from back then have fond memories of Neff. The common denominator is how nice he was to us, how encouraging and fun he always was. We didn't really get why he was that way at the time, but a deeper look at his history helps explain it.
***
We talked a lot back then. I'll tell you what we talked about at night. And you gotta realize, I was young, so I didn't involve myself a lot. I kept my mouth shut, which is hard for me to do. (chuckles) But our focus in those days was that, dammit, they're buildin' too many roads, they're buildin' this dam, it's shitty, we don't need this, and we oughta screw it up. We used to pick those stakes up by Comb Wash and throw 'em out. We did that all the time on the river trips. And if Ed Abbey was alive today, he might dispute me on this, but I don't think so. He listened. The guy was a listener. He went on the river trip, he listened. He heard us talkin' about, "Well, we need to blow Glen Canyon up. We need to go do this, do that," you know. "How do you stop a cat? Put sand in the gas tank, or sugar, or somethin', and do that." So we all talked about that. That was a big topic. So anyway, my theory is—and it's just theory—but after The Monkey Wrench Gang came out, when I read that book, there were too many similarities between what we did on the river, and the way we acted, and the way the people did down there. So I knew that Ed Abbey was a writer, and he came down, went on these trips [with us], and he listened to the people down there. He listened to the boatmen talkin' about these things. Too many similarities came up in his book, to make it by coincidence.... What about drivin' a truck and throwin' beer cans out the side, and stuff like that?
Steiger: Did you guys do that?! (laughs)
Neff: Well, of course we did!
Steiger: You threw beer cans out in the desert?
Neff: Well, of course we did! Of course we did.
Steiger: Who were some of the other crew members there, that Abbey saw?
Neff: I can't remember. I just remember.... Well, Gay was the main man, and that was it.
Steiger: But was Gay carryin' on like that?
Neff: No, no. No, Gay was a very proper, disciplined guy. Gay was Gay.
Steiger: I can't picture him rantin' and ravin' about the dam.
Neff: No, no. Gay was super-duper. He was a class act with me and with the company. I mean, Gay was not ornery at all—I was, and my brother was.
Steiger: So it was you! (laughs)
Neff: Yeah.
Steiger: And your brother.
Neff: But we did those things, me and my brother Rich. My brother Richard ran for Mexican Hat, too, in Glen Canyon. I have a picture of him somewhere. He ran, too. But Rich was a rebel. Man, he was....
Steiger: So you guys were seein' the uranium mining, you were seein' the dam.
Neff: We saw a lot of things.
Steiger: You knew Glen Canyon was doomed. And all that stuff.
Neff: Yeah. And too many similarities came up in Abbey's book to be an accident. He didn't make those things up, he heard 'em from the boatmen he listened to, and from the people in Mexican Hat he listened to. The guy's a great writer…. I also remember in that book, the deal about they had a Jeep in the book where he went over the cliff and they let it down by a cable.
Steiger: A winch, yeah.
Neff: Remember that?
Steiger: Yeah.
Neff: Well, hell, we.... (laughs) Not "we," not me, but that actually happened down there at Mexican Hat. In those days, it was Wild West.
Steiger: You mean somebody did that?!
Neff: Oh, hell, yes!
Steiger: Winched their Jeep down into a canyon?
Neff: Oh, yeah. Everybody was drinkin' and stuff, you know. Those miners were just crazy. They were hard workers, and hard drinkin' sons of bitches, you know, and they would do anything. I saw 'em one time, Lew, on the top of Mexican Hat Cliff, above Jim Hunt's place, they took a Caterpillar tractor and teetered it, and tried to bet each other who could go the farthest and teeter that D-9 Cat or something like that—a cat—and see who would chicken out and back it off. I saw that! me and my brother.
Steiger: You mean if you go too far, you're goin' how far down?
Neff: The son-of-a-bitch is goin' down 400 feet—I ain't shittin' ya'!
Steiger: And these guys are drinkin' and just playin' around with this thing.
***
Steiger: Now, you ran in the Grand for how many years with Mexican Hat, with Gaylord?
