The Changing Rapids of the Colorado River—
Doris Rapid

Leading his second commercial trip through Grand Canyon in 1940, Norm Nevills not only guided Barry Goldwater, future Arizona senator and presidential candidate, but he also took his wife, Doris, to help with logistics and meals. After a midday rest and shower at Deer Creek on August 15, the trip returned to the boats for an afternoon float toward Kanab. About a mile downstream, at 137.5-Mile Rapid, Norm’s boat got stuck in a hole and nearly flipped. Though the boat stayed upright, Doris and the other passenger were thrown into the water. Norm quickly pulled his wife back into the boat, and her name became synonymous with the energetic rapid (Crumbo, 1981). According to Goldwater’s (1970) published account of the trip, “this small rapid was not even indicated on the map, and surprised us greatly.” Curiously, Norm ran the rapid two years earlier, taking botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter on the first commercial trip through Grand Canyon (Cook, 1987). Even if neglected by the maps, surely Norm, a boatman known for his conservative approach to river running, would have remembered the violent little rapid below Deer Creek Falls. It turns out that Norm’s memory was not failing; instead, he became an important part of one of the more interesting stories of changing rapids we have yet deciphered in Grand Canyon.
Using repeat photography, we have tracked where debris flows have or have not occurred in 147 Grand Canyon tributaries from 1890 through 1990. To identify changes to the river, a photograph of the tributary is required before any changes caused by debris flows occur. Fortunately, people occasionally take photographs of Grand Canyon. In fact, shutters are pushed so often in some locales, Earle Spamer (1997) predicted a widespread shortage of Grand Canyon photons due to their removal in the bodies of cameras. Deer Creek falls is just such a place. Starting with Hillers in 1872, most travelers packing silver halide pointed their lenses toward this lovely waterfall. These travelers then typically put the cameras away, leaving the next rapid, Doris, obscure and far out of the limelight. Indeed, the reach of river below Deer Creek is flush with plentiful virgin photons.
Even Robert Brewster Stanton, the engineer who systematically photographed the entire river corridor, ignored the rapid in favor of the upstream and downstream views of the canyon walls. Climbing high on the debris fan on river right, Stanton chose a composition for his downstream view that looked beyond the tailwaves of the rapid (Webb, 1996). He did, however, record in his diary that the rapid offered “high waves and a drop of eight to ten feet” (Smith and Crampton, 1987). By 1923, when the Birdseye Expedition came through surveying water surface, the rapid at mile 137.5 was gone. Not only does the Birdseye map show an almost negligible drop, his diaries catalogue a meager one-foot fall. Stanton’s high waves had vanished. But our story is not yet finished.

After we constructed a new water-surface profile from lidar data collected in 2000, Doris Rapid, now named for one of its first swimmers, reappeared with a respectable five to six foot drop (Figure 1). When juxtaposed, the two water-surface profiles from 1923 and 2000 show the steep aggradation at the rapid. Perhaps the rapid was simply washed out in 1923. Though higher stage can sometimes wash out rapids, the discharge was not exceptionally large for the Birdseye Expedition (around 25,000 cfs). In addition, Doris has a reputation for getting feisty at high water (Crumbo, 1981).
As we discovered at many other locations within Grand Canyon, debris flows can enhance or create new rapids. Comparing the water-surface profiles in Figure 1, we see that at least one debris flow constricted Doris Rapid between 1923 and 2000, creating the drop we see today. In addition, the eyewitness accounts by the Nevills trips of navigational difficulty at Doris further constrain the date of this enhancing debris flow. Hence, we can conclude, with some certainty, that Doris Rapid aggraded between 1938 and 1940.
Though we know how rapids are formed or enhanced, how do they disappear? Stanton’s eight to ten foot rapid was reduced to a one-foot drop by 1923. Large mainstem floods remove debris and reduce the size or severity of rapids. When piecing together the story of the changing character of Doris Rapid, the timing of Colorado River floods becomes important. The largest known flood since Stanton’s trip is 220,000 cfs, measured at Lees Ferry in 1921. After Stanton recorded his observations of a fun rapid at Doris in 1890, subsequent flooding removed material and effectively removed the rapid. Thus, when Birdseye floated through the Canyon in 1923, Doris Rapid was a small, one-foot riffle. Furthermore, because the 1921 flood was large enough to remove the rapid, we can deduce that the material forming Doris Rapid in 1890 was not present in 1884, the year a huge flood, estimated at 300,000 cfs, came tearing down the Colorado. Putting together the pieces, we can deduce that at least one other debris flow occurred at Doris Rapid between 1884 and 1890.
So the next time you’ve packed your cameras away after an extended lunch at Deer Creek, remember the feisty little rapid about a mile or so downstream. Basking in the shadows of its upstream, photogenic neighbor, Doris Rapid has it all: high waves, history, cloaking ability, at least two historic debris flows, and very little attention. Catch a photon or two—they abound at river mile 137.5.

Chris Magirl and Bob Webb

References:
Cook, W.E., 1987, The WEN, the Botany, and the Mexican Hat: the adventures of the first women through Grand Canyon on the Nevills Expedition: Orangevale, Callisto Books, 151 p.

Crumbo, Kim, 1981, A river runner’s guide to the history of the Grand Canyon: Boulder, Johnson Books, 61 p.
Goldwater, Barry M., 1970, Delightful journey—down the Green and Colorado rivers: Tempe, Arizona Historical Foundation, 209 p.

Smith, D.L., and Crampton, C.G., 1987, The Colorado River survey: Salt Lake City, Howe Brothers Books, 305 p.

Spamer, Earle E., 1997, The Grand Canyon—further final report, and user’s guide: Annals of Improbable Research, vol. 3, no. 4, p. 15–18

Webb, R.H., 1996, Grand Canyon: A century of change: Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 290 p.