ell, of course the first time I ever saw the Canyon was when we swam it. We’d never seen the river or the Canyon before—neither one of us.
Then, I’m a little confused about the chronology, but I think it was later that year—maybe it was the next year—that John and I, with my dog (chuckles) did a rubber raft trip on an old ten-man raft and a beat-up Mercury outboard that somebody gave us to do a little TV thing, which we did, and we took out at Bright Angel, packed the raft and the outboard on a mule—that was prearranged. The dog (chuckles) was lots of fun; he had a blast. The outboard didn’t last the whole trip—in fact we were running behind schedule the last day, and we were in that slow part of the Canyon below Sockdolager, I guess. Is that the last one before Bright Angel? I’m not quite sure.

Grapevine... then Eighty-three Mile and Zoroaster.

Whatever. Just above Bright Angel and nothing was happening, the thing was in eddies. We’d broken both oars (laughter) so John and I jumped over the side and towed the boat in with our swim fins—swam it

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