1995 GTS

   Well, the 1995 Guides Training Seminar is over, and if you weren’t there, you missed a great time. It was our biggest ever, with lots of cool people showing up. No, Barry Goldwater didn’t make it. (But he did make it to Flagstaff before the weather turned his plane back ... maybe next time.) Yes, Bill Beer, Kent Frost, Don Harris, Vaughn Short, Katie Lee, Les Jones, Fred Burke, and Buzz Belknap (to name a few) did make it.

   Lessee... just what did happen? The weather was looking pretty bad, so we asked nicely, with sugar on top, and the folks over at Hatchland said we could use the warehouse for the whole time. That made it a lot easier; we put the kitchen up in the shelter of the big building, and hung out inside when it turned nasty. Which it did continuously. It was cold. It snowed. It rained. It blew. And we had a great time. On Friday afternoon, during the “Current Issues Seminar", Mark Law talked about proposed changes to the `95 cor. Marlene and other health department folks told us about diseases on the river and how to avoid getting them. The Coast Guard told us about their regulations and licensing for guides—you gotta hand it to them for even showing up, with a hundred guides staring them down. Gordy Lind and the folks from Reclamation were there too, to fill us in on the FEIS for Glen Canyon. After dinner we held our Spring gcrg meeting, nominated some possible board members and a VP, and then settled down to watch Don Briggs’ River Runners of the Grand Canyon video. Kegs were tapped and drained, everyone partied, and a roaring good time it was had.

   Saturday kicked off the gts proper. We had a bunch of really good talks by Rob Arnberger and other park service folks and then moved on to Roy Webb and Karen Underhill, Bob Webb, Larry Stevens, Joan Staveley, Sandy Reiff, Helen Fairley, Bob Euler and Paul Martin. After dinner Don Harris narrated his movie of the 1939 Bert Loper trip, and then we heard stories from Kent Frost, Fred and Carol Burke, Buzz Belknap, Lois Jotter Cutter, Les Jones, Harvey Butchart, Loie Belknap Evans... We counted over 200 people that night. Sure looked like it. The place was packed.

   On Sunday, we heard from Dave Wegner, Jack Schmidt (and his million overheads), Don Baars, Ted Melis, Bill Phillips, Kim Crumbo and George Billingsley. Bill Beer narrated We Swam the Grand Canyon , the movie, which was a riot. Katie Lee narrated an old film of a Georgie Glen Canyon trip. After dinner, we hung out to hear stories by John Cross, Sr. incredible songs by Katie Lee and poetry and a slide show of mule packing with Ken Sleight by Vaughn Short. 10:30 p.m. and everyone was still wide awake and listening. Good stuff.

   Monday saw 65 of us head up to float Glen Canyon from the dam to Lees, courtesy of WRA. The weather was gorgeous. Bill Leibfried and Dave Harpman from BuRec talked about the new preferred alternative, Kent Frost told us some jokes and Vaughn Short gave us a poetic alternative to the management of Glen Canyon Dam. It’s a pretty little stretch of river. You should try it some time.

   So there you have it in a nutshell: the 1995 land-based gts. But not quite. There are some people without whom this thing would have been a real nightmare.

   Thanks especially to Ted Hatch, Patty Ellwanger and the folks over at Hatchland, who graciously lent us their warehouse and grounds for talks and camping and kitchen space. Don’t think we broke anything this time. Martha and her energetic and ever-changing team of wizards fired-up some damn good food, and to Late For The Train for donating 5 pounds of the best coffee we ever choked down. We got most of the kitchen equipment from Regan over at OARS/Grand Canyon Dories, and some from AzRA, Expeditions and OU. Thanks, you guys. Thanks also to ARR for the toilets, to the nps for all the AV equipment and to CanX for the rig truck to haul it all around in. Jeri, Hollis and their team stayed glued faithfully to the registration and sales tables. Lew, thanks for masterminding the sound system, Bert and Paul for helping collect gear and set it all up. And thanks to everyone who came to listen, hang out, help out and just be there. It was one hellofa good time.

Christa and Andre