n the crmp front, not much seems to be happening. The latest word is that the final plan will be out in late summer or early fall, but it’s possible to guess that really means some time after the beginning of the New Year.
It’s been a long time since I gave much thought to the French literary philosophers I studied in college, but I wonder if we’re “Waiting for Godot” and whether attempts to update the Colorado River Management Plan are related to the “Myth of Sisyphus”? Time will tell.
While some things never seem to change, others do. Hermit Rapid, for example. As those of you who have been down there recently already know, things are a bit different there. And that’s exciting.
On my last trip (mid June) we pushed off above Unkar to row a big day of rapids. With no interchange at Phantom, and hoping to catch Crystal before the water was all the way up the next morning, we hoped to get as far as Schist Camp by late afternoon. The peak flows were running 17,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), great for the gorge, way better than the 13,000 I had on the previous trip.
So we had lots of fun and excitement, with lunch at Grapevine camp, and then more big fun at Horn, and Granite. Last year, 17,000 cfs at Hermit was a pleasant cruise through some big (but not breaking) waves—the “roller coaster” we’ve all come to love. So late in the afternoon, as we approached Hermit, I told the folks in my raft that this would be “The Grand Finale!” of our day on the water. And it certainly was, but not in the way I expected…
The first “really big wave” was breaking steadily, not washing through as I expected. (I’m not good on numbers here, I don’t count them: I’m too busy trying to just hit them head on.)
Whew! That thing just ate all my momentum! Wow! What’s that all about? Didn’t expect that!
Next thing I know, I’m looking at another biggie, crunching away in front of me. (Number eight, nine, ten, or 11?—opinions seem to differ.) In any event, it’s too late now: hit it squarely, pray, hang on etc. Bam!
We’re sitting on top of this big crashing wave, not going anywhere, and everyone in the boat realizes that if we go backwards, it’s all over. After a (very long subjective) moment, we resume our journey downstream. Immediately all of us jump up and start whooping and hollering: it just doesn’t get any closer than that!
About this time, I see the paddle boat in front of me is upside down, and there’s a bunch of people in the water…
So I’ve been off the Colorado for a month or so, Sue and I took a vacation and (by the grace of God and some timely invitations from old friends) we ended up doing a trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon and the Selway.
From what I’ve heard since getting back to Arizona, others have had exciting experiences at Hermit. Private boaters, scouting on shore, report seeing some motor rigs just about stall out on that lower lurking trouble maker in the Hermit wave train. Commercial oar and paddle rigs (from several companies) have found themselves in “belly up” mode, and smaller boats on private trips have had identical results.
One of the most popular passenger questions I get is “Don’t you ever get tired of this?”
Tired, sure—I’ll be eligible for “Social Insecurity” before you read this and it could be that I’m really not as energetic as I was two or three decades ago.
But bored, no way. It’s as exciting as ever, and it’s always refreshing to find that reality sometimes exceeds your expectations. They don’t call it the “Grand Canyon” for nothing.
This was not, however, my only exhilarating on-river experience this season.
The following tale reflects, in part, on “river courtesy”: doing good (or right) for your fellow boater. This time I was the lucky beneficiary of some timely assistance from a guy whose name I never learned.
I’ve known for a long time that you can recognize an experienced boater when they start the conversation with “Is there anything you need?” And the prevailing ethic is that if someone needs something, and you have it to spare, you just hand it over: God only knows that next time you might be the one that’s short on some essential, and if we can’t help each other out we’re all going to suffer the consequences, eventually.
After a rather unpleasant winter, Sue was feeling up for an adventure in March. We decided to spend five days floating the Verde River from Childs to the Sheep Bridge in our inflatable kayaks.
In contrast to the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, the Verde is a very small, somewhat ephemeral, desert river that you can run mainly in the winter and early spring. During the summer months, diversions for irrigation reduce flows to 25 cfs or less. The section from Childs down to Horseshoe Reservoir lives up to its “Wild and Scenic” status. As the river winds through the desert, cottonwoods and sycamores line the banks, while saguaros climb up the slopes of granite mountains in the distance. It’s not unusual to see eagles soaring overhead, or otters playing in the river.
Although the rapids on this section of the Verde are Class II and III, the real challenge is posed by the vegetation. Snags abound, and in a number of places the only navigable channel is a narrow run through the trees and bushes. And judging from the wreckage, the Verde just loves to eat canoes: a few years back we counted the remains of five between the Childs put in and the mouth of the East Verde, a distance of only a half dozen miles. At the last minute as we were packing up, I remembered (for the first time ever) to throw in an extra line, some pulleys, and a generous supply of extra ‘biners “just in case” we might need them.
The first couple days were fun and uneventful. The next to the last night we camped a few hundred yards above the mouth of Wet Bottom Creek, on a grassy bank overlooking a side channel and a island in the middle of the river. In the morning we hiked back up the river to the Wet Bottom Trail, which crosses in the vicinity of Red Creek, and followed it a couple miles as it climbs up towards the Mazatzal Mountains. The wild flowers were out in full force, a truly magnificent tribute to a moist winter. When we reached the top of an old lava flow, seven or eight hundred feet above the river, we stopped for lunch and a long look at the scenery before heading back to camp and our boats.
We only intended to make a couple miles that afternoon, and I was a bit casual as we pushed off: ignoring my usual practice I decided to wear my hearing aids, rather than put them safely away in a waterproof container in my ammo box. A short distance below camp, a line of trees extended across the place where our channel rejoined the mainstream. A narrow gap a little wider than my inflatable kayak appeared, and I went for it.