Neff: Six years in cat boats.
Steiger: Six years, and you never turned one over.
Neff: No… Six trips. One trip a year….
Steiger: Well, now, after you were the young guy, was there ever a young guy underneath you?
Neff: No.
Steiger: You were the young guy for six years? (laughs) Did all the dirty work, all that time?
Neff: That's right… And that's why I vowed, boy, I'm never gonna treat Brian [Dierker] bad—never. Of course I did sometimes.
Steiger: Not to hear him tell it.
Neff: I love Brian, and Dan. I'll tell you what, there's never—there aren't any better persons on the earth than those guys.
Steiger: So then what happened after six years with Gaylord, after Mexican Hat?
Neff: Then I went back to school and I got married. Actually, I got married in 1964. And one day (chuckles) I was in Salt Lake City and I was on Highland Drive, and I went by this place down there, and I saw these boats out there, and I stopped, and it was Ron Smith, startin' his company; Bill Belknap, and Dick McCallum. They weren't all there the same day, but I'm sayin' I just stopped in and said, "Listen, I'm a river runner, I'd like to run rivers with you." And so in 1966, I think, I started runnin' with Ron Smith and Dick McCallum. Dick and I ran a lot together. Pete Gibbs came in—a lot of guys went through there.
***
About my first trip through Crystal? …That was in 1966, I think. Anyway, we started the trip. Smith and Belknap told us that Crystal came in, big flood and stuff. (Steiger: So up until then, Crystal was....) It was nuthin'! Calm water. So we go down there, and Pete Gibbs is with me on a triple-rig, and we're followin' Ron Smith in a motor rig, and of course you get off early in the morning with the triple-rig and go, and then they follow you and they pass you and they camp, and then you finally end up there at dark and get 'em.
We came to Crystal and we pulled over on the right side and parked, and there were logs like you couldn't believe on the right side. It was horrendous!
Well, backing up a bit—first we went through Hermit, and we see on the sides—we're goin' through Hermit, and I notice this scum line on the side of the wall on the right side of Hermit. There's a wall there down below, when you get through the tailwaves. I'm looking at the scum line there, and I go, "My God, what the hell's goin' on here?!" And there was some wood, too, up that far. I'm goin', "Shit! This is weird! I've never seen anything like it. What the hell's the deal?" We pull over at Crystal. Oh, my God....
Steiger: Trees, logs, on the right side.
Neff: This thing is so bad I can't believe it. What are we gonna do?
Steiger: So, like you were sayin earlier, these trees, this is like the remnant of the dam, from the flood? (Neff: Yeah.) And this flood dammed up the whole river?
Neff: Yeah, big logs—big logs. We called 'em Crystal logs, and they lasted for years.
You could always tell a Crystal log, even downstream forty miles. It was chewed up and beat up and had these splinters stickin' out of it, you know. You could always tell it. It was rounded, you know. You could always tell. I could show you a Crystal log. I'd say, "That's a Crystal log, it came out of Crystal." And I'd be right….
So we get down there, and I heard that John Cross, Jr., was ahead of us in a motor rig, and he went through Crystal. All of us ran down the left side.
Steiger: 'Cause there wasn't any right.
Neff: Nah, there was no right—no right run at all.
Steiger: What did it look like over there?
Neff: A lot of logs, you couldn't get through.
Steiger: Stuck together, or floatin'?
Neff: No, not floatin', just logs piled up on the right side.
Steiger: Just jammed in there.
Neff: And remember, there's an island there, and there's a red rock. Remember the red rock there? …. Yeah. Well, you couldn't go right of that red rock and those logs and—just junk. And a lot of rocks and stuff that has since been gone. So Ron decided to run it, and he ran down the left side. We were a long ways away, we couldn't tell how good he did or anything—it looked good. Pete and I said, "God, gotta go. Let's go!" So we did, we got out in the current and pulled over to the left side as far as we could, and went down that left side, and I'll tell you what, it was a son of a bitch. There's a hole down that left side that we went through that was bigger than the Upset hole. It was just huge, it was just ridiculous. All we did was get down there, and then we buried down on it and leaned over the side, and everybody was down flat. Pete was in the back, and Pete's strong, he's a climber, he's real strong. And Pete, after we got through that hole, and went down that left side, I looked back and the back of the triple-rig was folded under, and Pete was hangin' on. I saw him crawlin' up there, and it took us minutes to get that back boat kicked up.
