Mary Kay Allen
November 29, 1956–January 31, 2006

he spirit of Mary Allen, river guide extraordinaire, was dancing with the pictographs in Horseshoe Canyon when her body succumbed to colon cancer on January 31, 2006. Losing Mary is cause for deep sadness to all who knew her, but we also rejoice in a life well lived!
Mary had a great love for the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon that only a fellow guide could understand. The hard work, long days, worries and responsibilities were nothing compared to the joy and contentment she found on the river. She often remarked that it was a privilege to be able to spend so much of her time in such an amazing place. She also considered it a privilege to know and work with the great people in the guiding community.
Mary was a loyal Colorado River and Trail Expeditions (crate) guide for more than twenty years, working mostly as a senior trip leader in the Grand Canyon. She also led many trips on the Tatshenshini and Alsek rivers in Alaska; had numerous trips through Desolation, Cataract, and Westwater; and did her share of Moab and Green River dailies. Her last river trip was down the Grand Canyon in June of 2004. While staging her next trip, Mary fell from the boat trailer and broke her foot. The injury sidelined her for the rest of the season. The cancer diagnosis in November of 2004, and the subsequent year-long chemotherapy regimen, prevented her from running trips in 2005, although she never gave up on the idea of climbing back in the boatman’s box.
A woman of superb class and style, Mary was well read, knowledgeable, curious, and an avid explorer. Her interests ranged from ornithology to botany to archaeology to horse whispering. She was an artist and a photographer and she knew how to tell a good story. She was a rock art scholar who documented many sites that were previously unrecorded. She loved to hike, and after her first round of chemotherapy she couldn’t wait until she was strong enough to start tramping across the landscape again. In recent years, Mary took up horsemanship and took pride in training her horse, Dakota, to play basketball and do other tricks.
Mary’s experience and longevity as a professional river guide was remarkable. She ran paddle rafts, row boats, and motor rigs. She was a great trip leader, not only because of her boating skills, which were exemplary; or her knowledge, which was substantial; or her unquestioned leadership abilities; but because of her genuine affection for people—passengers, crew, and peers. She made everybody feel good. According to her co-workers, she was “fun” and “funny,” and her enthusiasm was contagious. On one occasion, she was running with Walker Mackay as the second boatman. They had decided they wanted to get breakfast over quickly, so they could do a long hike that morning. As they were hurriedly cooking up a storm, Walker looked over at Mary and said, “Mary, you’re on fire.” She laughed and proudly replied, “Yeah, I’m moving pretty fast.” “No, I mean, you are on fire—your shirt is burning!” Mary looked down, and sure enough the corner of her shirt had caught fire when she leaned across the stove. As she smothered the flames, she noted, “Well, I may not be as fast as I thought, but I’m still smoking!”
Upon receiving the cancer diagnosis, Mary never felt self-pity or complained about her fate. Instead, she began an amazing series of adventures, sandwiched between fortnightly courses of chemotherapy. In the last year she has gone hiking, riding, and packing in the Canadian Rockies, Jackson Hole, Capital Reef, Snow Canyon, and Colorado. She took watercolor classes, attended horse training seminars, and was the official family photographer at the weddings of two nieces and a nephew. In a final burst of adventure, she achieved a long-held dream by going to Oaxaca for the Day of the Dead celebrations, and then to the Galapagos Islands with the Mackay family and several of her favorite river passengers. Mary never gave up on life, but when the time came, she accepted death with dignity and grace. May her spirit dance forever in all the special places she knew, but especially in her beloved Grand Canyon.

Vicki Mackay

Fred Burke

red Burke, founder of Arizona River Runners hit the trail for the last time on November 10, 2005. Fred was best known as the owner of Arizona River Runners (arr) and Vermilion Cliffs (vc) though most don’t realize this was only one chapter in an extraordinary life which started in the Kern River Valley of California in 1917. Fred attended a one room schoolhouse for eight years. Impatient for life he ran away from home to become a cowboy up in the Sierras. He learned “the code of the west” where a man’s word is his bond and about ranching, a lifestyle he lived throughout his life.
At age twenty, he moved to Bakersfield, entered the Kern County Rodeo and won the saddle bronc contest. A rodeo cowboy was born! In those rodeo days he was lucky to make $5/day. After a failed rodeo deal in Florida he decided to hitchhike back to California. With no money in his pocket he ended up in an Alabama jail for vagrancy. Those ten days in jail, were an experience that stayed with him the rest of his life. He slowly made his way to Tucson and finally caught a break when a guy picked him up and gave him bus fare to get back to California. In Fred’s words, “That started me off helpin’ people. No matter how far you get down to the bottom of the heap, eveything’s gone to hell, there’s somebody who’ll come along and help you.”
At this point Fred realized that being a cowboy was great but no way to get ahead so he joined the horse cavalry. Now he was making the big money, $20 a month. He got married for the first time and then applied to Officer’s Candidate School. He graduated a “ninety-day-wonder” Second Lieutenant and returned to the Tenth Mountain Division. Fred became a Captain in charge of the 250 mules used to support the division in WWII and fought at Riva Ridge. As part of the Marshall Plan he oversaw as well as transported about 1400 horses and mules to Turkey. He spent time in Korea and three years in Japan before returning to Fort Huachuca in Arizona. When he mustered out he was the last soldier to do so with the M.O.S. of “Mule Packer”.
Before retiring he entered the cattle business. He married Carol his lifetime partner in 1960 and they ran cattle until Fred got the political bug. He was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 1962 from Cochise County. He served as the Chairman of the House Fish and Game Committee and served on the Appropriations, Labor and Livestock and Public Lands Committees. The following term he was defeated politically and had lost his shirt in the cattle business too. He and Carol were broke and ended up at Lees Ferry measuring the water for the usgs. As Fred said, “…we went up there to lick our wounds and stumbled around and found this acorn.” The “acorn” was river running.
Fred’s first river trip was with Hatch in 1966. When he and Carol tried to tell Ted how he could do it better Ted said, “Why don’t you start your own company?” And that is just what they did. With the help of close friends, and some army surplus boats from the Quist brothers Arizona River Runners was born in 1969. Fred was 52. Later they bought Vermilion Cliffs Lodge and headquartered out of there. He and Carol ran it all like a ranch where room and board was part of the deal and everyone was expected to pitch in on the chores like fixing the water line. Those of us fortunate enough to have been part of that history will never forget it. Fred and Carol treated all of us like family and were the first outfitter to provide health insurance for their boatmen.
Fred remained active in issues surrounding the management of the Colorado River, public lands and cattle issues. His livestock experience led to an appointment to the blm’s Wild Horse ans Burro Board. In 2000 Fred was “Most Honored Packer” at the Bishop, California Mule Days Celebration. Fred had an extraordinary life which Lew Steiger chronicled in Fred’s autobiography Pitch ’til You Win. For a copy contact Pam_Whitney@direcway.com. Ride-On and farewell Freddie, we’ll miss you.

Tim & Pam Whitney