The current through the trees was stronger than I anticipated, and my last minute maneuver failed to thread the needle cleanly. I brushed against a tree and—faster than I could say “Oops!”—I found myself in the water, clinging to a branch, trying to keep my head high enough to keep my hearing aids dry, and not lose my paddle. My boat was neatly folded around the upstream side of the tree, and the current was so strong I couldn’t get my feet underneath me to stand up, even though the water probably was only a couple feet deep.
Sue, of course, threaded the needle adroitly, grabbed another branch, and yelled “What do you want me to do?” “Take my paddle” I replied. Then, unencumbered, I let go of the tree and swam to shore next to where she’d parked.
The first thing I noticed was that one of my hearing aids was missing. Damn! Those things are expensive! I gave her the other one to put away where I couldn’t lose it, and then we hiked upstream and swam over to the island to contemplate what to do next. My inflatable was just out of reach, maybe five or six feet from the bank, with only a foot and a half of one tube exposed above the surface on either side of the tree. The rest of the boat, and all my gear, was underwater in a swift current. When I stepped on the cobbles at the base of the bank next to the water, the current plucked them away and dumped me back in the river for another short swim.
Things were not going well at all. Back on the bank again, I was able, at last, to grasp a couple branches from the offending tree, bend them over, and secure them to some vegetation on shore to make a flimsy bridge I could step on without exposing my feet to the current. Then using another branch for balance, I managed to get out to the downstream side of the tree where there was a convenient branch to stand on.
The situation looked pretty hopeless. I remember thinking, “Sure glad I brought some extra line and pulleys—too bad they’re all under water!” Feeling in the river for the bag they were stored in, I felt my velcro watch band disengage as the river snatched away another prize. I got one biner on the bag loose, then carefully cut a strap to free the other and—clinging to the knife and bag—went for another swim.
Back on the island again, I’d just managed to get the bag unpacked and start wondering where I was going to set up a Z-drag when we noticed the first other boaters we’d seen in four days, several more folks also in inflatable kayaks. I yelled “Don’t try coming through here!” and shock registered on their faces as they saw my boat wrapped around a tree. They drifted downstream out of sight.
A few minutes later, however, one of them was standing beside us on the island, offering to help. I scrambled back out to the tree and secured the end of the line to something on the boat, and we set up a mechanical advantage system with the other end attached to a tree on shore. The three of us hauled on the line with all the force we could muster, and we took up a couple inches of rope, but the boat seemed immovable. I remember thinking “This is not going to work, we’ll waste the rest of the afternoon and end up leaving the boat here, and I’ll be hiking out without my gear in the morning.”
We tied off the line and I scrambled back to the tree. Eventually I was able to reach my throw bag, under a couple feet of water, and pull out the line. After tossing the end to shore, I tied the other end to whatever I could reach underwater, and returned to shore. We set up a second Z-drag and hauled away as hard as we could, again taking up only a few inches of line. After tying it off, we returned to the first one, and again were only able to gain a couple inches.
The next couple hours went by quickly—the boat stayed firmly plastered around the tree, and although we slowly gained a little with each pull, nothing seemed to be changing. At one point our new-found friend scrambled out to the tree and was able to change the attachment point for one of the lines. As he was doing this, the lid to my cooler popped open and a few things floated away—but he was on it in a flash, got the lid closed again and tied shut.
The sun slid behind the hill across the river, and sunset was approaching, and it looked like we had little to show for all the effort. I was beginning to wonder about how much longer we could afford to fool with this apparently hopeless project before we’d have to give up and look for a place to camp. The other guy had been with us for a couple hours, and no doubt his friends downstream were getting impatient for his return.
Sue said something to him and he replied “I can’t just leave you guys here alone.” We pulled some more. And then, as the sun set, by some miracle the end of the boat we were pulling on suddenly seemed much closer to the surface. Each time we switched from one line to the other, we were able to take up more line until—suddenly—the boat unwrapped itself, slid around the tree, and was floating, upside down in the current, at the end of the haul lines.
Without a word, our unnamed friend ran for his boat downstream, with Sue right behind him. As I untied the lines to set my boat free, I saw a few things float away…a canteen, a couple old river chairs that were almost ready for the trash can…but nothing really important.
It was getting dusky by the time I got to my boat, untangled the mess, and we floated off in search of a camp. The guy who’d helped us had headed off downstream to rejoin his friends, we never had time to get his name or say “Thanks!”
After a mile or so, we found a suitable beach and pulled over for camp. I was mildly hypothermic, and expecting all my clothes, which had been in a bag underwater in a strong current for several hours, would be soaked. To my surprise, the garbage bag I used to line an old, leaky “dry bag” had actually kept the water off my clothes. And as I shed my life jacket, my missing hearing aid—worth about as much as my boat and the rest of its contents together—fell in the sand at my feet!
Although most of what we’d planned for dinner was soaked with river water, or gone altogether, a tin can or two had survived. And thanks to the quick action of our savior in getting the cooler shut again, there were a few beers as well.
Although I’d accumulated more than three decades of worth of various unintended rips, tips, and dips in the river, this was my first wrap. It seems you’re never too old or experienced to screw up; the difference between a good run and disaster can be a moment’s inattention, or a klutzy stroke at an inopportune time.
Over the years, I’ve tried to be helpful to other boaters whenever possible. I’ve been paid back bigtime for all the favors I’ve done, and probably owe a few more just to get even again. All I know about the guy who stopped to help us is that he’s from Montana, and generous and thoughtful to strangers. There’s no way Sue and I, without his help, would have saved that boat. I hope, somehow, he sees this story eventually, and reads these words of appreciation.

Drifter