Steiger: So that last hole, the bottom hole folded him.
Neff: Yeah. And you know what, that hole ain't there anymore—it's not there. The one on the left was bigger than the one on the right that stayed. That one on the left disappeared after a few years.
Steiger: Far left?
Neff: Far left. It was huge, I couldn't believe it.
Steiger: It was the second one down.
Neff: Oh, my God! We went through that thing and surfed and kicked the back end up and went over. And finally, oh God, we were so happy to get through there. You talk to Pete Gibbs today, and he'll tell you that was just…. shit! That was stupid!
Steiger: Now, was there anybody in his boat that folded under? Or were the people all in the middle?
Neff: They were all in the middle.
Steiger: You were on one side, and he was on the other side.
Neff: You bet. I was here, he was here, and in the middle we had everybody down tight.
Steiger: Was that what they always did? Like when you ran the youth trips with Brian and all that. (Neff: Oh, yeah.) People are in the middle. (Neff: Down.) And the boatmen are on the outside. (Neff: That's right.) And that's it.
Neff: Once in a while we'll have a person on each end. (Steiger: To bail the boats.) Yeah. But when you get out of a rapid like that, yeah, you're full of water anyway. You're so full when you get out of there, rowing a triple-rig is not even.... You just take your chances. You bump into the wall, do whatever you can.
Steiger: You're not gonna turn over, but you're....
Neff: Oh, shit, you're not gonna turn over, but you can't control....
Steiger: You're goin' wherever you're goin'.
Neff: You're goin' anywhere the river wants to take you. That's it. That's a fact.
Steiger: Wow. So what did these people think about all this? You guys just ran it because there wasn't anywhere else to go. You didn't have an option, really, of lining, portaging.
Neff: No option.
Steiger: You just had to run it.
Neff: If we had it to do over again, knowing what we did, goin' down that left side, and it was so scary, we probably would have tried to dismantle the boats and line it down the right. But even if you do that in Crystal in those days, you had all those logs to go over. There was no option, Lew—there was no option. And we're just goin', "God, Ron's gone! Shit!"
Steiger: Was he waitin' for you down below?
Neff: Well, sort of, yeah. (laughter)
Steiger: Whew! Terrifying! So before he gets you, you're sittin' there and you got one oar, and you got no control.
Neff: No, we're just scramblin'. "Everybody okay? Okay. Okay, we're here, we're okay, we're okay. Pete, how you doin'? Let's get this back together." And just do what you can. And you pop it up, get back on, put the oars in—"Hey, everything's fine, let's have a beer!" I mean.... Shit!
Steiger: Sometimes I think.... I look at how much it's changed in the last thirty years, and we've damned sure smoothed out a lot of the bumps for these people. There's no longer too much doubt that you're gonna get through okay. (Neff: That's right.) I mean, it's rare that you see somebody crash.
Neff: That's right. We made it clear that you can get through there, and you can make it, and it's fun.
Steiger: But now most of the people who are coming expect it. (Neff: Uh-huh.) But what were those people like when you got out to run Crystal that first time? Do you remember those guys?
Neff: They looked at us just like we're gods, you know—we're gonna get 'em through.
Steiger: They did?
Neff: Yeah. And we did get 'em through, but we didn't know if we could get through.
Steiger: Yeah, what did you think, pullin' out?
Neff: Oh! I'll tell ya', while I was runnin' I just said, "Please, God"—I prayed, you know—"get me through here, please." That's the way you do it, because you really think you're gonna.... You really think you [don't] know anything. "Please get me through here. Get all these people through here. Please, let my son [R.J. who went with Neff all the time] get through here." That's the way you go. Nowadays, hey, it's easy. Just like kayaking used to be a neat deal. Now they're fallin' off of cliffs and everything. I don't know!
***
But I've done it, too. Once you get to that point where you've done all this stuff and you've run a few, then it's okay, it's all over. You've made your spurs, or you've done things, and I don't need to do that anymore. But I love the river. I want to float the river…
But I don't want the hassle. I don't want the pressure of havin' to prove myself or run a rapid or anything. I mean, hey, I'll just get along, and I'll be in the background. It's funny, I guess there's too many people in the world. And I guess too many people have run Grand Canyon. Once we've run it a few hundred times, you know, you learn that you can run it. Just like we used to line Soap Creek all the time [in cataract boats with Mexican Hat Expeditions, which later became Canyoneers]. Nobody does that. My God, you ask a young kid today, "We gotta line this rapid," he'd say, "Ah, fuck you! We're runnin' this!" Bang! you know.
Steiger: Well, but Soap was different, wasn't it?
Neff: (laughs) Yeah.
Steiger: It flushed out a little bit, right?
Neff: Yeah, it did. We thought it was bad, yeah.
Steiger: I mean, I'm sure it had to be a different deal.
Neff: Well, you saw that [home movie, watched earlier] with the guy standin' up there, takin' us into Badger Creek, you know, which is nothin'.
Steiger: Yeah, that was pretty good… In this movie we saw there's a guy on shore directing the boats from afar, with two arms up, kinda sayin', (Neff's laughing obscure's Steiger's comment.) ________ sayin', "This is where you go, man." It's so funny. And you guys actually did that?
Neff: We tried.
Steiger: How long did that last?
Neff: A couple of trips (laughs) and that's about it.
Steiger: So you did it in every rapid? You had a guy down there that was linin' you up?
Neff: Well, not every one, but when it was convenient. See, the funny thing about runnin' the river is, Badger's okay, you can put a guy up there on the cliff, and he can go like (gestures) this, this, this, this, and "go!" you know. That's fun. Then you get down to Sockdolager....
Steiger: Is he just up high on the cliff? (Neff: Yeah.) And he's lookin' down on you, and you're looking back at him. You're not linin' up downstream.
Neff: We're supposed to [look at him], but by God, you're busy, you know.
Steiger: Did that guy read water? (chuckles)
Neff: No, no. It's bullshit. I told you about that. We didn't really do that—I didn't. I wasn't smart enough to do that. All I did was keep my boat straight and say, "God, get me through here". That's all I did, you know. And I was lucky. But it was funny. You gotta realize in those days nobody knew anything. They didn't know. So we thought, "Maybe the best thing to do is put a guy up on the cliff there, and he can guide you." Well, what the hell?
Steiger: 'Cause he can see the whole thing, just as far as readin' water.
Neff: Yeah. Stupid, huh? (laughter) But you don't know! (laughter) I know, I'm embarrassed about seein' it.
Steiger: No, it's amazing. I mean, it's amazing how far it's evolved.
Neff: Well, you know, like I told you, we didn't see anybody for eighteen days. You know, when we saw Georgie on a trip, that was great to see Georgie.
***
Steiger: What do you suppose was the highest water you saw in a cataract boat?
Neff: Ninety thousand.
Steiger: Oh, my God!
Neff: And it was huge. You know what? We ran a trip.... And here's how I measure it. I measure it by the number of lines we did—I mean, how many rapids we lined. We lined about eleven rapids one year. When the water got to 90,000, we didn't line, but, oh, heck.... I was tryin' to think—we lined Hance, we lined Lava, and I think that was it.
Steiger: That must have been really hard, too—those eddy lines and boils. (Neff: Yeah.) Oh, man.
Neff: And actually, we probably shouldn't have lined 'em, but we did.
Steiger: Yeah, that's harder than....
Neff: Yeah. But we were scared to death. But everything was wiped out—even Horn Creek. Horn Creek was a slick, and that was it. And of course Crystal wasn't in there. You know what? There was a rapid called 25 Mile [Twenty-four-and-a-half Mile], 26 Mile, 25 Mile…
Steiger: Cave Springs?
Neff: Up above Cave Springs.
Steiger: Oh, yeah, the next thing up.
Neff: Yeah.
Steiger: Pretty good riffle there.
Neff: Yeah. Let me tell you somethin'. You don't think much about it, but in those days, I'll tell you somethin', that was a son of a bitch.
Steiger: Big waves?
Neff: Oh! And you had to go far left on it, and it was a son of a bitch. Then again, you look back on it, and you think.... Today, guys will look at that and say, "Aw, bullshit, that's nothin'!" But it was somethin' then.
***
Neff: What's it gonna be like in twenty years?
Steiger: I can't even grasp it, I really can't.
Neff: No, I can't either. I kinda feel sorry for those kids, but they're gonna do it, and do the right thing, and do what they can. But there's so much—the rules have changed so much.
Steiger: Yeah, and there's so much.... I was talking to Dave and Vicki Mackay today. He started workin' for Currey, and he essentially, let's see, he got like one trip—his training trip he was the front set of oars on a thirty-three. And then the next trip, they sent him down Grand Canyon on his own, in his own boat. I think he was followin' somebody then, but he ran all these one-boat trips, and he said he had Les Jones' scroll map, (Neff: I got one of those.) and that was it! And he said he didn't know shit. He was runnin' like that year, the very same year he started, he's down there, he's runnin' these one-boat trips, he didn't know the name of anything. And people would.... And then Vicki, his wife, was goin' with him, and she was sayin' they'd get to these places and people would go, "Where is this?" and they'd go, "We don't know. But who cares?" (laughter)
Neff: Yeah!
Steiger: And then she said it was so cool to be in these places, and I'm thinkin' it had to be like this for you in Glen Canyon.
Neff: Yeah. I have a scroll map from Les Jones. I knew Les Jones… He was workin' as a draftsman here in Sugarhouse when I first met him. God, the guy did a great job makin' those maps. That was a landmark.
Steiger: Yeah, helped a lot of people.
Neff: Oh, yeah! You kiddin'?! Me, too! I still have a scroll map of his. Wish I'd have got all of 'em. What a great guy. I could tell you stories.... Oh, God, when we were down in Grand Canyon one time.... (laughs) Oh, hell, we were down at Whitmore Wash, and Bundy—remember Bundy?
Steiger: Of the Bundy jars, the Bundy family. I didn't.... Well yeah, there's Garth Bundy. Is that the one you're thinkin' of?
Neff: No, no.
Steiger: Probably his dad or somethin'…
Neff: Anyway, we're down there at Whitmore Wash, and they bring mules down and refurbish us for trips, you know.
Steiger: This is on the Mexican Hat trips?
Neff: Yeah. And we're down there, and I'm a young kid, and Johnny Harper—I mentioned that name before [Mexican Hat boatman]. So we're down there, and this Bundy guy comes down, and Bundy comes down on the trail of Whitmore Wash, and they bring the horses and we get new food and stuff, you know. So we're gonna go fishin', and that big eddy there at Whitmore, it's a big eddy.... (laughs) I'm a young kid, you know. "Okay, we're gonna go fishin'." "Okay, I'll go with ya'." So I got out there and we're standing there—no fishin' poles, nobody has a fishin' pole. They got dynamite! And they get a piece of dynamite out and put the cap in it and light it up and throw it out there. Boom!
Steiger: You guys are standin' on shore?
Neff: Yeah. And I'm goin', "God, these guys are nuts!" Boom! And nothin'! And Harper says, "Well, we oughta try one more…"
Chet Bundy! Chet Bundy. That's who it was! He lights another one up, throws it in there. Whitmore Wash. Boom! We're all drinkin', of course. I'm not, but I'm a young kid. But these guys are drunk, you know. Harper says to Chet, "Well, Chet, old buddy...." You know, no fish. "Chet, old buddy, I guess they just ain't bitin' tonight." (laughter) I'm goin', "Oh, my God! These guys are crazy!"
***
What story can I tell ya'? How about the bubble story? …Wayne Wilson. This is a story about a guy that came to Mexican Hat, and I don't know the date, it was probably 1961, 1962, I don't know. Anyway, I was workin' for Gay Staveley, and we're gonna run the San Juan River, and this guy comes down here—Wayne Wilson from York, Pennsylvania. He comes into town with a trailer behind his truck, or whatever it was, and this great big bubble on it. It's called the Water Trotter. He pulls in there, and says, "We're gonna run the river." And hell, I didn't really see it when it came in—Gay did. It was pulled in down there. I don't really know how it came about to be, you know—I really don't. I gotta talk to Gay about that. Anyway, he had this bubble, it was a Plexiglas bubble with a frame of—I guess it was aluminum, struts all behind it—but it was a bubble. And what you do is (chuckles), it's called a Water Trotter. You get in this thing and you walk, and it's incredible. You're not gonna believe this.
Steiger: Did it work?
Neff: Oh yeah, it worked, but in calm water it worked—not on rapids. So we had trouble immediately.
Steiger: Oh, 'cause he's goin' with you?
Neff: Oh, yeah.
Steiger: It's not like he's goin' on his own—he's goin' with you. You're takin' him down.
Neff: He's goin' with me and Gay Staveley on a trip through San Juan, from Mexican Hat down. I have a picture of him goin' under the bridge at Mexican Hat. And so we get down there, and he walks in it. We go down there, and we go and we get down to Paiute Rapid.
Steiger: Are there like little blades on the outside or something?
Neff: Yes, there are.
Steiger: So when he's walkin', that's what propels him?
Neff: Paddles, you know. And I wish I had a picture to show you.
Steiger: I can kind of picture it, when you get to a rapid. (laughs) He's gone!
Neff: Paddles, you know. And I wish I had a picture to show you.
Steiger: I can kind of picture it, when you get to a rapid. (laughs) He's gone!
Neff: So we get down to Paiute Rapid. Everything's goin' fine 'til there. We get down to Paiute Rapid and he runs it through there, and the water's low, and it breaks some of the plastic off of the fins. We go on through, we go down to the Thirteen-foot Rapid and we don't take it through there, we take it around. We get down on the Colorado River side, you know, and goin' through Glen Canyon. And finally the guy gets tired. Anytime they're gonna take pictures, he's in there. But he gets tired, so I'm a young boatman, I'm the youngest guy there. So they say, "Hey, Don, get in it." So I get in it.
Steiger: "Don, you take this thing."
Neff: Yeah. So I get in it, and I walk [around]. Hey, it's good! I walk around in the slow water, it's good. But if there's any current at all, boy, you're in trouble. You kind of wobble up and down and all around. And you got handles on each side, and you just kinda walk, and it floats around. Plus, it's hot. It's hotter than heck!
Steiger: Oh, I can imagine! You're not gettin' wet. You're bone dry.
Neff: What you do is, you put a little water into the thing, and the bubble will (Steiger: Drip on ya'.) spray some water around. After we got to the San Juan confluence with the Colorado, down by Hidden Passage (chuckles) then they say, "Hey, Don, go do it." So I run this thing down there, and we're floatin' and it's a bitch. It is a bitch. It's hotter than hell in there. You gotta tip it upside down, get down in the water, and then get back up and go on. And then when there's picture opportunities....
Steiger: The guy takes over again.
Steiger: The guy takes over again.
Neff: The guy takes over, and then we do the flash shots and everything.
Steiger: "Don, get back in the [boat]."
Neff: "Don, get back in the boat there." (laughter) We ran that thing down to the Crossing of the Fathers, and we got out there. Somebody brought his trailer around, and we fixed it up. He disappeared, and after that we didn¹t see him. But I¹ll tell you what, that was an experience, it really was. Steiger: Oh, my God. That picture was wild. Neff: Yeah. It was neat. He was a good guy, but he was an eccentric from the word "go."